Lake Taneycomo
The trout fishing capital of the Ozarks!

Lake Taneycomo is a man-made reservoir on the White River, in Taney County, in the Southwest Missouri Ozarks Region. The reservoir is named for the county it lies in. In the early 1900’s, when the Central Ozarks Region first began to modernize and prosper, a civilian group formed to build a power-generating dam on the White River. The group decided to build the dam just upstream from the growing town of Forsyth. Powersite Dam was completed in 1913. Because the dam was not particularly tall and the White River ran between high banks, a long, narrow lake filled behind it extending many miles upstream. The lake is only 50 feet deep at the dam. Branson, Missouri had been created by the White River Line of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1907, and it lay right on the banks of the newly created Lake Taneycomo. The lake’s waters were relatively warm and so it became a very popular fishing, swimming and recreational lake, which it remained for many years. About halfway along the length of the lake a new vacation town grew up, called Rockaway Beach. For years this was a recreation and party town with passenger boats plying back and forth between the railroad terminus in Branson and the hotels and dancehalls in Rockaway Beach. Some boats even had large flat roofs that accommodated a live band to entertain the passengers on the trip. Of course, over the ensuing years, permanent housing and many small businesses grew up in both towns to serve the recreation and retiring crowds. The railroad also built another passenger station and the nucleus of another new town across the lake from Branson. This town was called Hollister and quickly grew into a favored fishing town with a number of individual cabin motels down near the river’s banks. A curious note about these motels is that they were all built up on tall stilts or the high cutoff trunks of existing trees. This was because the White River frequently flooded and anything on the ground of its floodplain was quickly swept away. The nucleus of the town was a bit further uphill and usually remained safe from the river’s floods. Once in a great while both Branson and Hollister had to endure flooding when the White River really went on a rampage. To help put an end to these horrific floods, in 1958 the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed Table Rock Dam some miles up the White from the town of Branson. Then the waters of Taneycomo changed radically. Taneycomo had been a warm, swimming and recreational lake. The clear, icy cold waters from the bottom of the newly created Table Rock Lake poured through the dam’s power turbines and roared out into the head of Lake Taneycomo. Taneycomo was instantly chilled to an average temperature of 48 degrees year around in the upper portion of the lake, and was not a great deal warmer for the rest of its length. This ended the swimming and sport boating on Taneycomo, bringing hard times to Rockaway Beach. However, the Corps had anticipated this happening. In 1957 the Missouri Department of Conservation built a huge fish hatchery on the banks just below Table Rock Dam where they grew fingerling and somewhat larger trout. They used these fish to stock Taneycomo for trout fishing and it soon became known nationwide as a very fine trout fishing lake. The lake now draws thousands of anglers all year around to fish with flies, artificial bait and live bait. The Lake Taneycomo area offers every sort of outdoor recreation, while the town of Branson is famed for its more than 100 indoor live entertainment shows, both day and night. Just up the highway is the nationally famous Silver Dollar City theme park and the equally famed Shepherd of the Hills Farm and Theater with its entertainment and live nightly shows. Table Rock Lake, just above Lake Taneycomo, offers outstanding Bass fishing and every sort of water entertainment imaginable. By: Jim Barrett If you are interested in historical photos and stories about the Ozarks area contact Jim Barrett at RT's Restaurant in Kimberling City.