My Corner Online
Finley Farms & The Ozark Mill
Finley Farms & The Ozark Mill is located at 802 Finley Farms Lane, Ozark, Christian County, Missouri. This place has long caught my eye because of my great-grandpa, John Finlay. I had noted that one ends in 'ey' and the other 'ay,' but I was still curious whether any Finley's owned this place. As I was mapping the route, I realized that Finley Farms is named because of the river it sits next to, Finley River. Interestingly enough, It is called Finley Creek (not River) and it is named after a John Finley! How about that! From Wikipedia, "Some say Finley Creek was named after John Finley, who accompanied Daniel Boone to Kentucky in 1769. Others contend that the pair did not meet until after Finley had left Kentucky. [5] The creek is also rumored to be named after James Finley, an early hunter." My Great-grandpa John Finlay came to America from Ireland by himself and I remember Grandma saying it was when he was age 16 (although I think it was more possibly 18) which puts him here in the early 1900's. I suppose there is a remote chance the two are related.
This place is large and it is even larger than we thought as I look at the map on the website. We had wondered where the church was located when we saw it on a sign, and now I see it is across the river.
The Workshop is a restaurant that is more casual dining than the Ozark Mill. We ate here because our dogs were allowed on the patio out back. We had to go inside to order and get our food as no one served us, but we did enjoy our food. It was super hot the day we were there though. This place is known for the farm-to-table food.
This is the inside of the Workshop.
I absolutely loved that they had plants in the middle of the tables! Of course we did not sit at these tables so I wondered how it might obscure the view chatting with someone across the table.
Below the patio where we ate was a garden which we walked down to explore just a bit. I could not explore as much as I wanted because of the dogs. From the first photo above, I really enjoyed watching the two ladies harvest flowers as we ate. That is an adorable scene you do not normally see at a restaurant.
We walked down the walkway and in the distance are the other buildings with the Ozark Mill restaurant anchored in the distance.
We wondered what was in the Garrison on the River. I see now online that it is another restaurant that I was not aware of while we were there. Between the buildings there was a sign that said no trespassing. I really want to peek through there at the bridge but we were not able to. We could see a glimpse of lights and a patio set up across the river which seemed to us to be a broken end of a bridge where people could have wedding guests after a wedding. There are images online of a beautiful waterfall over the bridge, but we were not able to get anywhere to see that. It is our guess that they keep it private and special for private parties, but we were not sure.
They had these amazing steel beams which we finally determined must have come off an old bridge that crossed the river. It was very unique to this location.
I really wanted to eat here as the food looks fabulous and upper scale, but we could not because of the dogs. I SO would have eaten here if we were able.
We walked down to the bridge but it was under construction, so we could not get to the other side. We did see folks on the other side canoing in the river.
We sure did enjoy walking around the grounds. It is a fabulous place preserving a piece of history.
