CLASSIC OZARK HICKORY BASKETS. Real Photo Postcard, circa 1915

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May 162018
 

Basket-making was a pioneer necessity that became a commodity for early souvenir shops. This selection of handmade baskets of split hickory is not only beautifully made, the composition of the photograph and its technical qualities are excellent.

Ozark crafts had some reinforcement from benevolent institutions and government programs but it was much less and more sporadic than it was for Appalachian craft industries. The crafts business seems to have revolved more around roadside souvenir shops, with some encouragement from School of the Ozarks and later from WPA programs. Silver Dollar City was an early supporter of the original souvenir-shop products and provided an environment where people could see these and other traditional handmade items being made by local craftsmen. Handmade baskets are still produced but they join additional Arts & Crafts technologies like glassblowing, woodcarving and pottery making. An original Ozarks craft centered in Hollister was the making of concrete yard ornaments and flowerpots decorated with drip paint (“Ozark drip pottery”), a process invented by Harold Horine.

James Fork of the White is available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

Hannibal Missouri’s Own Lover’s Leap – Road Trip No.1

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May 132018
 

With Mark Twain’s humorous comments on Lover’s Leaps up and down the Mississippi as inspiration, the destination for our first road trip on this project was his own jumping off place, Hannibal, Missouri.

March 25, 2017 was not an auspicious day to head out on a photographic safari. We left home in a chilly downpour, heading up I-44 before cutting northward diagonally through eastern Missouri to arrive at Hannibal in early afternoon. We took Market Street past closed or about-to-close businesses to downtown, then drove south on Main Street to Bluff Road below Lover’s Leap. Bluff Road parallels the Mississippi River on the flat floodplain where once was a busy railroad yard.

High above, the precipice jutted out toward the river over the slumped talus slopes.

The Midwest has a palette of grays and browns in the first overcast days of spring. This sometimes bleak appearing landscape has its advantages, however. Later in the spring, when the trees leaf out, many details of a vista are hidden until the seasonal cycle moves through and the leaves fall again. An overcast sky provides even light, no harsh shadows or stark contrast – like a great soft box in the sky.

 

We circled around the bluff and took the steep road up to Lover’s Leap, now a city park.  An additional perk comes with this new subject–generally speaking, these sites are located in very scenic if not spectacular natural settings.

 

Hannibal’s Lover’s Leap is notable for the distinct delineation of the strata of rock that compose it, as well as the sentimental story that gave it its name. The 46th Annual Meeting and Field Trip of the Association of Missouri Geologists was held at Hannibal, Missouri September 24-25, 1999. Lover’s Leap was visited and in their bulletin the group’s preference for hard mineralogical facts over softer romantic fables was apparent:

There are several versions of the legend of Lover’s Leap, but the view of the river and valley and exposed rock are the real attractions of Lover’s Leap. The exposure of strata seen from the base of the bluff shows the Devonian System Louisiana Limestone, and the Mississippian System type-section of the Hannibal Shale, the Dolbee Creek Limestone, a local division of the Burlington Limestone. The famous promontory is Burlington Limestone topped with Wisconsin-age loess.

Still overcast and gray, we didn’t anticipate finding other sightseers, but the vista entices visitors in all seasons.

The Hannibal Courier-Post Days Gone By column reprinted what is said to be the original lovers leap story, starting with a disclaimer: “Nearly every cliffed town, along nearly every river has a Lover’s Leap, and the legend behind the name of the high-topped bluff is nearly always the same. Hannibal is no exception.” Hannibal’s tale tells of a beautiful daughter of an Indian chief who loved a handsome warrior of an opposing tribe. Parental consent was not to be had.

James Fork of the White and all our books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. We’ll let you know when Lover’s Leap Legends is published

Thomasville, Missouri – then and now

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May 092018
 

When John Joseph Hogan was looking for land for Irish immigrants in 1857, his second exploratory trip to the Ozarks took him from Shannon County as far west as Thomasville. He noted the “broad alluvial valley” spreading out around the headwaters of the Eleven Point River.

When Hogan and his friend Father Fox rode through tthis valley in 1857, it would have been planted in corn, not pasture grasses as it is today.

Just over a year ago, Thomasville was hit with the massive floods that affected the Irish Wilderness and much of the central Ozarks. Recovery is slow coming to the small town with a long history.  It was laid out in 1846 and named for George Thomas who settled there in 1817. Thomasville is the oldest settlement and first county seat of Oregon County.

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness is available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

Between Gravity and What Cheer – Review of Barry Phipps new book

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Apr 302018
 

Being a photographer who has burned several thousand rolls of film (and who knows how many megapixels) in remote and fading small towns in these center states, Leland ordered Barry Phipps book from amazon.com the day he found it. He wrote this review but amazon wouldn’t post it yet as the publication date is still a couple of weeks away.  He’s sharing his thoughts anyway!

Between Gravity and What Cheer is certainly a quirky name for a book. The images in this photo essay don’t betray that title. Apparently rural Iowa has become one big funky outsider art project. Does photographer Barry Phipps get a phone call when the inhabitants of these burgs have finished an installation of abandoned buildings, leftover signage, architectural details painted orange, the whole ironically juxtaposed? Does he then motor out and snap a picture? You’ve heard of “found art”—this is a collection of “found towns.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that—it’s all very, well, quirky. This obvious collaboration between Iowa villagers and the hip (former) big city photographer regrettably is not  acknowledged. Had the book credited all the small town folks though who have created these surreal tableaus it would have needed a couple of extra signatures.

It’s delightfully upbeat and pretty bold for a university press. I’ll be buying several for Christmas presents. This is a great gift to one’s urban acquaintances who scoff at the postmodern esthetic sensibilities of those of us who live out here in the cultural wasteland of the flat (once) tall grass prairie Middle West.

Between Gravity and What Cheer will be available … or is available now on amazon.com. Try your luck.  We ordered and received our copy, but they wouldn’t let Leland post his review yet as the publication date is May 15.

 

POWERSITE DAM and Lake Taneycomo

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Apr 252018
 

Powersite Dam went into service in 1913 on the White River near Forsyth, Missouri, the first hydroelectric dam in Missouri. Designed in 1911 by Nils F. Ambursen as the largest concrete buttress dam of its kind, the dam is still privately owned by the Empire District Electric Company.

Powersite was hardly a visual embodiment of modernism like the later high dams out West. It more resembled a big milldam. Its forebay was little more than a pool in the White River. As it was a run-of-the river dam, Lake Taneycomo’s shoreline fluctuated very little.

The narrow, twenty mile-long lake it created became regarded as part of nature, indistinguishable from the free-flowing river it replaced. A March 12, 1913 article in the Springfield Republican, “Lake Taneycomo Is Name Bestowed By Branson Club,” compared the lake to the more famous Lake Como in the Alps. The new lake “nestled among the bluffs of the beautiful Ozarks” was part of the White River, “which no more picturesque stream can be found.” The Branson Club created the name from Taney County Missouri.

Until Table Rock’s discharge of frigid water turned it into a trout environment, Taneycomo was popular with swimmers and bass fishermen. Rockaway Beach flourished as a summer resort from the 1920s through the ’50s, until Table Rock drastically changed the lake’s water temperature.

Some local promoters got it in their heads that the price of electricity near the plants would be so low that factories would automatically spring up. A headline in the Springfield Republican (November 18, 1911) proclaimed “Cotton Mills Will Come To White River: Dam Proposition Is to Furnish Power for Big Industries From New England.” None of this happened. Electric rates were not less close to the dam. Cotton production did not swell.

Adapted from James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River

 

James Fork of the White is available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

New book in the works – LOVER’S LEAP LEGENDS: Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco

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Apr 202018
 

We have a new book in the works – Lover’s Leap Legends; Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco. Lover’s Leaps are those dramatic prominences soaring above plains and rivers, impossible not to see, dramatic spots from where you can scan the surrounding landscape. Lover’s Leaps and their attendant legends are scattered across the land.

Inspiration for this more expansive topic comes from our favorite Missouri author and wry observer of humanity – Mark Twain. In Life on the Mississippi he tells of hearing the story of Winona from a fellow passenger on a steamship passing Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, on Lake Pepin (a watery wide spot in the Mississippi River). “…Romantic superstition has invested (Maiden Rock) with a voice; and oft-times as the birch canoe glides near, at twilight, the dusky paddler fancies he hears the soft sweet music of the long-departed Winona, darling of Indian song and story. . . . Perhaps the most celebrated, as well as the most pathetic, of all  the legends of the Mississippi.” (Chapter 59, Legends and Scenery”)

Each of our two most recent ‘river books’ (Damming the Osage and James Fork of the White) had a Lover’s Leap – one at Lake of the Ozarks; the other called Virgin Bluff on the James. We had written their legends in our books and through Twain’s account found more.

Linen postcard, 1940s showing Lover’s Leap, overlooking
the junction of the Niangua River and the Osage River.

 

 

Real photo poscard showing Virgin Bluff on the James River, where the lovely Moon Song leapt to her death in sorrow for her father’s threat against the handsome Spaniard she loved.

 

 

So Leland launched the research as we waited for James Fork of the White to be delivered from the printer. The  legends accumulated. The geographic locations were widespread and beautiful. The souvenirs and ephemera commemorating these locations were colorful, kitschy (in an appealilng way), and numerous. The concept took shape. In addition to collecting the myriad popular culture artifacts that commemorate such attractions, which we we’ve often use as illustrations for our books, we’ve hit the trail to seek out some of the more famous ( or infamous) locations to take contemporary photographs. First stop was Mark Twain’s hometown, Hannibal, Missouri, which has its own Lover’s Leap rising above the Mississippi. More on that in the next post.

Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir (amazon.com) and James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River (amazon.com) are  available at this website , amazon.com and Barnes & Noble in Springfield.

THE SPRING AT REEDS SPRING. Real Photo Postcard, 1940s

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Apr 112018
 

The Stone County Booklet of 1927 describes the small but then-bustling commercial burg of Reeds Spring:  “Lying in a nook among the beautiful hills and around a mammoth spring of clear, cold water, where only a few years ago the cattle were want to loiter, lies one of the best trading points in Stone County.”

With its railroad connections, Reeds Spring was also a center point of the tomato canning industry, which provided employment and much needed cash to that rural economy, with twenty-two canning factories within twelve miles. Highways put Reeds Spring on the route to the Shepherd of the Hills Country and Branson. Signs decorate the spring’s shelter, promoting major tourist caves of the region – Spanish Cave, Fairy Cave (today called Talking Rocks Cavern) and Marvel Cave – are promoted . . .  and don’t miss Mother’s Cafe.  Businesses serving tourists – like souvenir and novelty shops – flourished.

Today the town has been bypassed by major highways, but has attracted artists and creative types. The spring is still a focal point of interest, its sheltering roof and shed now painted a warm brick red.

James Fork of the White is available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

Callaway County’s First Post Office established 1818

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Mar 312018
 

Two centuries ago this month, (yes – 200 years!) the first post office Callaway County (aka The Kingdom of Callaway) opened in Cote Sans Dessein on the north side of the Missouri River, just downstream from its confluence with the Osage.

Left: Osage River joins the Missouri River near Bonnots Mill, on the south  side of the Osage, in Osage County. Bonnots Mill “is a continuation of Dauphin that was founded by French traders a few years after Zebulon Pike passed by (1805).” (p. 290, Damming the Osage.)

To mark the occasion, the post office in Tebbetts, Missouri, which now serves the area once served by the Cote San Dessein post office, will offer a “special anniversary postmark.” This special cancellation will be available at the Tebbetts Post Office through April 26.

Read all about it in the Jefferson City Tribune.

Additional information on the history of the area is available at the Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society.

 

Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman  Reservoir is available at this website, amazon.com and Barnes & Noble in Springfield.

April 7 – Cleaning up the Osage River and the Missouri – Interested?

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Mar 252018
 

Missouri River Relief seeks volunteers for river cleanup

Missouri River Relief is asking for volunteers to help with a large-scale trash cleanup project on the Osage and Missouri rivers.

Rain or shine, Missouri River Relief and volunteers from around central Missouri will start the April 7 project with an 8:30 a.m. sign-in at Bonnots Mill River Access, south of Jefferson City. By 9 a.m., volunteers will be shuttled by motorboats operated by Missouri River Relief, the Missouri Department of Conservation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to locations along the Osage and Missouri Rivers.

 

 

CHALLENGING KEN WHITE’s article on Paddlefish in the News Leader

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Mar 132018
 

A year ago – almost to the day – Ken White published an article on the opening of the 2017 paddlefish season on the Osage River and its tributaries. A couple of days ago, we found an almost identical article in a couple of regional newspapers, including the Springfield News-Leader. Last year, we wrote to Mr. White, noting the absence of any reference to the artificial breeding program for paddlefish at Blind Pony hatchery run by the Department of Conservation. Made necessary by the destruction of this ancient fish’s primary spawning beds when Truman Dam closed, the fish now trapped in lakes or swimming the upper or lower reaches of the Osage are hatchery spawn, and paddlefish snagging season is an outgrowth of the put-and-take program, fundamentally no different than hatchery trout with the same potential for disastrous genetic outcome.

Repeatedly, Mr. White refers to their “spawning run . ..  when the fish are concentrated in their spawning grounds.” Then he speaks of their “spawning rituals.”  Mr. White, please verify with an ichthyologist or limnologist that they are in fact successfully spawning in Missouri rivers. And he ends the piece with snaggers “ready to hook a fish that has survived for centuries.” As the paddlefish no longer successfully reproduces, they will “survive for centuries” only if the expensive artifical spawning program of the Conservation Department survives future budget cuts and the genetics don’t degenerate with reproducing a limited gene pool.

Right: Paddlefish legally snagged on the James River arm of Table Rock Lake near Cape Fair. 

“Paddlefish have been lost from four states and Canada, and eleven of twenty two states within the remaining species range now list the paddlefish as endangered, threatened, or a species of special concern. Restoration of paddlefish populations is a shared goal of many state and federal agencies.” (USGS)

Below: Map from USGS paddlefish study showing the diminishing range of the paddlefish

 

If journalists like Mr. White continue to ignore the scientific realities of conservation of species, how will the public be able to make informed choices when such issues are presented in the public forum? Truman Dam is the source of the paddlefish’s dilemma. Had the public realized the consequences of this monstrously unwise project, the lawsuit might have had a different outcome. At the time, the Conservation Department repressed the findings of their fisheries biologists because one of the commissioners was an avid supporter of the project. Ignorance continues, abetted by Mr. White.

Last year, we even offered to send him a copy of our book, Damming the Osage. Mr. White did not reply. So this year, we won’t email him our suggestions. We’ll just share our thoughts with you.

March 11, 2017:
Your article was informative about the paddlefish and included some local color and good pictures. However, there was no mention of the sad fact that snagging is a put and take fishery. The “spawning run” is a swim up the river to futility. Paddlefish snagged in the Osage above Bagnell Dam and James River arm of Table Rock are artificially reproduced and raised at the Missouri Department of Conservation’s Blind Pony Hatchery. This is a hugely expensive operation and will, in the long run, produce a genetically unfit creature that resembles the malformed rainbow trout that are the product of generations of aquaculture. Department biologists are well aware of this and it can be overcome somewhat by mixing in genetic material from paddlefish from other regions but that’s a lot of trouble and adds even more expense.
Truman Dam destroyed the only reliable paddlefish spawning environment. Occasionally eggs are produced on the upper Osage and James but there’s no indication they survive and mature.  It’s a very bad situation and if the public doesn’t understand it, the extraordinary measures that may be necessary in the future for the survival of the species may not be undertaken, as funds are research will surely be necessary.
We cover this in a book we published several years ago, Damming the Osage. If you’d like a copy, please email me your mailing address. We have quite a discussion of these issues on our website: www.dammingtheosage.com
It’s a nice piece, but incomplete. Sooner or later there will be more challenges for the paddlefish and only a community of well-informed sportsmen stand between survival and extinction. Truth is they are hanging from a slender thread even with the heroic actions of the Department of Conservation.

Our sons, Strader and Ross, supplied some video of paddlefish in China which we incorporated into a short video on the current dilemma of the paddlefish worldwide. See it on YouTube: https://youtu.be/rmT090b9NT0

Damming the Osage and James Fork of the White are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.
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