River Guides at Owen’s Theater – near the end of the era

 Beautiful Ozarks, James Fork of the White, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Oct 052022
 

Jim Owen leans jauntily on the truck (front row, right), with artist Steve Miller and Owen’s float-fishing guides in front of his Hillbilly Theater, 1940.

At the height of the float trip era, Jim Owen and his team gathered for a photo on Owen Company truck, in front of the Owen Hillbilly Theater, Branson venue for early moving pictures. Table Rock Dam would ultimately kill the famed Galena to Branson float, but floating is still alive and well on interior Ozark rivers when this photo was taken.

James Mason Owen was many things – twelve-time mayor of Branson, bank president, car dealer, restaurateur, movie theater owner, dairyman, fishing columnist, breeder of fox hounds, manufacturer of dog food, and publicity genius. Never was he accused of being an Arcadian. Cigar-chomping capitalist and master of mass media that he was, Owen had the good sense to recruit old time river men like Charley Barnes when he launched the Owen Boat Line.

Owen’s roster included many who had pioneered floating the James and White back in the days when city folks detrained at Galena. A jokester himself, Owen encouraged colorful rustic behavior that fulfilled visitors’ expectations of being escorted downstream by a tractable variety of hillbilly.

Today, canoes and kayaks have replaced wooden john boats and lighter, more functional gear has made camp set up easier. These quick and easy floats, unlike the leisurely floats on the White River or on the James from Galena to Branson, don’t require guide services or provide colorful local characters to entertain the visitors. Newer generations don’t know what they’re missing.

In his memoir, Ted Sare, a guide for the Owen Boat Line in the 1940s, praised the colorful entrepreneur:

“There was no better promoter of that than Jim Owen. He was an ex-newspaperman and knew the value of advertising and also knew how to reach the famous and important people, and he did. He had some of the biggest names in the country and a lot of Hollywood movie stars as his clientele. Jim did more than any other one man to put White River and Branson, Missouri on the map.”

Today, the Historic Owen Theatre is the official home of the Branson Regional Arts Council presenting amateur and professional level Broadway musicals and plays year-round.

Photo from James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River, 352 pages with more than 400 color illustrations. Lens & Pen Press is having a half-price sale for all titles. James Fork is now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for $17.50 (half the original price of $35), postage paid.

 

CHARLEY BARNES, famed James River fishing guide, with brothers John and Herbert

 James Fork of the White, Lens & Pen Press  No Responses »
May 122022
 

Robert Page Lincoln profiled Charley Barnes, James River guide and john boat builder, in a long article titled “Floating Down the River” in the March 1948 issue of Fur-Fish-Game magazine.

The caption from the 1948 article reads, “This photo of Charley Barnes and his two brothers, Herbert and John, was taken in 1909 about the time that the Barnes float trip business at Galena, Mo., was at the height of its success. Barnes told Lincoln that the bass shown in this photo are the same average size as those taken now. Reading left to right are Herbert, John, and Charley Barnes.”

Charley later developed a distaste for trophy photos. Fishermen would keep more fish than they could eat to take an impressive picture. All the early river guides were supporters of the conservation movement and fish and game laws as they viewed the protection of natural resources to be in their business interests and encouraged an early form of catch-and-release.

Barnes was born near Mount Vernon in 1878. The family moved to a farm near the James three miles from Galena when he was eight. He and his brothers spent much time fishing this historic river and their catches were such that Barnes conceived of the idea of making boats and taking out fishing parties. At the age of 26, in 1904 Barnes started taking out his first parties.

Though his big city customers may have considered Barnes a “hillbilly” – he not only built the john boats they floated in, but with his brother he also owned the Galena Ford agency.

 

Lens & Pen Press is having a half-price sale for all titles. James Fork of the White, Damming the Osage, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness and other titles– all are now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for half the original price, postage paid.