Elephant Rock is a picturesque and exciting place that includes historical and geographical stuff. It has rocks formed millions of years back in the unique shape of an elephant.

It is named Elephant Rocks State Park because of the giant rocks and other fascinating geologic formations found here; a well-known one-mile braille trail is also available in this state park.

State Park Elephant

The Elephant rock Missouri is formed with granite around 1.5 billion years old, and substantial bouldery remains in a position just like forming “a train of circus elephants.” These granite boulders are elephant-shaped and are called the stars of Elephant Rocks State Park in southeast Missouri.

Inviting Spots:

Marvel is at the core of the Ozarks. So here you can enjoy the view of giant pink granite boulders the size of elephants! You can also acquire knowledge of the granite mining history of Missouri.

The main activities you can enjoy at Elephant rock, Missouri, are hiking, picnicking, and bird-watching.

Elephant Rocks State Park

The park’s circular interpretative trail, which is around one mile, was the first trail of the state park in Missouri, specially designed for physical and visual handicaps. Visitors named the Braille Trail,

This is because of the signs written in Braille and regular text that guide visitors to see the huge rocks and area of seven acres, over 131 acres. This acreage has been consigned as a Natural Area of Missouri and will be preserved from any further development.

Giant Boulders have created formations that even fascinate geologists; these are well known by history admirers, those who love past quarrying, and intrigue children who enjoy climbing on and between the giant pink granite boulders.

Whenever you’re enjoying the beautiful view of this state park elephant, Make sure to be a little careful of lichens, mosses, and fragile ones while walking and climbing around these boulders.

Lichens consist of algae and fungi, which take many years to grow a half-inch, so be careful. Now you might be wondering how many such elephants are inhabiting the park, but there is no record regarding this matter.

Old elephants rust away, and new elephants await underneath the cracks of the granite hillside. The length of the park’s pink patriarch, Dumbo, is 27 feet, 35 feet long and 17 feet wide, and weighs around 680 tons!

There are several paths available in the park. Some are for handicap-accessible, and others are for those who don’t use wheelchairs or strollers.

One of these spurs is granite gravel (loose rounded fragments of rock), leading towards the ruins of the engine house that repairs the trains that ran from the quarries in that area.

Outside the park, there is a quarry named the Graniteville Quarry; it is the first recorded commercial quarry of the Missouri Department. The other spur is also for the disabled, which leads to a delightful view of the St. Francois Mountains.

While returning, people arrive at a fork in the trail; there’s a wheelchair path on the right side, and on the left is the “Fat Man’s Squeeze,” a narrow gap between two giant granite boulders.

These giant granite boulders are beautifully visible from the Braille Trail. As discussed above, Braille Trail was explicitly designed to accommodate people having visual and physical disabilities.

What else can you do here besides enjoying and acknowledging the view of scattered boulders of granite that formed 1.5 billion years ago? So here is what you need to know – Although Camping is not permitted in this park, you can still enjoy and relax there are around thirty picnic sites.

Picnic tables are dispersed around or amid the trees, and the playground area provides a chance to take a fun tour of the park.

How could we forget about the delicious picnic lunch and a little break to boost our energy to enjoy more?

Diving into The Natural History of This Unusual Park:

Huge pink elephant-shaped granite boulders, a few of them weighing more than 600 tons and are over 20 feet high, are scattered over some acres, just like a vast natural playground. As it entered the earth’s crust, these were formed by the slowly cooling down of molten rock, magma.

After that, the Ozark plateau deforms in the upward direction, which causes stream downcutting and erosion. Later, granite slowly became susceptible and started to slowly ride out across the joints – vertical and horizontal cracks in the boulders. Now, these rocks are still weathering away.

Most of this giant pink granite was excavated during the 1840s. Because of this reason, the neighboring town is named Graniteville.

These giant granites were used to pave stones on St. Louis streets (that are visible from Laclede’s Landing), piers(intermediate support for the adjacent ends of two bridge spans.) of Eads Bridge in St. Louis, and columns found at the mansion of Missouri Governor in Jefferson City.

Thanks to John Stafford for such a noble gift in 1967, retired chief geologist for St. Joseph Lead Co. This fantastic site became a state park in Missouri and was chosen as a natural area because of its magnificent geologic features.

This unique geologic formation at the heart of the park is known as tor, or you can also call it a high isolated rocky peak generally formed by granite that gets disjointed and weathered.

Final Note

These are some unheard details and amazing facts. Don’t forget to plan your next picnic lunch with your friends and family in this fantastic natural area of Missouri. Share your views and experience of this magnificent place in the comments.

Last Updated on October 17, 2023 by ritukhare