Lindenwood University takes control of The Daniel Boone Home and Boonesfield Village

The arrangement will expand educational opportunities for students and speed up work on the historic 261-acre property, officials said.

Much of this article is from Susan C. Thomson of the St. Louis Post -Dispatch,

Saturday, April 4, 1998

Lindenwood President Dennis Spellmann said the university would maintain and develop the home and village as a tourist attraction and set up a National Center for the Study of American Culture and Values there. Lindenwood students would live in the village while studying such subjects as the Vision of America, American artisanship, historic preservation and restoration, pioneer women, American traditions in music, history, historical drama, community and genealogy.The home and village also will offer students internships in various other Lindenwood majors such as accounting and education.

Over the next year, the university will invest $500,000 in parking lots, deferred maintenance and reconstruction at the Boone site, SpeIlmann said. Within two years, Lindenwood plans to build housing for 150 students there. He said the university had some of the money for the improvements on hand and was counting on 'community support' for the rest.

Boone's four-story Georgian home, begun in 1803 and completed in 1810, is the village's centerpiece. The site also features about a dozen other period buildings, including houses, a school and a chapel. All are furnished in the style of the period. Several more early 19th-century buildings await reconstruction.

Randall Andrae will stay on as the property's unpaid executive director. He bought the historical site in 1960 from a Boone descendant and in 1991, transferred it to a not-for-profit corporation with the goal of promoting it as an educational foundation.

John Powel Walsh, president of the former Boone board and now a member of Lindenwood's board, said the home began looking for a partner more than a year ago and had been in discussions with Lindenwood for a year.

The Boone complex opened for the current season March 1. The university will stage an official celebration of the merger there at 2 p.m. April 25 with historic re-enactments and demonstrations of historic crafts and trades.