OLD APPLETON APPEALING STOP ON SCENIC DRIVE

Mary Jane Buchheit displays a painting she made of the Old Appleton Bridge and grist mill as they looked before being damaged by floods in the 1980s. Buchheit's business, Mary Jane's Flowers, Gifts and Crafts, is one of several in Appleton that are expecting visits by tourists who are traveling the scenic drive this weekend.

Rene Dellamano, who represents Old Appleton on the Mississippi River Valley Scenic Drive, holds a piece of raku pottery she made in her pottery shop. She expects many visitors this weekend.

Like the 20 or so other small towns that pepper the hillsides along the Mississippi River Valley Scenic Drive, which is in full swing this weekend, Old Appleton is steeped in history and exudes particular charm.

Settled in 1808, the year before Missouri gained statehood, Old Appleton occupies spots of land on the north and south banks of Apple Creek, which cuts a border between Perry and Cape Girardeau counties.

The quaint enclave has a population of about 80, although hundreds of tourists will be visiting the crafts shops and landmarks there Saturday and Sunday.

"We expect a lot of visitors, especially if the weather is nice," said Rene Dellamano, who is the town's representative on the tour, which is in its fifth year. "We expect thousands of people to drive through this weekend."

Dellamano is a potter by trade and hand-thrown pottery -- porcelain, stoneware and raku, wood-fired, gas-fired and pit-fired -- crowd the shelves in her business, Apple Creek Pottery.

Other businesses in town, most of which are a stone's throw from fast-flowing Apple Creek, are also geared up for vivacious visitors. They are Jane's Country Crafts and Local Honey, Gib's Woodshop, Mary Jane's Flowers and Crafts, Lu's Stuffed Animals and Sewing Restaurant.

Interesting landmarks include the old Schnurbusch Store on Main Street. In front of it sits an antique mail buggy that has a small stove inside; the stove was used to keep the mailman warm.

The Silver Dollar Tavern, built in the 1940s and a popular watering hole for decades, before flooding put it out of business in the 1980s, lends an Old West atmosphere to the area.

Nearby the tavern, which sits along Highway 61, reconstruction is underway on the Old Appleton Bridge.

Art Dellamano, husband of Rene Dellamano, says the bridge was built in 1879 and placed on concrete footings near where John Schoultz and John and Alfred McLain built a grist mill and dam in 1824. A flash flood in 1982 knocked the bridge off its foundation and heavily damaged it. Another flood in 1986 washed away most of the three-story mill.

Dellamano says town residents have formed a committee and want to make the bridge and mill area a formal historic site.

"That bridge is the last of its kind," said Dellamano. "It's the only remaining Pratt truss iron bridge in the state that sat on its original foundation.

"We're rebuilding it and we want to put it back on its foundation."

Dellamano said the bridge was about 100 feet long before the floodwater devastated it. When it fell into the creek the trusses were twisted out of shape. His son, who is chairman of the restoration committee, pulled the bridge out of the creek with a tractor.

"The county was going to give it away as scrap metal," said Dellamano, pointing to a 1982 photo of the bridge as it lay immersed in surging floodwater. "But the committee explained the historical value of it and officials gave it to us."

Dellamano said the bridge was the first connection of its kind between Perry and Cape Girardeau counties. Prior to it being built, people crossed Apple Creek by horse and buggy.

The wrecked bridge was dismantled and pieces of it numbered to help in rebuilding it. Restoration began in 1991 but the going has been slow. An engineer volunteers his time but can only work on it about one day a month. Dellamano's son assists the engineer by operating a crane.

Except for three more pieces the main section of the bridge has been rebuilt. The pony trusses -- approach sections -- are at LaSalle Iron Works in St. Louis where they are being straightened at no charge.

When the trusses are shipped back to Old Appleton the sections of the bridge will be reconnected with the original bolts, many of which are being rethreaded.

"To put the bridge on the Historical Register it has to be riveted like it was originally," Dellamano said.

The committee hopes to put the wooden-floored bridge back on its foundation, although concrete will be added to elevate the structure above floodwater stage.

Next to the foundation is the remains of the grist mill's water gate. The gate fed creek water into a "raceway" that led to two steel turbines. Although the upper portion of the mill was lost to floodwater in 1986, the turbines are still there.

Before the terrible floods, the picturesque setting of the old mill and bridge nestled in the quaint 19th century village was featured on a picture postcard.

Rene Dellamano says the scene gained national popularity as a favorite subject for artists, photographers and historians.

"It was often featured in magazines, calendars and other publications," she said. The scene was even made into a jigsaw puzzle sold by the Milton-Bradley Co.

Born in DuQuoin, Ill., Rene Dellamano says she first noticed the beauty of the old mill and bridge when, as a child, she and her family would drive through the area, crossing the Mississippi by ferry.

A resident of Old Appleton since the late 1970s, Dellamano bought the grist mill before the flood devastated it. Her idea was to restore it to working order and turn it into a tourist attraction.

"I wanted to fill it with crafts people and make the area something like Silver Dollar City," she said.

Dellamano's pottery business is in the old wagon house of the mill. The remains of a brewery are nearby. Old Appleton was once home to a distillery, a hotel, a tannery, a blacksmith shop and a school.

Visitors taking the Mississippi River Valley Scenic Drive this weekend will find Old Appleton on Highway 61 between Fruitland and Uniontown.