Leroy Whitaker, President of the Benton County Historical Society/Museum, welcomed 28 guests to the meeting room of the Boonslick Library on Thursday, July 11 at 6:30 PM. The evening program was looking back at the building of the Bagnell Dam to create the present day Lake of the Ozarks.
Whitaker introduced Larry and Lisa Peterson, former owners of a Camden County Land and Title Company. Larry’s great-grandfather had founded the company in 1887 and it has always remained in the family until Larry and Lisa sold it to retire in 2019.
The Peterson's had brought several frames photos from the county prior to the Dam being built. Among those was a picture of the old Camden County Courthouse located at Linn Creek. The structure was lost to flood waters when the dam was completed as most of Linn Creek went under the lake.
Local Benton County recorder, Carla Brown, had heard Mr. Peterson present a program on this at another meeting and asked if he could do the program in Benton County. He had large Union Electric plat maps to display that had been in their Title Company since the 1930's.
Included on the maps were locations in Benton County such as Duroc that was a flourishing town until most of it was also inundated by water. The maps also showed Highway 65 that had been constructed in 1927 and also the path taken by the “little railroad” that came from Sedalia daily and made its final run in August, 1946.
Peterson also had a photo of the J.R. Wells Steamboat that had been in operation from Linn Creek to old Bagnell prior to the Dam’s completion. The steamboat landing wasn’t on the Osage but up in Linn Creek. In that era residents could take the steamboat from Linn Creek to Bagnell and then catch the train, if they desired to go to Eldon or on to Jefferson City.
Mr. Peterson cited he had gleaned many facts from three books, Lake of the Ozarks, Before The Dam Waters and Dam Over Troubled Waters.
He concluded, “The building of the dam caused a lot of heartache for some at the time but in the end it provided jobs and a more prosperous life.”
The construction began in August of 1929 and it was completed in 1931. It has 1,320 miles of shoreline located in four counties. Miller, Morgan, Camdenton and Benton, flooding over 20,000 acres and changing life forever in those old Ozark hills.
