Bagnell Dam

Bagnell Dam was someone else's idea first. A Kansas City developer proposed a hydroelectric dam on the Osage as early as 1912, and Ralph Street raised money and began roads and a railroad for a smaller lake before his funding dried up in the mid-1920s. Union Electric then took the project on with the Boston engineering firm Stone & Webster, and the stock market crashed only months after work began. The design called for 13 floodgates, but only 12 were installed, and the thirteenth opening is walled shut with concrete. A 2017 project added 66 million pounds of concrete.

What the plaque says

Bagnell Dam The historic Osage River, impounded here by Bagnell Dam, flows east and north some 82 miles to join the Missouri. At the river's mouth, the 1804 Lewis and Clark Expedition camped several days and in 1806 Zebulon M. Pike's Southwest Expedition traveled by here on the way to visit the Osage Indian villages near the Kansas border where the river's name changes to Marias des Cygnes. Named for the Osage Indians (the French name for Wazhazhe tribes) the river lies in territory ceded by them, 1808. Passageway for Indian, French trapper, and settler, the river was plied by steamboats before the days of the railroad. Forests in the area were harvested for railroad ties, 1880-1915, and the Osage and Niangua rivers carried them to railroad points. Bagnell, near here, was once a leading tie shipping town. Bagnell Dam, costing over $30,000,000, was built by the Union Electric Co. of Missouri, 1929-31. The Lake of the Ozarks, impounded by the 148 by 2,543 foot dam, is one of the largest man-made lakes in the U. S. It is one to five miles wide by 129 long and has a 1,300-mile, dragon-like shoreline. (See other side) Bagnell Dam (Continued from other side) Bagnell Dam developed as a focal point for resort industry which grew up around the Lake of the Ozarks. Extending some 95 square miles above the dam, the lake lies in northern Ozark counties of Benton, Morgan, and Camden, and reaches east to Miller and west to Henry and St. Clair. Completion of the dam brought new highways and Grand Glaize, Hurricane Deck, and Niangua bridges. Camdenton, laid out 1931, succeeded Linn Creek, abandoned to the rising waters of the lake, as seat of Camden County. A new Linn Creek preserves the name of the old town, an early river port where Joseph W. McClurg, gov. of Mo., 1868-1870, had his "Big Store on the Osage." Among communities and towns in the area are Lake Ozark and Lakeside, and Eldon, Versailles, and Warsaw. Points of interest are Lake of the Ozarks State Park; scenic views on Gravois, Grand Glaize, Osage, and Niangua arms of the lake; mammoth caves; ruins of Hahatonka Castle; and Hahatonka Spring. In the spring area, a notorious band of counterfeiters are said to have operated from their headquarters called the "Bank of Niangua" in the 1830's. Erected by State Historical Society of Missouri and State Highway Commission, 1957

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ozark Caverns (Lake of the Ozarks State Park) — 10 mi
  A guided half-mile walk through a drained Ozark conduit in Lake of the Ozarks State Park, with a shower that falls from solid rock, old claw marks and blind grotto salamanders.
• Ha Ha Tonka State Park — 17 mi
  Collapsed caverns laid open above the Niangua arm of the Lake of the Ozarks: a natural bridge, a sinkhole amphitheater, a spring in a gorge and the burned stone shell of a Kansas City businessman's castle.

More markers nearby

• Miller County — 9.3 mi
• Morgan County — 20 mi