Paul Holland, “Hillbilly Artist” of Springfield

 Beautiful Ozarks, James Fork of the White, Lens & Pen Press, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Sep 172023
 

These attractive maps promoting rusticated leisure near Springfield were designed by Paul Holland.

Paul Holland was the owner of Holland Engraving Company and a weekend painter active in the Ozarks’ Artists Guild in the 1930s. Holland was a lifelong defender of the Ozarks as a fit subject for art. “Ozarks Treat Artists Better” read the title of a July 25, 1930 Springfield Leader article about Holland’s misadventures going back east to paint that landscape. Not only was he unimpressed by the art he viewed, but he also found the landowners inhospitable:

After a three-week survey of the situation, Paul Holland, “hillbilly artist” and leader in the Ozarks Artists Guild, has returned from a tour through New England and southeastern Canada more convinced than ever that the Ozarks offers to artists “all the advantages and none of the disadvantages” of the east. “‘The natives,’ he said, ‘seem averse to having sketchers on their land, and even the docks, and virtually all homes are posted ‘no trespassing.’”

This painting and five others by Paul Holland, as  well as the maps, from our collection are now with Missouri State Libraries-Ozark Studies Institute. Read more about the collection here

Oil painting by Paul Holland titled “Ozark Village.” View of Branson’s downtown from Presbyterian Hill across Lake Taneycomo.

 

THE JAMES: TRANSFORMATION OF AN OZARK RIVER

 James Fork of the White  No Responses »
May 072023
 

Printed postcard, 1907. The genesis of the square-ended (and, as above, sometimes pointed), flat bottomed boats specifically for commercial floating on the James and White rivers is poorly documented. Many theories have been advanced as to how they were developed and how they came to be called “johnboats.”

We chose to profile the James River in a 352-page all color book because its watershed contains the largest town in the Ozarks, several impoundments, and the region’s most famous and oldest tourist destination: The Shepherd of the Hills Country now known as Branson.

Each phase of development has in varying degrees impacted the next. The resulting culture is a product of art, literature, technology, commerce, national trends, and politics, intersecting with each other and the region’s own natural resources. It’s a compelling and complicated tale. The messages are applicable to the entire Ozarks and even beyond. Perhaps the most intriguing transformation is the change from free-flowing river to reservoirs.

Today, suburban Springfieldians in canoes floating the James often take out at Galena where the river becomes a lake. In the pre-Table Rock Dam 1930s, outfitters like the Galena Boat Co. provided boats for 75¢ per day, tents 75¢, folding chairs 10¢, and guides $3.00, for a downstream adventure that attracted sportsmen and sportswomen from across the nation. Their brochure advertised: “The trip from Galena to Branson may be made in five days if but few stops are made, but it would be more enjoyable to allow a week if possible – floating leisurely along on clear, cool waters that rush through small necks, gush over rocky shoals, and simmer into large, gleaming, lazy pools. “

Table Rock Lake favored largemouth bass over smallmouth and motorboats replaced poled johnboats. Because of the new reservoir’s proximity to an established tourist attraction, and its deep, clear waters, it became the most visited of the Corps of Engineers White River projects. There is a forgotten history to this impoundment. Shortly after Empire District Electric closed Powersite Dam, they announced they would build a larger dam at Table Rock. Lake Taneycomo became such a tourist draw the business community rejoiced. When the federal government took over building high dams, supporters altered their advocacy of private hydro-power to match the Corps’ flood control justification. James Fork of the White chronicles such environmental changes and how our perceptions of, and interaction with nature adjust to these transformations. The story of this major Ozark stream is an ongoing saga, its ending unwritten.

 

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.

OZARKS TOURISM OF THE 1940S CAPTURED ON CLOTH

 James Fork of the White  No Responses »
Apr 052023
 

Souvenir cotton card table cover designed and printed by Steve Miller, 1940s.

Artist Steve Miller created most of Jim Owen’s advertising. He also designed the logo for an Owen dairy milk bottle which is today a pricey collector’s item. Miller was from Kirksville and after teaching in Mexico and Columbia, Missouri, became enamored with the Ozarks, setting up shop in Branson in 1941. Probably the card table sized cloth map, depicting the rustic recreational attractions of the Shepherd of the Hills Country, is from the ‘40s. We’ve found it printed in both red and blue.

Miller’s hillbilly motifs are rendered with the graphic sophistication of a New Yorker cartoonist. More than any artifact in our collection it this textile illustrates the connectivity of the various country attractions of early Branson. The place’s rusticity is artfully depicted. Miller was a fan of days and ways gone by but had a modern design flare. Cartooning gave the old-time attractions a pop culture, post-War look. “Nostalgia Heightens Interest in Ozarks” was the headline of a 1972 Springfield News-Leader article about a speech given by Miller, then the artist-in-residence at the School of the Ozarks.

Miller was mindful of the region’s traditional image. In 1949, he created the giant Nativity scene still used at Christmas on the bluff across Lake Taneycomo from downtown Branson. He joined the staff at the School (now College) of the Ozarks in 1962 where he taught, and curated the Ralph Foster collection of Ozarks artifacts and firearms. His works permeate print media of the region. He died in 1972, survived by wife, a son, and a daughter.

The tablecloth illustration is from See the Ozarks: The Touristic Image, an all color book of advertisements and souvenirs depicting early Ozarks tourism promotions and the image it created for the region. The book provides rich images and a unique aspect of history of Shepherd of the Hills Country, Eureka Springs, the Big Springs Country, Lake of the Ozarks, and more recent developments in this unique region – to answer the question: “What lured generations of travelers to the Ozarks?”

Lens & Pen Press is having a half-price sale for all titles. See the Ozarks: The Touristic Image, is now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for $12.50 (half the original price of $24.95), postage paid. See the Ozarks: The Touristic Image is a  96-page all color, hardbound book.

 

Arcadian Tourism

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Mar 102022
 

Two girls from Iowa on vacation at Lake Taneycomo, 1920s.

Lake Taneycomo is a 22-mile riverine lake stringing upstream on the White River through Taney County from Powersite Dam to Branson and, today, to Table Rock Dam. Powersite Dam, near Forsyth, closed in 1913. At that time, it was the largest dam/reservoir in the country and provided power and light to this remote corner of Missouri. We used this image as an illustration in Damming the Osage. The smaller scale success of Powersite could have been a subject of interest to the two Kansas City financiers who cast their eye on the Osage as a source of power and revenue.

Given Ralph Street’s interest in hydropower, it seems likely he rode the White River Line of the Missouri Pacific Railroad to Hollister to observe Powersite Dam and Lake Taneycomo. Even if he didn’t, there was exten­sive favorable newspaper coverage. Modernity coming to the primitive Shepherd of the Hills Country was a ready-made story. Lake Taneycomo was not much more than a large pool in the river with little fluctuation. Soon cabins, summer camps, and hotels sprang up around the small lake in a region already popular with tourists. Street’s and Cravens‘ plans for the Osage River reservoir always included recreational development, a benefit Union Electric was only marginally interested in.

 

Powersite was the first dam on the storied White River. 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. This image was used as well in Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir. Lens & Pen Press is having a half price sale for all titles. Both James Fork of the White and Damming the Osage are now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for $17.50 each (half the original price of $35), postage paid.

 

Ozark Beach – Anglers on the lawn preparing to fish Lake Taneycomo

 James Fork of the White, See The Ozarks  No Responses »
Aug 072020
 

Real Photo postcard, postmarked July 1, 1918. Real Photo Postcards of this era are often exceedingly detailed and sharp. They are actual photographs produced from a negative taken with a postcard camera, not photomechanical reproductions. The amount of silver on the paper was adequate to produce exquisitely realistic images

Visions of vacations past. Here, three cane-pole nimrods and one fisherman with a rod and reel lounge on the lawn at Ozark Beach. Maybe they’re telling tall tales of the one that got away, or discussing which holes in Lake Taneycomo will offer up the best catch. They seem to be objects of curiosity to a gaggle of tourists. The note on the back from Barbara to Miss Hattie in Kansas City reads in part, “we rode 20 miles from Branson on the boat. We were so tired when we got here. This is a picture of the Hotel we are stopping at … We went fishing last night … Will see you soon.”

Ozark Beach was a very early resort within walking distance to the low dam that created Lake Taneycomo. Recently we’ve seen Missouri’s first hydroelectric project, which closed in 1916, referred to as Ozark Beach Dam. We have no idea why. Its original name was Powersite. Why the change, we don’t know.

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Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. You can see sample pages of our most recent book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco, on our website: hypercommon.com.

Lover’s Leap Legends won the bronze medal in the popular culture division of the 2020 Independent Publishers’ Book Awards, an international competition. This year there were entries from forty-four states, seven Canadian provinces and fifteen other countries.

James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River was a finalist in Regional Non-fiction in the 2019 Indie Book Awards. Lens & Pen Press’s earlier river book, Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir, was awarded a silver medal by the Independent Publishers’ Book Awards in 2013.)

 

Virgin Bluff Dam-That-Never-Was

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Aug 092018
 

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.

While working on our last book, James Fork of the White, we encountered mentions of Virgin Bluff and a crazy scheme to drill a hole through it to connect with the James River miles downstream to generate hydroelectric power. The wild scheme envisioned by William Henry Standish (a.k.a. General Standish) about 1908 was to build a dam to back up the James and drill a tunnel from the bluff, through the hills to come out 30+ miles downstream. The river’s water coursing through that tunnel (rather than along what would become miles of dried-up riverbed) would turn generators to produce electricity to power Springfield. Stories of Standish’s fundraising and project development made local newspapers. He sought and found local investors, started preliminary work and pushed bills through Congress (despite President Teddy Roosevelt’s veto of one) in pursuit of wealth and fame.

Hustle as he did, however, the project was not to be. A short notice in a June 19, 1913 Ste. Genevieve paper is the only mention we found of this bizarre undertaking’s collapse:

Ozark Dam Site Changed. Springfield. – The Virgin Bluff Project involving the erection of a dam across James river and the digging of a tunnel which would shorten the course of the river nearly 30 miles has been temporarily abandoned, pending the possible obtaining of legislative authority to construct a dam near Hollister.

Early talk of a big dam above Taneycomo—the project that became Table Rock a half century later–finished off the troubled and underfinanced Virgin Bluff tunnel dam.

A more detailed account is included in 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.

POWERSITE DAM and Lake Taneycomo

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
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.

Henry Doherty, Powersite Dam and the Empire District Electric Company

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jan 152018
 

Harnessing the power of moving water for profit and community betterment has been an impulse for many an entrepreneur. On the White River, the first dam to close the flow was #Powersite, a small, almost run-of-the-river, dam that held back enough water to ‘fatten up’ the river without drastically affecting the flow or habitat.

Financial overruns caused the initial backers to withdraw their support for building Powersite. Enter New York banker Henry #Doherty who was ‘collecting’ small power companies in southwest Missouri and consolidating them into what became Empire District Electric. He financed the construction of Powersite.

The dam closed in 1913 but White River waters remained warm allowing for fishing and swimming and water sports. The newly formed riverine lake was called #Taneycomo – some said it was a nod to beautiful Lake Como in northern Italy, but the accepted explanation is a mash up of Taney County Missouri. More than forty years later a much bigger dam, Table Rock, was built upstream bringing drastic changes to the #WhiteRiver, Lake Taneycomo and the James Fork of the White.

Like Bagnell Dam, Powersite Dam was started by men who soon encountered financial difficulties and sold out to bigger concerns. The St. Louis investors who organized the Ozark Power and Water Company engaged the Ambursen Hydraulic Construction Company of Boston to build it. Nils Ambursen, a Norwegian immigrant engineer, had designed a hollow cement slab and buttress structure used successfully elsewhere. Replacing the original backers was Wall Street accumulator of energy companies, Henry Latham Doherty. Doherty had already acquired a handful of small utility companies in southwest Missouri that were branded Empire District Electric Company. The White River operation kept its original name until being folded into the Empire group in 1927.

Cutline for this 1933 press photo reads “Col. And Mrs. Doherty watched happily a Christmas party which the Dohertys gave at Coral FLA.”

The next year Doherty organized the National Committee for Birthday Balls, which sponsored dances across the country to raise money for Franklin Roosevelt’s Warm Springs Foundation to treat victims of polio. The president had been paralyzed from the waist down himself with the disease since 1921.

Henry L. Doherty built his holding company Cities Service into a gigantic combination of all three sources of energy–gas, oil, and electricity. His charm and friendship with FDR kept him from many of the problems capitalists had during the New Deal.

From James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River…

TABLE ROCK BLUFF 1940S BEFORE THE DAM

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Oct 102017
 

 Photo from Table Rock Bluff, 1940s.  Still no dam.

Soon after the completion of Powersite Dam (1913) creating Lake Taneycomo, Empire District Electric announced that they would build a larger dam more than twenty miles upstream at Table Rock. However, Table Rock Dam was not built at Table Rock, but about two miles farther upstream on the White River. It was not built by Empire District Electric, but by the Army Corps of Engineers, at a site Corps engineers thought would be better from an engineering standpoint.
The federal government ultimately took dam building away from private companies in the late 1930s. World War II and then Korea delayed construction of many projects. Again, local dam advocates became nervous that the feds would repeat the stalling tactics of Empire District Electric. Construction finally kicked off in the early 1950s.

HOLLISTER FLOOD – 1943

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Sep 162017
 
Hollister flood, 1943
 
The major Corps of Engineers dam-building era was a combination of dubious hydrologic theory propelled by the desire to create jobs during the Depression. Because our ancestors had foolishly developed the floodplains, there was much community support for flood control dams.
Springfield lawyer and land speculator William H. Johnson started building a Tudor-style complex by the train station in 1909 to accommodate tourists. As the faux half-timbered buildings were in the floodplain they were periodically immersed when Lake Taneycomo overflowed.
 
Table Rock Dam has kept the historic district, as it is now called, dry. Still some Hollister and Branson properties have suffered flooding, necessitating government buyouts. Believing the dam would afford complete protection, some people built even closer to the river, ignoring the Corps’ warning.
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