Steamboat J.R. Wells Unloading at Tuscumbia, Circa 1900

 Damming the Osage  No Responses »
Jul 222021
 

 

This stern-wheeler worked the river below Warsaw delivering farm produce and timber to a rail connection at Osage City, or St. Louis, returning with merchandise. Log books in the collection of the Miller County Museum and Historical Society enumerated its 1904 cargo:

“Here are items the Wells carried that year: 5,337 sacks of wheat, 2 tons hay, 305 head of cattle, 1,439 railroad ties, 445 head sheep, 2,587 hogs, 280 gallons wine and whiskey, 956 cases eggs, 134 coops of poultry, 14,122 pounds produce, 215,122 pounds farm machinery, 8,208 pounds bacon, 961 barrels salt, 16,484 pounds iron, 33 barrels oil, 33 tons coal, 128,403 pounds wire, 41,760 feet oak lumber, 20,000 pounds mill machinery, 123,177 feet pine lumber, 1,852 bunches shingles, 34,4060 pounds sewer pipe, 6 barrels lime, 124 barrels cement, 150 brick, 150,000 pounds clay or chalk, 756 sacks corn in ear, 620 bushels shelled corn and 140 passengers.”

The Miller County Historical Association has an interesting history of early navigation on the rivers on http://www.millercountymuseum.org/rivernav.html

 

From 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. Damming the Osage is now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for $17.50 (half the original price of $35), postage paid.

 

OF DAYS REMEMBERED Quilt – Joe Dice’s Upper Swinging Bridge

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Nov 072019
 

Valorie Fauquier created this pieced and embroidered quilt for the 2015 Benton County Historical Society quilt raffle. Nine local landmarks are commemorated here. Members of the Historical Society sold raffle tickets through the summer and the drawing was held October 31. Mr. and Mrs. Troy Kessner of Independence Missouri won the drawing. They donated it to the Historical Society so everyone could enjoy it. We found it hanging in the Visitor Center, overlooking Truman Dam.

The center block commemorates the “Upper Swinging Bridge,” the last surviving Joe Dice bridge in Benton County. According to the explanatory legend posted nearby, “The Upper Swinging Bridge is the lone survivor of the 31 swinging bridges built in Benton County from 1895-1937. Built in 1904 by the famous local bridge builder Joe Dice, it was rebuilt by Dice after the original bridge was destroyed by a cyclone. It served highway 7 traffic until 1969.” It is now a pedestrian walkway over the Osage River outflow from Truman Dam.

Joseph A. Dice is one of the more interesting characters we discovered in our research for Damming the Osage (see pages 74-76). A self-taught engineer, Dice made his mark and living building swinging bridges across the Osage and its tributaries in what is now the Lake of the Ozarks region. Born in 1866, he built his first “swinger” in 1897 at a ferry crossing of the Osage near where US 65 crosses it today. “The Hackberry Bridge” cost $3,000.

A couple of Dice swingers remain on Aux Glaize Creek near Brumley as well. Driving across them is an adventure as they rattle loudly and sway slightly. From Damming the Osage, page 75:

Some of Dice’s smaller spans cost as little as $1,000. His 1905 Tuscumbia project, perhaps the most difficult, required an 80-foot wooden tower to connect up with a 250-foot cliff across the 600-foot wide Osage. All were constructed from locally obtained materials except the #9 galvanized wire. He worked in the summer and fall when local men were busy with crops, so most of his bridge crews were boys.

Frightened cattle or overloaded trucks broke the decks of some and tornadoes wrecked others, but no Dice bridge ever structurally failed.

Joseph Dice died in 1947 and is buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Warsaw on a high hill overlooking the Osage, with a view of a distant Truman Dam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Damming the Osage and all Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

BIG FISH IN WARSAW – and we’re not talking paddlefish (for once)!

 Damming the Osage  No Responses »
Oct 032019
 

 

Research for Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir had us crisscrossing the lake, river and roads that make up the Osage River watershed. One focus of the book was the loss of the spawning grounds of the paddlefish – today’s specimens are direct descendants of a prehistoric, cartilaginous fish and still roaming the waters of the Osage and Missouri river systems. But they’re not the only fish in the rivers and lakes.

One afternoon in our wanderings we came across a giant folk art concrete crappie (above) hanging from a pole in front of a taxidermy shop south of Warsaw. Naturally this concrete creature of immense proportions caught our eye. We included it on a spread with a big paddlefish (page 145, Damming the Osage). That was about 10 years ago.

In late May of this year, we were astonished to see that same monstrous crappie (there can only be one of these!) guy-wired to the back wall of Cody’s Bait & Tackle shop  across the river from downtown Warsaw.

Naturally we pulled in to ask how it crossed the river. We talked with proprietor Cody. He said it was made by the owner of the taxidermy shop where we had originally seen it. Cody purchased it from his widow. We suggested he donate it to the Benton County Historical Society—an idea he rejected. He loves that fish. And who wouldn’t?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Damming the Osage and all Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.