Our new project, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Te of Waco, may not seem on the surface to be a logical offshoot of past projects—but in fact it is. Inspiration from our hero, Mark Twain, and finding in each of our river books their own #Lover’sLeap legends and locations pulled us logically to this new subject.
Real photo postcard by George Hall circa 1915. Virgin Bluff was a landmark on the Galena to Branson float. While tame compared to the shoals of the upper reaches of some Ozark rivers, the rapids just before the big bluff were sporty for the James.
Research on the James Fork of the White brought us to #VirginBluff, a spectacular, sheer rock face on the James, that was a landmark on the Galena-to-Branson float. Johnboats floated through a long, deep, fish-filled pool along its face, then the current pulled the boats into the sporty Virgin Shoals.
This bluff came with its own Lover’s Leap legend – or so we were told. Moon Song, the lovely daughter of an Indian chief, threw herself from this imposing cliff when her father threatened to kill the handsome, gold-seeking Spanish soldier she loved. Angry and heartbroken, her father ordered the medicine man to place a curse on the tragic place. Moon Song’s anguished cries can yet be heard on dark nights, some say. Before the lake the shoals below claimed the lives of several floaters.
The Virgin Bluff dam-that-never-was may have been victim to the medicine man’s curse. William Henry Standish envisioned a dam on the river and a tunnel through the hills from the bluff to shoot the pooled water on a 40-foot drop over several miles to hit turbines to spin generators to create electricity for Springfield. This crazy scheme would have dried up 30+ miles of the river.
A November 23, 1958 Springfield News-Leader feature, “The Indian Curse That Killed Dam Project,” by Gerald H. Pipes, is a rare remembrance of Standish’s plan. Pipes did acknowledge the adverse financial climate of the times (just before World War I), but speculated the abandonment of Virgin Bluff dam might have been due to workplace accidents related to the Indian legend:
Today the lonely “cries” of Moon Song may still be heard along the bluffs, but the dangerous shoals will soon be gone, for they will become a part of mammoth Table Rock Lake. The waters will climb over and hide the Indian maiden’s grave and the scars left by the dam-builders. But will they erase the curse placed on the bluff by Moon-Song’s chieftain father? Only time will tell.
James Fork of the White, page 275
Today, the bluff rises above the flat waters of #TableRock Reservoir. A fall from this bluff is still dangerous; the view from its heights has changed considerably. The legend lingers in the name, Virgin Bluff, and a small winery on the bluff once produced several varieties including Moon Song Blush, Virgin Bluff Red, and Virgin Bluff White.
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