CAMDEN COUNTY, Mo. -- You never know who you'll run into when you hang out at a castle in a place with a funny name.

We're at Ha Ha Tonka State Park at the Lake of the Ozarks when we meet Lucas Long and Emily Edwards. And their Boston terrier, He-Man. All three are Kansas Citians, here for a couple of days of vacation. Long is in a band. And the name of his band is ... Ha Ha Tonka.

Absolutely true.

The indie rock band was, until quite recently, known as Amsterband. But when Amsterband signed with a label in Chicago, a name change was suggested. Apparently the "Amster" field is crowded. Because three of the four bandmates are from the Ozarks (West Plains, Mo.), they were familiar with the ha-ha park. So they co-opted the name for their own purposes.

Ha Ha Tonka State Park, near Camdenton, includes 3,763 acres of natural beauty - and a Scottish-style castle. We're talking three floors and some three dozen rooms, including 16 bedrooms and six baths. Built in the early 20th century by a Kansas City businessman, the mansion and nearby stables went up in flames in the 1940s. But the castle's sandstone walls were built to last, and they have. The ruins are the park's chief attraction.

Long, 27, eyes the castle's interior through an arched opening. "The basement looks like it would've been sweet," he says. "It's massive - way bigger than I thought it would be."

Edwards, 25, figured the place wouldn't live up to its billing. But "it really is a castle," she says.

Well, the shell of a castle: exterior walls, some interior ones, even fireplaces. And a grass floor. Nearby, parts of the stable walls still stand. And, about 1,000 feet away, an old water tower.

"You can just see life going by back then," says Roberta Nolan of St. Joseph, who comes through a few minutes later with her cousin Patricia Harrison and Harrison's grandson, Nathen Taylor.

"It's majestic. The man - he had money, that's all I can say. And taste."

The man was Robert McClure Snyder of Kansas City. Snyder, a fellow of humble roots who made his money in real estate, utilities, banking and other interests, fell in love with Ha Ha Tonka - home to a big spring, a natural bridge, caves, sinkholes, a savanna - on hunting trips. (Ha Ha Tonka, once known as Gunter, was a small community with its own Main Street, schoolhouse and hotel; an old post office in the park dates to the 1880s.)

Snyder bought about 5,400 acres of "our great park at Ha Ha Tonka," as a newspaper called it back then, and immediately started building roads and making other improvements. He also vowed to erect a castle on a bluff above Ha Ha Tonka Spring. His plan: "I will fish and loaf and explore the caves of these hills, with no fear of intrusion."

Work on his mansion, made of native sandstone quarried nearby and hauled to the site by a miniature railway, got under way in 1905. It reportedly took 100 stonemasons, imported from Scotland, a year and a half to build what was then a $300,000 home.

Local laborers, who would return home each evening to cabins with dirt floors, marveled at what they were building. The first floor alone, it's thought, contained not only a grand entrance hall but also east and west parlors, a game room, kitchen, dining room and sun porch.

But Snyder never got to live in his fairy-tale castle. In 1906 the 54-year-old captain of industry died in one of Missouri's first automobile accidents, on Independence Avenue in KC not far from his home.

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