1940s Corps of Engineers booklet: “Table Rock Reservoir Area, White River Missouri and Arkansas, and how the U.S. buys it.”
Two boys cast fishing lines from their perch on the rocky slope of the “bath tub ring” caused by fluctuating water levels of artificial impoundments. They wait for a nibble watching the flat water of Table Rock Reservoir, perhaps wondering where the fish are hiding and what lies beneath the stilled waters of the lake that covers the once mighty White River.
Folks living in the White River and James River valleys had had fifty years to come to terms with the inevitability of losing working farms, grist mills, tiny towns and sylvan groves to rising waters when the dam closed. Still, this booklet by the Corps of Engineers seems particularly insensitive to the losses rural people faced as they gave up their land and lifestyles to the massive project. They do acknowledge that “the long-established procedures (for buying land in the project area) are not well understood by many in the reservoir area where land must be obtained in order to obtain storage to impound and control flood waters . . . ”
Tom Koob’s book, Buried by Table Rock, paints a picture of the life once lived in the valleys of the White and James rivers.
James Fork of the White and other Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.