Rolla, MO

Rolla is the county seat of Phelps County in south-central Missouri, best known as the home of Missouri University of Science and Technology. That engineering and research presence gives the city a sharper academic personality than many Ozarks-region towns. Rolla also has early farming and iron-working history, a location along old travel routes, and a regional economy that includes manufacturing and services. It feels like a college-and-courthouse town with practical edges: technical, wooded, hilly, and unmistakably tied to Missouri's interior.