Neosho, Missouri is known for a list of major historical notes. It’s heralded as home of artist Thomas Hart Benton and scientist George Washington Carver and a midwife named Mariah Watkins who is said to link them both. It’s where rocket engines were built in the mid-20th century and where soldiers came through Camp Crowder during World War II.
In the middle of that history and the middle of town is another notable landmark: The Neosho National Fish Hatchery, which was established in 1888. It’s the oldest out of 71 national fish hatcheries operating in 2026 and supplies about 180,000 trout for Lake Taneycomo every year. It also conducts research on freshwater mussels, lake sturgeon and Topeka shiners for restoration efforts.
"We have been doing rainbow trout that entire time," said Jennifer Cutillo, the hatchery’s outreach coordinator. "We are unusual being in the middle of a town. It has become kind of locally known as Trout Park. People have come here since the beginning to walk around, look at the fish, feed the fish, bring their families. It's been a place to come for recreation since the very start."
Cutillo shares that the hatchery oversees more than trout today. Near where we stand is the visitors center, perhaps the only of this vintage design left. It was torn down but later rebuilt in 2010.
It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that the hatchery would end up in Newton County. Old newspapers talk of a search among several Ozarks locations, like Verona and Springfield. There was even some drama — like when folks in Springfield allegedly “opened a sack of lies,” against Neosho, as one paper put it, so big that the federal commissioner skipped visiting it as a potential site.
The Neosho Miner Mechanic paper told the story in 1887. Among other grievances, it said Springfield folks claimed each one of Neosho’s springs was running a sawmill or woolen factory and that the saw dust and sheep ticks would destroy the young fish. Neosho folks weren’t pleased.
And, of course, things worked out in the end. As the Marionville paper put it, “This is as it should be. Neosho, with a bountiful supply of the best spring water on earth, was properly selected by the fish commissioners as the right place for its location in southwest Missouri.”
After it opened, fish were taken from Neosho by rail. They travel by truck nowadays, but even today, the train still trundles next to the hatchery.
"This part of the country has a unique history with the aftermath of the Civil War," Cutillo said. "And so, people were looking for a way to feed the folks who lived here, and putting fish back into the rivers and streams was an excellent source. So, that's part of why it was chosen here. But specifically, right here because Neosho is a city of springs. There are dozens of cold freshwater springs in this area, and cold water is perfect for raising trout. The rail line that's behind us was also here by the 1860s. So it was, you know, connecting the entire country. There was a means of getting these fish out to various places and out to the people.”
In addition to the visitors center, there are a number of other buildings where the work happens today. Ranger Madison Brewer showed me inside one of them: A small building with water filled raceways and tons of teeny tiny trout. It’s where this process begins at the hatchery.
“As soon as they give us those eggs, they start in this building,” Brewer said. “They actually start in that egg incubator back there. And that is going to be pumped into one of the raceways. And from there, we're able to kind of direct the waterfall over that incubator, and they'll be in there for roughly like a week or two because once they've sent us the eggs, they're almost to their hatching season.”
The continuation of this work hasn’t always been assured. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, the hatchery was at risk as national focus shifted to endangered species.
"They were thinking of shutting it down,” Cutillo said. “It wasn't perhaps as viable as they thought. And it was the community that rallied and said, ‘no, we need to keep our hatchery.’ And at that point, it was almost 100 years old. And they said, you know, ‘this is historic. There's a lot more going on here than just trout. We really need to keep this.’ And so, it was their efforts petitioning Congress to keep it open.”
It was saved and today emphasizes research, which includes that work with freshwater mussels. It’s part of the hatchery’s unfolding history of testing and perfecting techniques. And if you’d like to know more, you can visit the Victorian-vibe visitors center or schedule a tour.
“A lot of what is used in fish hatcheries around the world was partially developed here," said Cutillo. "Because that's science. You try something, you write it down. If it works, great, you tell everybody. If it doesn't work, great. You tell everybody, ‘hey, don't do it like this. This didn't work.’ So yeah, that some of that was done right here in Neosho."
Ozarks Scrapbook is made possible by a grant from Missouri Humanities.
