Bennett Springs State Park
Bennett Springs State Park, August 9, 2025
Bennett Springs State Park is in both LaClede County and Dallas County. In fact, as you drive through the park, you see county line signs going in and out of each county! We visited here August 10 and camped waking up on August 11, 2025.
Bennett Springs State Park, May 25, 1990
This video was created by my Grandpa and his second wife. Bennett Springs State Park is the first 5.31 minutes of this video.
These photos are from our trip in 2025.
There was a beautiful scene around every bend as I walked along the shoreline.
There were several access bridges to cross the river. In this case, there is a trail to follow on the other side, but we did not walk it, but if we ever go back, I think it would be a nice trail to walk.
There are signs everywhere that only those who are fishing can hang out in the water, but there were plenty of people breaking the rules too.
This is the trail head across the river that we decided not to do this time.
I walked along the riverside and found hidden places to access the water where there were fewer crowds.
This bird was fun to watch! See the video of it above. The best I can tell is that it is a "green heron," and I always thought herons were much larger birds, but the internet seems to say it is some kind of pond heron.
I loved the rocks that were low and near the water. We snuck our feet into the water and goodness was it cold! I could only stand it for a few minutes. It was nice to sit eye level to the water. I could see better how clear the water runs.
I liked observing how the colors of the river changed from one place to another.
There is a pavilion across on the other side of the river at this location, with fun steps down to the water's edge. It would make a great spot for photography of folks posing.
This bridge intrigued me from a distance. There are a lot of people hanging out fishing at this bridge. We later drove to the parking lot near it and saw it first hand.
I loved the spillway circles on the bridge and the sound of it.
Here we are on that same bridge with the water flowing through it. I learned earlier this year that the fish are stunned when they go through spillways of a dam and that this is why the birds like to hang out there to catch their prey. It seems that people like to catch them that way too!
We drove all the way down to this large spillway and parked for another stroll. This is one of the more scenic places in the park. There is a walkway down to the edge to see it close up, but we also walked on the main road which is a little dangerous to see it from the straight on view.
This is the spillway from the waters edge.
These next photos are from the street view.
There are really a lot of places in this park to enjoy! I could spend all day here just meandering and relaxing. Much further up stream we found a lot of beautiful places to escape.
This building was built by the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) in the 1930's and contained various measuring devices to measure the depth of the water as it changed, as well as the volume of water coming from the spring.
This is a photo of the spring which is at the (almost) beginning of the river. We ended up here last, however. The spring water is coming up from the middle near the road.
There is one campsite close to the water, but all the RV type vehicles were camped there and it was crowded. Far up a hill are the other campsites and it was much less crowded and more to our style. We did enjoy staying here and I do like people within a distance of us, but not too close, and this night's stay was just right for us.
I wrote a "little diddy" while in the tent during the soft rain and took a photo out the window to go with the writing.
