8 Top-Rated Small Towns In The Ozarks
The Ozarks' top-rated small towns include the Folk Music Capital of the World and the home of America's most haunted hotel. Mammoth Spring pushes out nine million gallons an hour, the seventh-largest natural spring on the planet. Branson packs about 40 live-show theaters into one three-mile boulevard. Each town earns its rank on a single outsized feature. Here are the eight that stand out most.
Versailles, Missouri
Downtown Versailles centers on the 1884 Morgan County Courthouse. A tree-shaded public square wraps the building. The Hawthorne Inn stands a few steps off the southern corner. Versailles took its French name from the original settlers' descendants, who looked back to France.
Just outside town, Jacob's Cave holds the largest public collection of cave pearls in the country. It is also the largest show cave in the area. Guided tours operate in every season. The grounds cover 240 acres and include a small wildlife area. The Lake of the Ozarks lies about 15 minutes south. Its quieter eastern shoreline draws boaters, paddlers, and anglers.
Van Buren, Arkansas
The 1842 Crawford County Courthouse is long regarded as the oldest active courthouse west of the Mississippi River. It still hears cases on Main Street. A fire gutted the building in 1876. Crews rebuilt it inside the original walls. Van Buren grew up on a bend of the Arkansas River. Its historic district survived several 19th-century fires intact.
The Albert Pike Schoolhouse stands on the courthouse grounds. The one-room log structure dates to the early 1820s and ranks among the oldest standing log buildings in Arkansas. Albert Pike taught here in the early 1830s. He later became a Confederate general and Scottish Rite Mason. He then left for Little Rock to write for the Arkansas Advocate. The 1891 King Opera House, two blocks south, still books live performances in its restored Victorian theater. The Arkansas and Missouri Railroad begins its southern leg in Van Buren. The scenic line climbs north through the Boston Mountains to Springdale and Winslow in the warm months.
Eminence, Missouri
Eminence is the hub of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. Congress created the unit in 1964 to protect a wild river system, the first of its kind. The Current and Jacks Fork Rivers run clear and spring-fed past town. Both hold smallmouth bass and stay paddle-ready year-round. Outfitters along Highway 19 rent canoes, kayaks, and tubes for day floats. Eminence also calls itself the Trail Ride Capital of the World. Local stables guide horseback rides into the surrounding Mark Twain National Forest.
Alley Spring and Mill stands six miles west on Route 106. It is the most photographed site in the park. The 1894 red roller mill marks the edge of a spring that pushes 81 million gallons a day. The water pools turquoise against the limestone bluffs. Blue Spring lies further south. It discharges about 90 million gallons daily and ranks among Missouri's deepest springs.
Eureka Springs, Arkansas
The 1886 Crescent Hotel crowns West Mountain above Eureka Springs. It calls itself America's most haunted hotel. In the 1930s the building served as a fraudulent cancer hospital under con man Norman Baker. More than 40 patients died on the property during his tenure. Nightly ghost tours walk the morgue, the third-floor annex, and Room 218. An Irish stonemason reportedly fell to his death there during construction.
Downtown winds through a limestone hollow below the hotel along Spring and Center Streets. The entire historic district holds a National Register listing. Some sixty natural springs first drew the Victorian spa crowd. Many still surface at named overlooks across town. Thorncrown Chapel stands a few miles east on Highway 62. The late E. Fay Jones designed the glass-and-wood chapel, ranked among the finest American buildings of the 20th century. Beaver Lake and the Kings River both lie within a 20-minute drive for fishing and float trips.
Mammoth Spring, Arkansas
Mammoth Spring discharges about nine million gallons an hour at a steady 58 degrees. The flow makes it the largest spring in Arkansas and the seventh-largest natural spring in the world. The water rises from a vent 80 feet below a ten-acre pool. It becomes the Spring River, a cold-water trout stream that fishes year-round for 10 miles below the spring head. Mammoth Spring State Park covers 62 acres around the pool. The park holds picnic shelters, a playground, walking trails, and the restored 1886 Frisco depot.
The Mammoth Spring National Fish Hatchery stands a short walk from the spring outlet. It opened in 1903 and ranks among the oldest federal hatcheries in the country. The hatchery offers free weekday tours. It raises rainbow trout, striped bass, and walleye for restoration stocking. It also keeps the only captive Gulf Coast striped bass spawning population anywhere. Below the dam, the Spring River is known locally as one of the best beginner-friendly float runs in the Ozarks.
Jasper, Arkansas
The Ozark Café on Court Street has served Jasper since 1909. It remains the town's social hub for breakfast and lunch. Jasper is the seat of Newton County, home to about 540 people. The downtown stretches three blocks along Highway 7.
The Buffalo National River runs a few miles north of town. Congress protected it in 1972 as the country's first federally designated National River. The undammed river winds 135 miles past 500-foot limestone bluffs. The Ponca low-water bridge serves as the standard put-in for the upper-river floats. The Boxley Valley Historic District preserves working farmsteads nearby. An elk herd grazes the valley, reintroduced by the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission in 1981. From the Compton trailhead, a steep hike reaches Hemmed-in Hollow Falls. At 209 feet, it is the tallest waterfall between the Appalachians and the Rockies.
Mountain View, Arkansas
Mountain View holds the title Folk Music Capital of the World. The courthouse square earns it every Saturday night. In the warm months, pickers gather with fiddles, dulcimers, guitars, and washboards. Anyone can join the jam sessions. The tradition predates the Ozark Folk Center State Park, formalized in 1973. It has continued unbroken since.
The Ozark Folk Center stands two miles north of the square. The 80-acre wooded campus preserves more than two dozen craft trades in working demonstration shops. Resident artisans practice blacksmithing, broom-making, pottery, and the dulcimer-building Mountain View made famous. Blanchard Springs Caverns lies 15 miles west on Highway 14. It offers three cave tours through one of the most active wet cave systems in the United States. Rangers lead daily trips in the warm months.
Branson, Missouri
The 76 Country Boulevard Entertainment District in Branson packs about 40 live theaters into a single three-mile stretch. The 2,000-seat Sight & Sound Theatre and the Dolly Parton's Stampede dinner show headline the strip. The Andy Williams Performing Arts Center, the Branson Auditorium, and the Mickey Gilley Theatre hold year-round schedules. Branson Landing lines the waterfront. It puts on a free synchronized fire-and-fountain show daily at the Lake Taneycomo end.
Silver Dollar City covers 100 acres west of town above Table Rock Lake. The 1880s-style park is home to the country's most active steam-train operation. Its headliner, Time Traveler, is the world's tallest, fastest, and steepest spinning roller coaster. A working craft village rounds out the park with glass-blowers, blacksmiths, and woodworkers. Table Rock Lake, the dammed White River, offers 800 miles of shoreline for boating, fishing, and float-trip charters. Dogwood Canyon Nature Park lies 25 minutes south. A 6.5-mile paved trail threads past 14 named waterfalls.
Small Towns, Big Claims
Each of these towns earns its rank by doing one thing better than anywhere nearby. Versailles hides the country's largest collection of cave pearls. Van Buren keeps the oldest working courthouse west of the Mississippi. Eminence holds an 1894 mill beside a turquoise spring. Jasper opens onto the Buffalo's 500-foot bluffs. Pick one for a Saturday, or string a few together.
