Editors' picks across 8categories — the dock with the deepest channel, the winery with the view, the restaurant with the right wine list, the trail nobody's on at sunrise.
A waterfront bar and grill at the 17.5 mile marker, accessible by land or water — a pool, live music, and a sushi menu alongside the usual bar-and-grill fare.
Visit ↗The marina at Missouri's largest state park, on Public Beach Road — boat rentals ranging from cruising boats to fishing boats and kayaks.
Visit ↗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.
Visit ↗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.
Visit ↗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.
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