MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILROAD POETIC PROMOTION OF OZARK FLOAT TRIPPING

 James Fork of the White  No Responses »
Feb 162023
 

1922 Missouri Pacific booklet, 31 pages, photographically illustrated. This gem rhapsodically describes recreational assets of the upper White River. The artist-illustrated cover depicts the target middle class traveler looking for an idyllic vacation.

Before Jim Owen and later John Morris pitched fishing the Ozarks, the Missouri Pacific railroad lured visitors to “the White River Country in the Missouri Ozarks” with romantic descriptions: “One cannot analyze the perfume of a wild rose, nor may one explain wholly the lure of the White River country—the noblest pleasure ground of the Missouri Ozarks. After you have fished its streams, floated in a canoe through the blue magic of its moonlight, cantered over its trails in the freshness of early morning, and slept, night after night, beneath its stars, you will understand—a little.”

The cover of this 1920s-era brochure depicts an urban couple in a canoe but describes and pictures “the Famous James-White River Float Trip,” which was made in guided wooden johnboats. Sportsmen could float and fish from Galena, down the James to the White, for 125 miles, ending at Branson. The heavy boats were shipped back 21 miles by train to their Galena outfitters. A guide accompanied each boat on the floats and a cook went ahead to pitch the tents and prepare supper. These colorful mountaineers entertained the tourists with legends and folklore.

Later, Jim Owen used trucks to transport his johnboats to the put-in at Galena. His guides still spun campfire tales but were known as hillbillies. Fishermen and women had better tackle and roadbuilding opened access to more rivers. Owen and later Morris both describe an Ozark mystique, but it is less Arcadian than the promotions of the MOPAC railroad.

A Jim Owen Fishing Service mailing piece advertised his guided float trips and new services on the new reservoir, reminding his many fans that “Ole Jim—is still in the Fishin’ Business.”

The MOPAC brochure outlines the services and delights of floating, showing pictures of “Paramount Movie Star, Forrest Tucker,” and advising the guys to “bring the Little Woman” with them.  “She will be very welcome. . . . a lot of women do make these float trips and enjoy them too.” Bass Pro promotes family participation in outdoor sports as well. When Jim Owen began encouraging women to join the float, fishing was almost exclusively an all-male ritual.

 

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.

JOHN MORRIS ON JIM OWEN

 James Fork of the White, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jan 102023
 

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.

TAKE AN AUTUMN FLOAT WITH “SHERIFF WHITE RIVER” JIM OWEN

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Dec 072022
 

A Jim Owen mailing piece by Steve Miller – the go-to commercial artist in the Branson area as its reputation as a tourist destination grew in the post-World War II era prosperity. His deft drawings imparted a lively pop look.

A small mailing piece drawn by Steve Miller for “White River” Jim M. Owen proclaimed, “THE BIG BASS ARE ON THE MOVE and the months of October and November are the two greatest months of the year to take an Ozark Float trip.”

Branson artist Miller’s cartoons of the native fish are silly. Oddly he proclaims, “Spike Channel, alias ‘The Cat’” is a “plug-snatcher.” Rarely are catfish taken on artificial lures, but then cartoonists have a license to distort. Still, it’s a catchy 1950s style graphic and on the flip-side is a bit of descriptive prose, reminiscent of the Arcadianism of the early railroad advertising, but toned down: “Smooth water, fast water, wide stream, narrow stream, rapids, racy riffles, tumultuous torrent, foam-flecked glides, deep holes that fair breathe of big bass . . . all this and more you will find . . . “

Both Owen and later John Morris promotions mixed contemporary media looks with splashes of the Ozarks’ earlier romantic imagery. Overall, Owen’s services were attuned to real sporting needs and featured documentary photographs – Spike the Plug-Snatching Channel Cat excepted. It’s a neat trick to continually update advertising to accommodate evolving public taste without destroying the region’s long-time, old-time image.

 

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.

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.

 

“Staff” of Jim Owen’s Float Service

 Uncategorized  2 Responses »
Jul 112018
 

Owen and his band of guides, raconteurs and artist Steve Miller hang out in front of Owen’s Hillbilly Theater in downtown Branson.

Owen’s roster included many who had pioneered floating the James and White back in the days when city folks detrained at Galena. Few guides worked full time. Some continued to offer their services to Galena operators. The Branson businessman’s aggressive advertising reeled in the most clients and in the twenty-six years he packaged trips he would use almost every river man at one time or another. Jim Owen became an institution, but some of his guides had reputations for their fishing acumen, campfire cooking skills, or country wit. A jokester himself, Owen encouraged colorful rustic behavior that fulfilled visitors’ expectations of being escorted downstream by a tractable variety of hillbilly.

James Fork of the White (p. 235)

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

Women Anglers’ Evening Campfire on Owen’s Famous James River Float Trip

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jun 092018
 

Floating was never an exclusively male sport. Fishing may have been the justification for a five-day, four-night float on the James River, but the evening campfire was its own sensual experience – a time for the universal pleasures of freshly caught fried fish, tall tales, and leisurely conversations.

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