Bennett Spring State Park

Bennett Spring pushes more than 100 million gallons of clear, cool water a day into a short spring branch that runs to the Niangua River, and from March 1 through October 31 the branch is stocked with rainbow trout every day. The fishing runs on set hours that change by the month, from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. in June and July. Every angler displays a signed daily trout tag from the park store, and most also need a state fishing permit; those 15 and younger and Missouri residents 65 and older are exempt. The branch is split into three zones: flies only from the spring to the hatchery dam, flies and artificial lures down to the whistle bridge, and soft plastic or natural bait from there to the Niangua. The daily limit is four trout. From the second Friday in November to the second Monday in February it is catch-and-release, Friday through Monday only.

The valley was mill country first. James Brice built a mill in 1846, and his son-in-law Peter Bennett ran the most successful one, so the spring took his name. Farmers waiting for their grain to be ground camped and hunted along the stream. In 1900 the Missouri fish commissioner put 40,000 trout into the spring branch, and in 1924 and 1925 the state bought the spring and the land around it for one of its first parks. In the 1930s the Civilian Conservation Corps built the cabins, a shelter house, roads, trails, the arched bridge across the branch and the rustic dining lodge.