Sam A. Baker State Park is a public recreation area encompassing 5,323 acres (2,154 ha) in the Saint Francois Mountains region of the Missouri Ozarks. The state park offers fishing, canoeing, swimming, camping, and trails for hiking and horseback riding. The visitor and nature center is housed in a historic building that was originally constructed as a stable in 1934.
Dining lodge made of native stone and wood
The St. Francois Mountains in southeast Missouri are a mountain range of Precambrian igneous mountains rising over the Ozark Plateau. This range is one of the oldest exposures of igneous rock in North America.
The name of the range is spelled out as Saint Francois Mountains in official GNIS sources, but it is sometimes misspelled in use as St. Francis Mountains to match the anglicized pronunciation of both the range and St. Francois County.
A view towards the St. Francois range from Knob Lick Mountain, a granite and rhyolite knob on the edge of the range
Boulders in Elephant Rocks State Park are residual boulders of weathered Graniteville Granite, a pluton formed 1.4 billion years ago in the Proterozoic by the cooling of magma.
Granite from this region was used for cobblestones on the St. Louis wharf and in the piers of the Eads Bridge (background).
Taum Sauk Mountain is the highest point in Missouri.
