Old Linn Creek: The County Seat That Drowned

Somewhere beneath the quiet water of Linn Creek cove lies the ghost of an entire town. Old Linn Creek was no wide spot in the road. Established in eighteen forty one, it was the county seat of Camden County, a thriving community with a courthouse, a school, and a cluster of commercial buildings strung along the river.

Then came the dam. When Union Electric began buying and condemning land for the Great Osage River Project, Linn Creek stood squarely in the path of the coming flood. There was no saving it.

As the waters of the Osage began to rise in the early months of nineteen thirty one, residents abandoned their homes and moved to higher ground. Before they left, most of the town was deliberately razed so that floating debris would not menace the new lake. The county seat itself was reborn a few miles away at a brand new planned town called Camdenton.

The old townsite now rests beneath the water of Linn Creek cove. It was not the only community erased. Other nearby settlements were cleared and swallowed as well.

Boaters skim over them every summer without a second thought. But the drowned courthouse town is still down there, a reminder that this playground lake was built on top of somebody else home.