Boonville Archives - Missourinet

Levee breached in southern Howard County

May 31, 2019 By Ashley Byrd

photo: LG Patterson, 93.9The Eagle

A levee in the southern part of the county breached late Friday morning. Even more road closures and property damage were expected in the Boonville, New Franklin, and Rocheport area.

Hundreds of roads are closed in the state, and it may stay that way for a while. See MoDot’s latest list here. Spur 240 was one of the newer closures as of Friday morning, between Highway 40 and Route BB in Rocheport. Evacuations continue in parts of towns like New Franklin and Brunswick.

Sandbagging efforts continue in Missouri River towns like Rocheport and Hartsburg to fight back the flood.

Read more at 93.9 The Eagle, our Columbia affiliate.

Boonville gets historic rail bridge, state money toward refurbishments

January 8, 2013 By Mike Lear

What has been called one of Missouri’s most endangered historic places has a new owner.

The Katy Bridge includes a 408-foot lift span using technology that is unique to this bridge.

A train hasn’t crossed the 81-year-old Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Bridge over the Missouri River at Boonville since 1986. Since then there has been an effort and even a legal battle to save the bridge. Last night the Boonville City Council voted to take ownership from Union Pacific.

The bridge will become part of the Katy Trail, and Boonville Special Projects Coordinator Kate Fjell says that’s not all.

“We wanted it to be able to be event space or a place where people can watch eagles because we know that eagles roost over there during the season. You can just enjoy the River. It’s the only River crossing along the Katy Trail, so we really feel it has lots of uses beyond just something that people are going to walk or bicycle over.”

The City has also received about $430-thousand dollars in state transportation enhancement funds that will support the first phase of bridge renovations.

Fjell says, “That’s going to build the missing span, which is on the Boonville side, and also will repair and rehabilitate a certain portion of the bridge to the first truss span. After the completion of that people will actually be able to walk out onto the bridge, or a certain portion, and have a River view.”

The following phases will repair and clean the uniquely designed lift span and the rail bed will be converted to the trail, the third phase will refurbish the bridge from the lift span to the Howard County side, and finally the bridge will be reconnected to the Howard County side.

The City plans to keep the lift span operational. Fjell says the project will cost an estimated $3.5 to $4-million dollars.

The bridge was the subject of a legal battle when Union Pacific planned in 2005 to remove portions of it to be used on a bridge over the Osage River. Stimulus funds secured by the state in 2010 are building that bridge and allowed for the Boonville bridge to remain intact.

Chicagoan downs boneless wings in Boonville to win the title

June 25, 2012 By Bill Pollock

Pat Bertoletti, wings winner in Boonville. Photo courtesy of Twitter@eatingcontest

Major League Eating came to Boonville on Saturday night and Chicagoan Pat Bertoletti won his second straight boneless wings eating championship. In 10 minutes, Bertoletti was able to finish off 6.75 pounds of wings, nearly two pounds more than the second place finisher, Jamie McDonald who polished off five pounds.

The total number of wings that Pat ate, equals out to 8,347 calories. To put this into perspective, for a 190 pound guy to burn off that many calories, he would have to walk 4 m.p.h. for 1,127 minutes, which would cover a total of 75 miles in almost 19 hours.

For his $1,500 winning paycheck, he could afford to go to a popular Wings restaurant in Missouri and place 30 orders of their “50 wings platter,” and still have $600 left over.