Historic House in Southern Taney County Destroyed by Fire

One blaze fought by firefighters last week involved a historic building.

According to a Facebook post from the Western Taney County Fire Protection District, crews were dispatched to a building at a remote location south of Kirbyville Thursday afternoon. Due to the remote location of the building, personnel took a defensive position to prevent the fire from spreading to other locations. The fire took several hours to fight the blaze after which personnel from the Missouri Department of Conservation remained on the scene to monitor the building after fire units cleared the scene. No cause of the fire was listed. 

According to several other social media posts, the building destroyed was the Frank Drury House at the Drury-Mincy Conservation Area, a historic house that after having been abandoned, had been converted into a field station for Missouri State University in use for over two decades. According to the MSU Website, the facility was one of two the university operated in the Bull Shoals Lake area and hosted students from MSU plus other students from Arkansas, Kansas, and Missouri for research.