Traveling to the Sedalia Fair

My wife and I made a trip from Joplin to the Missouri State Fair at Sedalia over the weekend, and, taking the shortest route (via Eldorado Springs) we passed through some interesting small towns along the way. Of course, small towns are my favorite kind, especially small towns of the Ozarks.
At Eldorado Springs, we took Highway 82 to Osceola, and along the way we passed through such wide places in the road as Roscoe, which is near the spot where the Younger brothers had their infamous shootout with Pinkerton agents in the spring of 1874. From Osceola, we followed 82 until we came to Highway 83, and we then took 83 into Warsaw, where we picked up Highway 65 for the rest of the trip to Sedalia. Neither Highway 82 nor Highway 83 is what one would call a good road. Both roads are relatively narrow and have a lot of curves and hills, but it is the shortest route.
Coming home, we took 65 all the way to Preston, where we picked up Highway 54 through Eldorado Springs, and then we got on Highway 71 at Nevada for the rest of the trip back. Not quite as eventful as the trip up, but we still saw some interesting little towns, like Weaubleau and Wheatland, and even came within seven miles of Elkton, the hometown of Sally Rand--the same place that I said in a post a couple of weeks ago that I had never visited. I was tempted to take a side trip to Elkton just to say I'd been there but decided I was in too big of a hurry to get home.
Oh, and we did stop at Collins, where we ate at Smith's Restaurant, home of the famous homemade pies. They were out of my favorite, coconut, though; so I didn't have dessert.
It was somewhat of a hectic trip, since we made the journey up and back in the same day, but still kind of fun, because I always enjoy getting out and seeing the Ozarks, especially parts of it that I don't normally visit on a regular basis.

Eldorado Springs

During the late 1800s, many towns sprang up in the Ozarks and, indeed, all across the country, at the site of mineral springs, which were thought to have curative powers. In our region, these communities were concentrated in northwest Arkansas and in Missouri along the northern rim of the Ozarks. The area around Springfield and east of Springfield, because of a preponderance of pure water, had comparatively few towns founded because of mineral springs.
Probably the most famous town in the Ozarks that was founded at the site of a mineral spring is Eureka Springs, but there were many others, some of which no longer even exist and others of which are now mere wide places in the road.
Another comparatively well-known town that was founded because of its mineral water and that is still a prospering little town today is Eldorado Springs, in Cedar County, Missouri. People were already coming great distances to drink the water at the site of Eldorado Springs for its supposed medicinal value when the Cruce brothers, Nathanial and Waldo, platted the town in July of 1881. By December of the same year, the town had already grown to a population of about 500 people, and by 1896 Eldorado Springs was home to almost 3,000 people.
Most people no longer believe in the curative powers of spring water, but a lot of the towns that sprang up back when most people did believe are still in existence. If you know of a town with the word "springs" on the end of its name, chances are it was probably founded during the spring water craze of the late 1880s.