Fishing at Arnhold’s Mill on the Niangua in the 1920s

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Nov 102019
 

Several kids of the Dalton family pose with their catch on a family vacation at Arnhold’s Mill in 1925. Jim Dalton became mayor of Nevada, Missouri – much later in life of course. (Courtesy of Mary Anderson)

The kids are members of the Dalton clan, but the men holding the string appear to be locals. The large, long-nosed gar is a puzzlement. It’s not a palatable fish.

More Dalton family members with evidence of the abundance of fish in the pre-dam Niangua. Courtesy of Mary Anderson.

German immigrants, George and Dorotha Arnhold, bought Cleman Mill on the Niangua River in Camden County in 1878. Its scenic location, abundant game, good fishing and congenial owners attracted sportsmen from across the state. Arnhold’s Mill became an early sportsmen’s resort.

Such was his popularity when George Arnhold died in 1896, sportsmen commissioned a monument, which was carved in Scotland and delivered to Versailles in 1899. More than 500 people attended the dedication ceremony. The inscription says: “Erected in the memory of Dorotha Arnhold and George Arnhold by many fishermen friends as a tribute to their unlimited generosity.”

Located on the Big Niangua two miles upstream from today’s Niangua bridge, Arnhold’s Mill and the adjacent outbuildings and houses were covered by the waters of Lake of the Ozarks when Bagnell Dam closed.

Mary Anderson, who sent us these photos, remembers: “My Grandma Rusk talked about a fishing camp she went to as a child that she loved, and the heartache she felt when it flooded. … I feel confident she was talking about Arnhold Mill. (These photos) are from 1925. My Grandma was 6 years old in 1925.”

Mary Anderson’s hours spent scanning the boxes of old black-and-white photos added to the extensive genealogy of the Dalton family, prominent in Missouri history. Digital technology provides a significant enhancement to family histories as images such as these can be attach to the written records of family members.

Damming the Osage and all Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

OF DAYS REMEMBERED Quilt – Joe Dice’s Upper Swinging Bridge

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Nov 072019
 

Valorie Fauquier created this pieced and embroidered quilt for the 2015 Benton County Historical Society quilt raffle. Nine local landmarks are commemorated here. Members of the Historical Society sold raffle tickets through the summer and the drawing was held October 31. Mr. and Mrs. Troy Kessner of Independence Missouri won the drawing. They donated it to the Historical Society so everyone could enjoy it. We found it hanging in the Visitor Center, overlooking Truman Dam.

The center block commemorates the “Upper Swinging Bridge,” the last surviving Joe Dice bridge in Benton County. According to the explanatory legend posted nearby, “The Upper Swinging Bridge is the lone survivor of the 31 swinging bridges built in Benton County from 1895-1937. Built in 1904 by the famous local bridge builder Joe Dice, it was rebuilt by Dice after the original bridge was destroyed by a cyclone. It served highway 7 traffic until 1969.” It is now a pedestrian walkway over the Osage River outflow from Truman Dam.

Joseph A. Dice is one of the more interesting characters we discovered in our research for Damming the Osage (see pages 74-76). A self-taught engineer, Dice made his mark and living building swinging bridges across the Osage and its tributaries in what is now the Lake of the Ozarks region. Born in 1866, he built his first “swinger” in 1897 at a ferry crossing of the Osage near where US 65 crosses it today. “The Hackberry Bridge” cost $3,000.

A couple of Dice swingers remain on Aux Glaize Creek near Brumley as well. Driving across them is an adventure as they rattle loudly and sway slightly. From Damming the Osage, page 75:

Some of Dice’s smaller spans cost as little as $1,000. His 1905 Tuscumbia project, perhaps the most difficult, required an 80-foot wooden tower to connect up with a 250-foot cliff across the 600-foot wide Osage. All were constructed from locally obtained materials except the #9 galvanized wire. He worked in the summer and fall when local men were busy with crops, so most of his bridge crews were boys.

Frightened cattle or overloaded trucks broke the decks of some and tornadoes wrecked others, but no Dice bridge ever structurally failed.

Joseph Dice died in 1947 and is buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Warsaw on a high hill overlooking the Osage, with a view of a distant Truman Dam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Damming the Osage and all Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

Postscript to construction of Bagnell Dam

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Oct 242019
 

On our more expansive website, Hypercommon.com, we created a section just for Dams. Research on the two big Osage River dams (Bagnell and Harry S. Truman Dam) led us to considering the role of dams – i.e. huge public works projects that speak to the masses/electorate of the power and progress of the political forces who build them. They prove man’s mastery (for a time perhaps) over nature and the forces of relentlessly moving water. They create jobs (short term) and remodel landscape, to the benefit of some and the great detriment of others.

We pondered another, larger project examining dams worldwide and their relationship to the politics of power and money – as evidenced in the materials left behind, the ephemera of propaganda. To explore this idea after the completion of Damming the Osage, we kept collecting, searching out the souvenirs and show pieces of dams worldwide both built and only proposed.

 

 

 

 

One of our initial finds was this photograph showing Louis Egan, former president of union Electric, heading to federal prison after being sentenced under the corrupt practices act. It would have made it into Damming the Osage if we’d had it when still working on the book.

Click on this link to read the full post: “The Fall of Union Electric’s Louis Egan.”

OF DAYS REMEMBERED Quilt includes Warsaw Missouri’s Lover’s Leap

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Oct 172019
 

Valorie Fauquier created this pieced and embroidered quilt for the 2015 Benton County Historical Society quilt raffle. Nine local landmarks are commemorated here. One block shows the Lover’s Leap on the Osage. Nowadays the leap ends with a splash in the upper reaches of Lake of the Ozarks.

According to the explanatory legend posted near the quilt, “Lover’s Leap remains an unusual rock formation along the Osage River. It can be seen across the river while standing near the south end of Drake Harbor,” which is on the lakeshore below downtown Warsaw.

 

 

 

 

Valorie spent several hundred hours detailing nine of the historical landmarks of Benton County. Members of the Historical Society sold raffle tickets through the summer and the drawing was held October 31. Mr. and Mrs. Troy Kessner of Independence Missouri had the winning ticket. They donated it to the Historical Society so everyone could enjoy it. We found it hanging in the Visitor Center, overlooking Truman Dam.

 

 

 

From our forthcoming book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco:

Just below Warsaw is another Lover’s Leap also with a vague legend. This leap was modest even before Lake of the Ozarks flooded its base. The 1950s postcard (above left) shows the plunge would even be even less than when the Osage River ran underneath. Though lacking a retrievable story, this Lover’s Leap is pictured on postcards from 1909 to the 1950s and is even a block on a quilt illustrating famous local landmarks.

See a flipbook of sample pages at our website: Hypercommon.com

Damming the Osage and all our books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.  Lover’s Leap Legends will be published Spring 2020.

Construction of Bagnell Dam Began Transformation of lower Osage River

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Oct 102019
 

Raines Family at their Rock House. Photo courtesy of Tim Helton.

Construction of Bagnell Dam brought great changes to the Osage River valley: road building, moving towns, graveyards, and people from its banks.

According to Tim Helton, son-in-law of Sally Raines, her father, William Maurice Raines, was “an attorney with a St. Louis firm retained by Union Electric to help secure land rights so they could create Lake of the Ozarks.”

Sally Raines on the porch of the family home. Photo courtesy of Tim Helton.

In Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir, we made the case that Bagnell Dam, which created Lake of the Ozarks, was a complicated scheme by complicated schemers to financially benefit themselves, not the public. It was conceived of in the Roaring Twenties and finished in the early years of the Great Depression. It did finally become a major tourist nexus after World War Two, but it was little used or developed in the 1930s and early ‘40s. There is no denying that its land acquisition and construction phase brought financial benefits to the region.

The family’s old rock house, a classic Ozark adaptation of an Arts & Crafts/Craftsman bungalow-style dwelling faced in rock rubble, is still intact on the Niangua Arm of the Lake.

Tim Helton reports, “It’s amazingly in about the same ‘configuration’ that it was all those years ago.”

Raines family home in the 1920s. The building still exists on the Niangua arm of Lake of the Ozarks. Photo courtesy of Tim Helton.

Personal benefit of the construction of Lake of the Ozarks – Leland’s father, Louis Strader Payton, was employed as a highway engineer to create roads around the new project. The Kentucky engineer met and courted a local schoolteacher, Annie Lewis Daniels. They married in 1939.

Damming the Osage and all Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

BIG FISH IN WARSAW – and we’re not talking paddlefish (for once)!

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Oct 032019
 

 

Research for Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir had us crisscrossing the lake, river and roads that make up the Osage River watershed. One focus of the book was the loss of the spawning grounds of the paddlefish – today’s specimens are direct descendants of a prehistoric, cartilaginous fish and still roaming the waters of the Osage and Missouri river systems. But they’re not the only fish in the rivers and lakes.

One afternoon in our wanderings we came across a giant folk art concrete crappie (above) hanging from a pole in front of a taxidermy shop south of Warsaw. Naturally this concrete creature of immense proportions caught our eye. We included it on a spread with a big paddlefish (page 145, Damming the Osage). That was about 10 years ago.

In late May of this year, we were astonished to see that same monstrous crappie (there can only be one of these!) guy-wired to the back wall of Cody’s Bait & Tackle shop  across the river from downtown Warsaw.

Naturally we pulled in to ask how it crossed the river. We talked with proprietor Cody. He said it was made by the owner of the taxidermy shop where we had originally seen it. Cody purchased it from his widow. We suggested he donate it to the Benton County Historical Society—an idea he rejected. He loves that fish. And who wouldn’t?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Damming the Osage and all Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

“Dam the Dam: Save Our Land”

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Sep 262019
 

On a recent trip to see flood-bloated, monstrous Truman Reservoir, bulging at its gates from this year’s rains, we stopped at Truman Visitor Center. There we found an art exhibit, which included a painting by E. Mike Parker, of a billboard Leland had photographed decades ago. The billboard is long gone, but some memories don’t fade.

The museum is professionally done and recent cadre of Corps staff are pretty enlightened about water resource projects and objective about their controversial aspects, even acknowledging that in today’s world Truman Reservoir would likely not be built.

 

 

Leland was one of the instigators (plaintiffs) of the failed lawsuit to stop construction of Harry S. Truman Dam on the upper Osage River. The sad story of the lawsuit is told in considerable detail—and we must confess with a partisan slant—in Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir. 

At the time (early 1970s) Leland had a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to develop an exhibit entitled Missouri: A Portrait in Light and Sound. For this project, he photographed all regions of the state, including the Osage River basin. Driving the roads of Benton and Henry counties, he saw farms  destined to go under the water, cemeteries that must be moved, and profound changes coming to a stable agricultural life. Not everyone was on board with the Chamber of Commerce.

 

(above and left) Hand-painted roadside billboards near Clinton, 1972.  There were loud assertions that everybody in the Osage valley wanted Truman Dam completed, but anti-dam sentiments were not uncommon, just repressed and underre­ported.. page 221, Damming the Osage

 

From the beginning, the triumphant business community had ignored the feelings of farmers like W. R. Bataschelett whose poignant letter was published in the Clinton Daily Democrat on March 27, 1972:

I would like to know the reaction of Clinton businessmen, including the Democrat, if a government agency would come to them and say, we need your place of business for recreational purposes and we will give you so many dollars and expect you to vacate or we will condemn your property and will have to leave immediately. This is what farmers are told who will lose their homes and farms to Truman Dam. Their farming is a business just the same as Clinton businessmen.

About the cost of said dam that has already been paid out, would not the taxpayers be better by losing completely that 20% spent to date or spending 80% more trying to save the (above and left) already spent 20%? What is more important, a place to water ski, fish and boat or a farmer’s home and land?

 

 

For more interesting life-after-the-dam posts, check out our new website: hypercommon.com

Damming the Osage and all Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

 

 

Ha Ha Tonka: One family’s memories

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Sep 082019
 

This wonderful family photograph, which was sent to us by Tim Helton, shows young Sally Raines with her mother, Gladys Mary (maiden name Wells) Raines near Ha Ha Tonka before it burned. Per Tim Helton, Gladys (Wells) Raines’ father, William Maurice Raines (University of Missouri, Class of 1917), was “an attorney with a St. Louis firm retained by Union Electric to help secure land rights so they could create Lake of the Ozarks.”

“Sally does not remember where this picture was taken – only that they were nice people and put her up on that horse – because she didn’t have anyone to play with!”

Seen in the above Helton/Raines family snapshot from the 1930s, Ha Ha Tonka was built as the second home of the Snyder family of Kansas City. Robert McClure Snyder purchased 2,500 acres in 1904 on which to build his vision of a European stone castle in the Ozarks. He did not live to see it completed, dying in an automobile accident in 1906.

The Snyder Family sued Union Electric when Bagnell Dam created Lake of the Ozarks, which backed up into the spring branch full of introduced trout. The suit bounced in and out of courts for more than a decade. We covered the lawsuit extensively in Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir.

Ha Ha Tonka, now Missouri’s most popular state park, features a great spring, several large caves, and the stabilized ruins of the Snyder’s stone castle. The history of Ha Ha Tonka is indeed one of the more conflicted tales of the Osage basin.

Damming the Osage and all Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

Scorsese, Osage Nation and Killers of the Flower Moon

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Aug 102019
 

Film director Martin Scorsese, left, met with Osage Nation Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear in Oklahoma in July. Scorsese is directing an upcoming adaptation of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” by David Grann, about the 1920s slayings of wealthy Osage tribal members after the discovery of oil on their land. Osage News via AP Cody Hammer

This Associated Press photo of director Martin Scorsese with Osage Nation Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear (who is more than head and shoulders taller than Scorsese) brought to mind the observations of many European and American explorers impressed by the carriage and size of members of the Osage Nation. All agreed: the Osages are tall, with a commanding presence. Our research for our chapter “Wah-Zha-Zhe” in Damming the Osage revealed a number of early observations.

 

(page 41) Left to right: Shon’-ton-ca-be (Black Dog II); Ogese Capton (Augustus Captain), a half-Osage, half French former Confederate who became a successful businessman and tribal leader; Pa-thin-non-pa-zhi (Not Afraid of Pawnees); and Indian trader Joseph Florer, “Johnny Shinkah” as the Osages called him, encouraged the tribe to develop its oil resources.

 

 

Tál-lee, a Warrior of Distinction, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Artist George Catlin believed the Osages “to be the tallest race of men in North America, either red or white skins; there being few indeed of the men at their full growth, who are less than six feet in stature, and very many of them six and a half, and others seven feet.” In 1834, Catlin painted portraits of several Osages including the son of Claremore I and “Tál-lee, a Warrior of Distinction” whom Catlin described as a “handsome and high-minded gentleman of the wild woods and prairies.” Equipped with a lance in his hand, a shield on his arm, and a bow and quiver on his back, Tál-lee presented a “fair specimen of the Osage figure and dress.”

Victor Tixier, whose 1844 book Travels on the Osage Prairies is described by the Oklahoma Historical Society as “detailed and comprehensive as a trained ethnologist’s report, Tixier’s description of Osage life remains an invaluable portrait of the people at that moment in their history.” Among his many observations, the young Frenchman noted: “The men are tall and perfectly proportioned. They have at the same time all the physical qualities which denote skill and strength combined with graceful movements.”

A great military power of 18th and 19th centuries, the Osage were judicious in confrontations. They used military force consistently when it was feasible, against competing tribes, but they were one of the few tribes that didn’t declare war on the US – didn’t pick fights they couldn’t win. Instead, with great diplomatic acumen, Osage leaders negotiated agreements with the government that did reduce their land holdings, but were paid for with cash.

When forced off the Osage Diminished Reserve in southeast Kansas, they bought their own land in Oklahoma. In that transaction, they stipulated maintaining ownership of the mineral rights to their new land. And that land was underlain with oil. In the 1920s, the Osage were among the richest people per capita in the world. Money brings predators and in 1921 the killings, known as the Reign of Terror, the story of Killers of the Flower Moon, began.

Damming the Osage and all Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

 

Mt. Nebo Arkansas Lover’s Leap

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Aug 072019
 

Real photo postcard, “Looking north from Lovers Leap, Mt. Nebo, Ark. GNissom Photo.” Circa 1910.

This card is a little battered card with a corner missing, but it captures a pretty cool image. In the distant background is the Summit Park Hotel opened in 1889 by Captain Joseph Evans and the Mount Nebo Improvement Company. This luxury hotel catered to the upper class, and during the summer season as many as five thousand people lived or vacationed there. The hotel burned down in 1919.

One trail through Queen Wilhelmina State Park in Mena, Arkansas now bears the name Lover’s Leap Trail. We found little about the legend from which it got its name, so we contacted the park. Jackie Rupp, the park interpreter, provided this tale, with the following caveat: “I have no idea how old that story is or how accurate. I have no clue about the source of this story. It could have come from someone who used to work here who made it up and passed it along to other people who worked here. It could have come from a resident who lives on Mount Nebo. It could have been written down, and I just haven’t found it. I haven’t found any newspaper articles about a woman who committed suicide up here. I haven’t found anywhere where this particular story is written down. It may or may not be a good idea to include that story in your book.”

The Lover’s Leap tale she often recounts on walking tours of the park tells the story of a woman who worked at the hotel and fell in love with a wealthy man staying there. “One night, he told her to meet him at Fern Lake, a pond below Lover’s Leap. The woman stole off to Fern Lake to meet him but when she got there, she saw him with another woman. She was so distraught she climbed to Lover’s Leap and jumped off, killing herself. “

Mt. Nebo in Polk County, Arkansas, is technically in the Ouachita Mountains, not the Ozarks, but they share some geomorphic and cultural history. One of the highest peaks in Arkansas and now a state park, Mt. Nebo is a popular recreational area.

See sample pages from the forthcoming book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco, on our website: beautifulozarks.com.

Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. Their most recent book, James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River is a finalist in Regional Non-fiction in the 2019 Indie Book Awards. Lens & Pen Press’s earlier river book, Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir, was awarded a silver medal by the Independent Publishers’ Book Awards in 2013.

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