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Sites to See    Fun to Do    Fishing    Boating    Golfing    Lake Dining    Shopping    Shows    Lodging    Request Info    Vacancy Search    Events Calendar    Lake History    Ozarks Facts    Ozarks Seasons    Real Estate    Relocate    Travel Info    Travel Maps LakeLinks.com 4935 Robin's Circle Osage Beach, MO 65065 P: 573-348-2275 F: 573-348-1696 info@lakelinks.com		Oldest Boat on the Lake: By Mike Gillespie    Return to History Home Many boaters talk about which boat is the fastest on the lake, but here' s a category you don't hear much about: Which boat is the oldest? The oldest boat is over 70 years old. In fact, it's been on the lake since before the lake filled. You may have been on this venerable vessel and not even have known it at the time. It's at the dam; it's the floating pier that's used as a dock by the excursion boat Tom Sawyer. The pier is actually a barge. It's painted blue and white, and an upper deck has been added to it. The upper deck houses a restaurant, known as Huckleberry's. In 1929 the barge was towed up the Osage River to the future site of Bagnell Dam. Over the next twenty months it was used as a utility vessel to hold and carry various pieces of construction equipment. As the dam began to take shape, the barge was intentionally left on the upstream side, the future lake side, for whatever purposes it might serve. Indeed, it did have further use once the lake came into being. In the mid-1930s the barge served as an equipment platform during construction of the Niangua and Hurricane Deck bridges. And during World War Two it was used to raise scrap iron and steel left on the lake bottom. Not only is it the oldest vessel on the lake, but it also qualifies as the largest. © 2000 by Michael Gillespie. All rights reserved.

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