Bothwell Lodge: The Lawyer Who Built a Mountain on the Missouri Prairie

John Homer Bothwell settled in Sedalia, Missouri, opened a law office, and spent decades becoming one of the most prominent men in Pettis County. He was active in state politics and in the effort to make Sedalia the permanent home of the Missouri State Fair.

Beginning in eighteen ninety-seven, Bothwell spent three decades building a lodge on a rocky bluff at his Stonyridge Farm, constructing it in four phases using native stone quarried from the property itself. The finished structure covered twelve thousand square feet in an eclectic mix of styles with Craftsman influences. After Bothwell's death the property eventually passed to the state of Missouri, which accepted it in nineteen seventy-four. Visitors can tour the lodge and the bluff today as part of Bothwell Lodge State Historic Site.