Who owns lake of the ozarks

The Strip attracts new visitors on a regular basis, in addition to those who have made it a necessary stop for years. Sandy Sieler, a Nebraska resident, has been a regular visitor since At only one and one-half years old, Sandy began coming with her family and friends. Today, she makes the annual stop with her own children and friends. As a teenager, Sandy would spend time at The Strip with her friends. During that time, fun meant cruising up and down the street at night in their cars.

It was a big event to go there every year. Mike Page, the owner of Leatherman, Dogpatch and Grandmas Candy Kitchen, has been a business owner at the strip since Walter kept adding more shops and attractions, including chicken playing pianos, a snake pit and even a lion for people to view. In , the Dogpatch arcade was added. The Dogpatch is the longest continually-operated store at the Lake.

Parents who first visited the store as a child are now bringing their own children. Mike noted that the area has seen several changes throughout the years. Up until the s, the highway to get to the Lake went through the middle of The Strip. The Lake area initially earned the reputation of being a great honeymoon destination. I think we are going to see more of that. I think we are going to see a big resurgence of activity on The Strip. A visit to the Lake is not complete without a stop and portrait at Old Time Photos.

Don Roelofs and his wife Linda Berchem opened the business in Though built to provide hydroelectric power for customers of Union Electric, the lake quickly became a significant tourist destination for the Midwest. There are more than 70, homes existing along the lake, many of which are vacation homes.

Spectacular scenery characteristic of the Ozarks has also helped to transform the lake into a major resort area. More than 3 million people visit the lake annually. The Lake of the Ozarks is unique in the fact that it is the largest man-made, non-flood control lake in the United States. The lake rarely varies in surface elevation by more than 5 feet, with normal pool elevation of Unlike many flood-control lakes constructed by the Corps of Engineers, most of the shoreline on the Lake of the Ozarks is privately owned, and the relatively stable surface elevation has created ideal conditions for private development within a few feet of the shoreline.

Exact matches only. There were trails. They traveled by foot horse or on a wagon. He was perhaps inspired by a similar project taking shape in southern Missouri, where the construction of a dam on the White River created Lake Taneycomo. That project was completed Street started spending time in the North Central Ozarks, developing parternships with engineers, real estate negotiators and locals as he tried to pull together a plan.

But he didn't have the money to make the idea come to life until That's when he met and partnered up with Walter P. The authors say Cravens had the idea to take foreclosed and bank-owned properties in Missouri and Kansas and trade them with people in the Ozarks whose land would be flooded by the dam. At the same time, Cravens had created, and had shares in, other corporations that would also benefit from the deals, such as the Missouri Hydro-Electric Power Company and the Farmers Fund Inc.

In , Cravens was indicted for missapropriation of land bank funds and later sent to jail. Street ended up taking a job with Union Electric, the St. Louis Company that would later complete the project.

When surveyors and real estate developers from Kansas City and St. Louis started coming to the area talking about hydroelectric power, a dam, and a lake, local people didn't know what to make of it, the authors say. Many didn't believe that the dam would even hold water, or that their land would be affected.

Van Landuyt says some people in the area didn't completely understand the consequences of the deals they were making. While some locals did successfully sell their land and relocate, he says, renters, share tenants and squatters lost the most during relocation.

Many others, however, stood to gain during the Bagnell Dam construction. While the rest of the country was in the middle of the depression, the project brought in jobs and commerce. Between and , Union Electric hired more than 20, people at an average rate of 35 cents an hour; on average, 4, people would be employed at any given time.