Tingler Prairie preserves a wet prairie and sinkhole pond

Tingler Prairie Conservation Area is a small but very Howell County kind of place. Missouri Department of Conservation says the area was acquired to preserve a 10-acre wet mesic prairie natural community, a shallow marsh, and a five-acre sinkhole pond called Tingler Lake.

That mix is useful local color because it puts prairie, Ozark drainage, and karst features in one public-land stop. MDC also says one-half mile of the South Fork of the Spring River runs through the east side of the area.

For a visitor, hunter, birder, or local family, the official MDC page is the place to check maps, permitted uses, and area rules. For a mover or landowner, Tingler Prairie is a reminder that Howell County’s landscape is more than wooded hills. It also has wet prairie remnants, sinkhole ponds, and spring-branch geography.