Appleton City and Truman Lake

The swinging bridge in Warsaw, MO and the Osage River

Truman Lake and the visitors center

Ellet Hospital and Appleton City Depot

The libary and the Blue Inn


Yummy omelet and the unique menu


June 4, 2009 We headed south to Appleton City, MO. We had read an article in our Co-op newspaper about a restaurant in AC that served home cooked meals at reasonable prices. We enjoy finding new places to eat especially in small towns and we were not disappointed in this one. The Blue Inn is ran by a young family and they do a great job. The quality of the food was super and the variety on the menu made it difficult to make a choice. It was 11 am and sense we hadn't had breakfast we decided that would be our choice. I ordered biscuits and gravy and Paul and Don and Mary ordered omelets. It was so good that we are anxious to go again.

We also were surprised to find that the old downtown district of AC was still being utilized. Most all of the parking spaces were taken outside of the storefronts. It seemed to be a pretty busy little town. After breakfast we did a walk over to the old AC Depot. It was built in 1870 when the MKT (Missouri, Kansas and Texas) railroad came to town. The original library and hotel still stand across the street from the depot.

We then decided we were close enough to Truman lake that we would drive over and go to the Visitors center. The visitors center sits high on a bluff overlooking the dam. It is just beautiful.
Truman lake was built to control flood waters from the Osage River, the Maris de Cygne, the Grand and the Pomme de Terre rivers. Thinking back on the hardships that residents endured in these flatlands boggles the mind. They anticipated floods every June and yet it wasn't until the 1951 floods that hit the big cities in MO that state officials decided it was necessary to build a lake and damn. Truman Lake was completed in 1973. We have spent a lot of time at this lake
over the years and it will always be our favorite.