Revisiting Pammel Park

On the way home from Winterset last Saturday afternoon I told Bud I'd like to drive through Pammel State Park. It had been so many years since I'd been there and my memories of it had grown dim. Even driving to the park entrance felt wrong. I thought it was only a mile or less after turning off 169. We'd get to the tunnel, drive through and be in the park. Wrong. We drove three and a half miles, saw a big brown sign posted on a limestone formation, and entered the park. Where's the tunnel? Where's the ford?

We kept driving and found the ford, which I remembered, of course, from the photo of me crossing it when I was 17.

I even thought about having another picture taken of me in the same place on Saturday.

Until we got there and saw how high the water was. And now there are gates which close to keep you from driving through at such times.

Then we drove through the tunnel and across the bridge over the Middle River, turned around and drove back. Ah, this was the way I remembered entering the park. We entered from the west and in my memories we had entered from the east.

Something which I had no memory of, because it is new (to me), is this stone burr from the old mill once located east of the tunnel which was originally cut through the limestone bluff to channel water to the mill wheel. Later the tunnel was enlarged and cemented to allow cars to pass through.

The mill was constructed and operated by William Harmon and his sons until 1867. It was demolished in 1913. (Per the Madison County Historical Society.)

Revisiting Pammel Park after all these years was a revelation in how dim my memories of it really were. It makes me wonder about the accuracy of some of my other memories.