It's easy to see why the Lake of the Ozarks is the heart of Central Missouri: with more than 1,150 miles of shoreline, its crystal clear waters lap against more land than the entire California coastline. The Lake of the Ozarks is a man-made lake, and required the famous Missouri tenacity of planners and workers to complete the world?s largest constructed lake of its day.

Before there was a lake, however, there was the Osage River, named after the Osage tribe that lived in the region. Although Native Americans and homesteaders sparsely populated the area throughout the 1800s, the river was necessary to the existence of small communities throughout the area.

In 1912, however, one man looked at the larger picture and pondered how to tame the waters of the Osage to greater benefit. That man was Ralph Street, who spent the next 17 years planning a dam system, sweet-talking financiers and plowing through red tape. Although the project had many stops and starts, by 1929 the construction of Bagnell Dam became a reality through the Union Electric Company.

Street may have gazed at the bigger picture, but even he couldn't have seen the project's importance to the area. Four months after initial construction began, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression took hold of the country. Bagnell Dam gave the local economy a much-needed boost during the lean years of the Depression, and was soon flooded with people from all corners of America looking for work.

Even though 20,500 individuals were hired over a two-year period, many were turned away. More than 4,500 workers labored daily in 12-hour shifts to make the dam a reality. Since most workers had families, the need for suitable education sharply increased; after coping with the tremendous influx of students the best way they could, many small schools came together to create the School of the Osage, one of the region's earliest successful school consolidations.

The dam was finished in 1931, and electricity was turned on Christmas Eve. Street's vision was complete, and the 54,000 acre Lake of the Ozarks not only brought light and power to Central Missouri, but the potential of a whole new industry: tourism.

Today, the Lake of the Ozarks offers hiking, biking, fishing, boating and more amid a spectacular canvas of natural beauty, completely bringing the heart of Central Missouri into the bigger picture of the 21st century.