Your Guide to the Ozarks
Van Buren's own river park at the foot of Main Street: a concrete boat ramp and canoe launch on the Current River, a picnic shelter, and swimming areas on one acre, open 4 AM to 10 PM.
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Every float town needs a front door on its river, and this one-acre park at the south end of Main Street is Van Buren's. The City of Van Buren owns and maintains it. The Missouri Department of Conservation helped build it under a community assistance partnership and still regulates fishing and boating here, and the state's conservation area map is the best guide to what is on the ground: a concrete boat ramp, a canoe launch, a picnic shelter, a privy, and parking, all a short walk from downtown.
It is the lowest-effort way in town to get on the Current River. Launch a boat from the ramp or a canoe from the launch, fish for rock bass, suckers, and black bass, picnic under the shelter, or use the swimming areas the access was built with, then walk back up Main Street for food. Trailered boats use this reach too, so expect motor traffic on the water. And when the Current runs high, the National Park Service closes the river to non-motorized boats, so check the posted river levels before you launch.
Missouri's only cobblestone-covered courthouse, built in 1871 and reclad by the WPA in 1936, stands vacant on its Main Street square in Van Buren, still the town's gathering ground for tree lightings and the Festival of Lights.
The Forest Service's in-town Current River access: a double-lane concrete boat launch, five picnic sites, and concrete stair entries down to a river beach, a half mile from downtown Van Buren.
A half-mile Forest Service loop inside Watercress Recreation Area: past Watercress Spring, up a hillside to Civil War earthworks overlooking the Current River, and by a small cave in a rocky bank.
The Park Service's main campground in the Big Spring area: 123 reservable sites on the Current River, a boat ramp, electric hookups in one loop, and Big Spring itself within walking distance.