This is the forty-fifth article in our series about Ozarks culture and heritage in the counties of Missouri that are part of the Ozarks region. All or parts of 55 counties in Missouri are considered part of the Ozarks. Benton County is located directly south of Pettis County. Benton County was organized in 1835 and named for Thomas Hart Benton, U. S. Senator from Missouri. The county seat is Warsaw.
The first recorded white man in the area arrived in 1719. French traders, hunters and trappers kept a thin line of commerce up and down the Osage River basin. However, by 1830 the river was an artery of immigration. Pioneers were for the most part farmers of Scotch-Irish, German and English descent migrating mostly from Kentucky, Tennessee and the Carolinas. Warsaw was first settled in 1820. From infancy Warsaw was the crossroads of travel and freighting. As early as 1820 a ferry was operated on the Osage River by Lewis Bledsoe, near where Truman Dam sits today. Stagecoaches and wagon trains passed through everyday. The Nicholas Tavern, which was later Newman's Hotel and in more recent days Reser Funeral Home, was used in pre-Civil War days as a daily mail stop by the Butterfield State Pony Express. The first train made the journey between Sedalia and Warsaw on Novermber 20, 1880.
Warsaw sits directly on the Upper Osage Arm of the Lake of the Ozarks. The Warsaw Chamber of Commerce website says: "Don't expect to find the rat race you might find at the Lake of the Ozarks." Harry S. Truman Dam, Reservoir and Visitors Center is noted as a water sports paradise. This tree studded lake is a haven for some of the best fishing in the country. The Visitors Center sits high on Kaysinger Bluff overlooking the dam with a 'breathtaking view' from the huge glass front. Open season is March 1 to October 31.
For golfers, Shawnee Bend Golf Course provides classic Ozark golf on the far Westside of the Lake in Warsaw. Opened in 1985, it is now considered one of the best 9 hole courses in the Midwest with the signature par-three 5th hole one the most scenic in the state of Missouri.
The National Register of Historic Places listings in Benton County, Missouri, includes four sites, two of which are in Cole Camp, one in Fristoe, and one in Warsaw. Cole Camp was the site of skirmish early in the American Civil War, when the local pro-Union Home Guard was attacked by a Missouri State Guard force on June 19, 1861. At this battle of Cole Camp, the Home Guard were defeated with a loss of 35 men killed or wounded.
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