One of Missouri's most intriguing state parks, corraling a jumble of huge granite rocks, appears to some park visitors as a line-up of very docile elephants. Here in Elephant Rocks State Park a pathway winds around the huge collection of St Francois Mountain granite rocks, with a trail leading up through a boulder field and over the top. Dumbo, one of the extra large elephant look-alikes, made up of coarsely crystalline red granite, weighs in at a whopping 680 tons.
   The one mile Braille Trail accommodates those with visual and physical disabilities and passes nearby the old Sheehan Brothers quarry, the park's quarry pond, and rock features called the Bird Baths and The Maze. The trail also leads through Fat Man's Squeeze (inset), a narrow vertical joint fracture in the bedrock.
   Elephant Rocks State Park is located in a part of Missouri's ancient Ozarks landscape known as the St. Francois Mountains. Containing some of the oldest exposed rocks in the state, Dr. John Stafford Brown donated this 120 acre parcel to Missouri in 1966. Brown served as chief geologist for the St. Joseph Lead Company for 30 years. Brown and his team were credited with the discovery of Viburnum Trend or Missouri's Lead Belt, one of the largest deposits of lead in the world.

     Area Map