The route from Pilot Grove to Clifton City runs 12.1 miles through farm fields on a long, straight stretch with gradual downhill grades to the Lamine River. Between mileposts 207 and 208, the elevated railroad bed over Taylor Branch, bordered by oak woodlands, offers exceptional views. At milepost 209.2 is the site of Pleasant Green, founded in 1873 as an MKT depot settlement that prospered as an agricultural shipping point. During the Civil War, Clear Creek was a campsite during a march of Union Gen. Nathaniel Lyon and 2,400 troops. The historic Pleasant Green plantation house is visible at the milepost 210.9 road crossing, and a gravel road there leads one-third of a mile to Highway 135, passing the 1868 Methodist Church on the right. As the route skirts the Lamine River, Sweeney Quarry lies at milepost 212.7, and the river and bottomland forest provide excellent views. One of the few remaining railroad signal lights on the Katy Trail stands at milepost 213.2. Near Clifton City, the crossing of the Lamine at milepost 214.2 uses an old through-truss railroad bridge, while a 1913 vehicle bridge stands just upriver. After the Lamine, the terrain shifts from the more rugged Ozark Border to the flatter, more open Osage Plains, and Clifton began here in 1832 with a mill on the Lamine River.