Ozark County, organized in 1841, briefly bore the name Decatur from 1843 to 1845 and is the only county in the United States named for the nation’s oldest mountainous region, a name derived from the French abbreviation Aux Arcs for Aux Arkansas, referring to Arkansas Indians. Until 1857 it included part of Howell and most of Douglas County, and Gainesville, where court was first held in 1860, replaced old Rockbridge as county seat after the county was reduced in size. Probably named for Gainesville, Georgia, the town was founded on the eve of the Civil War but did not develop until the 1870’s, while during the war guerrilla bands raided the countryside. The county contains parts of Bull Shoals and Norfolk lakes: Lake Norfolk was impounded in 1943 by a dam on the North Fork of the White River in Arkansas and is crossed at Tecumseh by a bridge built in 1925 when North Fork flowed there, and Bull Shoals Lake was formed in 1951 by a White River dam in Arkansas and named for Bull Mountain and river shoals, with the Theodosia bridge built in 1952 over the lake where Little North Fork once ran. Ozark County lies within the 1808 Osage Indian land cession, and other tribes roamed the area into the period of settlement by Southern pioneers in the 1830’s. Bypassed by the railroad building boom after the Civil War, the county grew slowly; its virgin pine forest was cut by the early 1900’s, iron and zinc were mined intermittently, and it became a county of resorts, livestock, and timber production. By the early 1900’s many communities had been founded, including Bakersfield, Dora, Ocie, Romance, Nottinghill, Zanoni, Noble, Brixey, Hammond, Dugginsville, Elijah, Foil, Souder, Longrun, Howards Ridge, Wasola, Almartha, Hardenville, Sycamore, Thornfield, Wilhoit, Udall, Trail, Tecumseh, Pontiac, Isabella, and Theodosia (Lutie). By 1960 Ozark County had 29 post offices, more than any other county in Missouri, and it also includes Aid-Hodgson and Dawt mills in the Bryant Creek valley, Zanoni Mill on Pine Creek, Rockbridge Mill on Spring Creek, Caney Mountain Wildlife Refuge, part of Mark Twain National Forest, and many prehistoric mounds.