St. Louis families would board the trains for summer vacations, weekends, or second family homes along the Meramec River. Clubhouses were built on the banks of the Meramec. Some of those clubhouses stood until the 1990s. The 1992 and 1993 floods destroyed them beyond repair. The remains were removed in order to allow for construction of the Meramec Valley River Basin Levee. The levee had a major flood test in March 2008; it saved Valley Park from a devastating flood. Most of the town also survived major flooding of the Meramec in 2015 and 2017, which forced closings of interstate and state roads in the area, and flooded other small towns. The intersection of Highway 141 and Interstate 44 was flooded and closed from December to January 2016. This area flooded again in 2017, cutting off wide areas of cross-country traffic.