The boat launch with the deepest channel. The trail to the gorge. The farm stand that takes Venmo. The icon you've heard of and the one you haven't.
The marina at Missouri's largest state park, on Public Beach Road — boat rentals ranging from cruising boats to fishing boats and kayaks.
A half-mile stretch of old Highway 54 Business that's been the lake's commercial heart since Bagnell Dam's completion in 1931 — souvenir shops, arcades, go-kart tracks, and mini golf, anchored by the fiberglass Indian and hillbilly statues built in the 1960s as a muffler-shop promotion.
Union Electric (now Ameren) began construction in August 1929 and finished in 1931, employing an average of 4,000 workers a day — over 20,000 total — at the height of the Great Depression. The dam created what was then the largest human-made lake in the United States, with 1,150 miles of shoreline.
Missouri's largest state park, with 85 miles of its own lake shoreline — two swimming beaches with imported sand, three paved boat ramps, 12 trails, and the Ozark Caverns.