Slab Springs Trout Farm was built at Slabtown Spring, which is located on our beautiful property near Licking, Missouri, in the heart of the Ozarks and the Mark Twain National Forest. The spring produces 15,000,000 gallons of pristine water daily. This water is used to feed our trout raceways and hatchery, our 10 acre lake and all of the creeks and ponds on our property eventually feeding the Big Piney River.

 

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History

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The spring's name, Slabtown Spring, was named for a little settlement that developed around 1816 when Sylvester Paddy built a grist mill and blacksmithing shop near the spring. The mill produced "cribs", which were 16' x 16' blocks of wood, which constituted 8,000 board-feet of timber from the pine forests present at that time. These cribs or slabs were floated up the Big Piney River to Saint Louis for sale. This was an immensely profitable industry and consequently a number of other grist mills were built in the southern Missouri area, as well. The town around this one was dubbed Slabtown and the spring Slabtown Spring. 

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Later, Sylvester Paddy's wife passed away and Mr. Paddy left the area with his son, moving to Califormia where he eventually passed away. He was deemed the first to settler to be buried as far west as California.

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From the Houston Herald: 

"Numerous sawmills sprang up along Piney River in the 1820-’50s. The ownership of the mills was constantly changing. Some of the big players were names such as: James Addison Bates; John and Alexander Baldridge; Bell; Bradford; Thomas Cork; David Lynch; John and Archibald McDonald; Samuel Nesbitt; John Ormsby; John Sullens; William Truesdale; and Washington Walton."

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"In 1819, Daniel Morgan Boone jumped into the sawmill business by purchasing Alexander Willard’s share of Archibald McDonald’s mill at the mouth of Little Piney Creek where it emptied into the Gasconade. Then about 1821, Morgan Boone partnered with James Morrison of St. Charles and constructed another mill at the mouth of Boone Creek, where it emptied into the Big Piney."

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There are ruins from the small settlement known as Slabtown still in existence in the national forest as well as on our property, a reminder of the rich history of the area. 

 

Prior to the creation of our 10-acre lake, fed from water issuing out of the natural spring, the land the lake is on was originally where the timber was piled waiting to be made into cribs and floated up the river to Saint Louis.  

 

The lake is currently home to big mouth bass, channel catfish, and black crappie among other species of fish.