History
Fire, water, and the shut-ins
Reynolds County lost three courthouses to fire in its first thirty years, and in 2005 a mountaintop reservoir gave way above Johnson’s Shut-Ins. This is the story of a rugged county and the rivers that run through it.
A hard start
Three courthouses lost to fire
Reynolds County had a rough first few decades. During the Civil War, in December 1863, Confederate troops burned the courthouse in Centerville, and the county’s early records with it. A new courthouse went up on the same foundation in the fall of 1867, and it burned too, in late November 1871, taking more records. Then on May 27, 1872, the temporary quarters burned while a “fireproof” courthouse was still being built.
That two-story brick courthouse, finished in 1872 for about $8,000, is the one that still stands, one of the few Missouri courthouses more than a century old. The county around it stayed rural: its population peaked at 10,106 in 1920 and was about 6,100 in 2020, across more than 800 square miles of Ozark hills, much of it now in the Mark Twain National Forest.
Founding and early years
A county carved from four
Reynolds County was organized on February 25, 1845 from parts of Ripley, Wayne, Washington, and Ste. Genevieve counties, and named for former Missouri governor Thomas Reynolds. Its seat is Centerville; Ellington, to the south, grew into its largest town.
The shut-ins
A state park, a power plant, and two floods
Johnson’s Shut-Ins became a state park in 1955 on land assembled by Joseph Desloge. A few years later, Union Electric (now Ameren) built the Taum Sauk pumped-storage power plant on the mountains above it, completed in 1963, with a reservoir on top of Proffit Mountain.
On December 14, 2005, the overfilled reservoir’s wall failed, sending about a billion gallons of water down the mountain in 12 minutes. The flood scoured a path through the forest, and wiped out the park’s campground; the park superintendent and his family, who lived in the park, survived with injuries. Ameren paid a $180 million settlement, $52 million of which rebuilt the park. The shut-ins reopened in 2009, a new campground opened in 2010, and the rebuilt reservoir began generating again that April. Then in July 2026, the Black River hit the highest flow in the park’s history, 60,800 cubic feet per second, closing the park for days and forcing rescues at Lesterville campgrounds.
Keeping the history
See it for yourself
See the 1870s courthouse in Centerville, the one that finally survived, then head north to Johnson’s Shut-Ins and walk the scour trail through the boulders the 2005 flood left behind.
For local history and family research, contact the Reynolds County Library District or the County Clerk in Centerville.
Plan a visit
Johnson’s Shut-Ins State Park
The park’s visitor center and the Black River Center tell the story of the shut-ins, the 2005 flood, and the St. Francois Mountains.
- Location
- 148 Taum Sauk Trail, Middle Brook, MO 63656
- Phone
- (573) 546-2450
- Hours
- Check current hours and closures with the park, especially after the July 2026 flood.
Verify before relying on this. Compiled from Wikipedia, a University of Missouri Extension county history, Missouri State Parks, and KFVS12’s 2026 flood coverage. Dates and figures vary between sources.
