Congressman Dewey Short and unidentified colleagues looking at potential White River dam site in 1941.
On the back of this Townsend Godsey photograph is written, “Table Rock Dam site 9-14-41”
On the back of this Townsend Godsey photograph is written, “Table Rock Dam site 9-14-41”
Dewey appears to be pointing out the location where the long-delayed dam would be built. Only a month earlier President Franklin Roosevelt had signed the Flood Control Act of 1941, which authorized civil engineering projects such as dams, levees, dikes, and other flood control measures and which included both Table Rock and Bull Shoals dam projects. Headline of the October 11, 1952 Kansas City Times announced: “Start A Big Dam Barbecue And Music At Launching of 76-Million-Dollar Reservoir.” Mayor Claude Binkley of Branson remarked he had ‘hurried to the Ozarks twenty-six years ago’ to be here for the construction start.”