1950s mailing piece for Jim Owen’s famed float fishing enterprise
After the publication of James Fork of the White, we acquired this brochure with the photo of Jim Owen holding up a stringer of bass. It is not dated but it refers to Bull Shoals as “one of the best fishing lakes in the United States.” It also states that Owen can arrange five- or six-day trips on the James River. The four-panel promotion for his float services must have been produced between 1951 (Bull Shoals) and 1958 (Table Rock Dam, which ended long James River float trips). If we’d had it then, we would have noted his enthusiasm for the new reservoir was surprising, given his long opposition to Corps of Engineers projects that turned free flowing rivers into ponds. The cigar chomping float trip king went with the flow – or, in this case, lack of it. “As usual ole’ man Owen is ready to take care of your fishin’ on the new lake.”
Bass Pro founder John Morris recalled Jim Owen’s influence on the evolution of Ozarks outdoor recreation in a 2012 interview with Ed Fillmer, video journalist. “He was a very colorful character. Great promoter of the natural beauty and the Ozarks. The guides – sometimes they would have to paddle hard through eddies, but mainly drifting through the river, there’s not too many rapids. A little bit of hillbilly thrown in there.”
Fillmer commented, “All along, Owen was a conservationist, stressing to his guests, nature’s balance in the forests and rivers of the Ozarks. For example, Owen insisted they keep only enough fish to enjoy in that evening’s fish fry, returning the rest of the catch to the river.”
Morris: “In a way, that ties back in to helping to preserve what we have here, these resources, these rivers and streams and how important it is to take care of our rivers and water.” Modern fishing tournaments, which the Bass Pro CEO once competed in, are catch-and-release.
Bass Pro’s White River Fish House, a floating restaurant on Taneycomo in Branson, “is kind of a salute to Jim Owen,” said Morris. The restaurant displays an historic Owen Boat Line johnboat, with photos and memorabilia.
Like Morris, Owen had many irons in his Ozarks’ campfire. He somehow found time to be Mayor of Branson, bank president, breeder of foxhounds, car dealer, a movie theater operator, restaurateur, and, with Charlie Barnes, a manufacturer of johnboats.
Johnny Morris’s empire has exceeded Jim Owen’s portfolio a thousand-fold, but both entrepreneurs artfully adapted Ozarks traditions to the consumer taste of their era.
Lens & Pen Press is having a half-price sale for all titles. James Fork of the White is now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for $17.50 (half the original price of $35), postage paid. James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River, 352 pages with more than 400 color illustrations, examines the entire watershed of the famed Ozark float stream, a tributary of the White River.
