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Tourist misidentifies character from “The Shepherd of the Hills” saga

 James Fork of the White, See The Ozarks, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Oct 062020
 

Garber was a “flag stop” on the Missouri Pacific line, not far from Branson. The train would stop when there were railroad ties to pick up or deliveries for the post office, which also sold groceries, patent medicine, and tobacco. Old Matt and Aunt Molly (the Rosses) welcomed tourists and would sign postcards and entertain them with stories of the old days in the White River hills, even though they were themselves relatively recent arrivals themselves from back East.

This extremely sharp real photo postcard, circa 1918, has an X over the man with a hat and goatee on the far right. On the back is typed, “I saw Uncle Ike as we passed on the train He is exactly as this picture shows him. Near here is the wonderful cave, but something like 15 or 20 miles from Hollister.” The man with the X is not Uncle Ike in Harold Bell Wright’s novel. Across the front of the store is painted, “J.K. Ross General Store.”

The man on the porch with the X above him is in fact J. K. Ross, who was reputed to be Harold Bell Wright’s model for the title character of his melodramatic novel, which launched tourism in the Branson area. Uncle Ike, a minor character in the book, was said to be based on Levi Morrell, who also was accessible to tourists at his post office at Notch, about five miles from Garber. Levi was stockier than J.K. Ross and had a full beard. Wright spent seven summers in the Branson area but denied that he had explicitly based any characters on locals. Both Ross and Morrell, and many other locals, claimed the book’s characters as their own and enjoyed the notoriety. Many of their graves have both their Christian and their fictional names engraved on their tombstones.

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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.)

 

Webb’s Mule Factory – Branson

 James Fork of the White, See The Ozarks  No Responses »
Sep 092020
 

Webb appears to have a tattoo on his left arm. We can’t quite make it out, but there’s a good chance he was in the Navy as military symbols were dominant motifs in ink then.

On the front of this real photo postcard, circa 1940, is written “H. P. Webb, Originator of “Missouri Mule.” We vaguely remember seeing these handmade souvenir mules in junk shops or antique malls in the past. After finding this postcard, if we see another one we’ll buy it.

The Missouri mule has faded from public memory. Mules, which are a sterile hybrid of horses and donkeys, were known for their strength, stamina, and intelligence – and for their willful obstinance, contrariness. Somehow this aligned with the popular image of Missourians and the mule was a symbol of rural Missouri. They are more a curiosity than a common farm animal today. Awareness of them has retreated. Locally produced souvenirware all but vanished in the 1950s with the availability of much cheaper Japanese giftware, some of which was hand-painted and quite attractive originally but became slurred as time went on. Locally made crafts are sold today as art, not souvenirs.

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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.)

 

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.)

 

How Rough was “Roughing it in the Ozarks”?

 Beautiful Ozarks, James Fork of the White, See The Ozarks  No Responses »
Aug 032020
 

Real photo postcard, circa 1910. Nothing on the back. Scratched in the negative: “Roughing in the Ozarks.”

The more we looked at this recently acquired postcard, the more we puzzled over it. What was going on? Who were the people? Locals or city folks? The clothes look more store-bought than homespun.  Was it all a setup? It’s not your standard “Life of the hillbillies” postcards sold at tourist shops. So we sent it to Lynn Morrow, Ozarks historian extraordinaire, to ask his opinion. He replied:
What a great postcard, new one to me.  My guesses include some of yours:
I’d guess they are from an Ozark town, the clothes are too good for a subsistence farmer; the “Roughing it in the Ozarks” was a common phrase in sporting and urban newspapers of the day, the traveling(?) photographer and/or locals are just imitating it & I’ve seen it elsewhere, but it is another hint of using an urban influence in the backwoods;
They aren’t too far from town or a sawmill with a dimension lumber shack (it looks like a tree rather than a stove pipe in the background) and the setting looks “Novemberish” to me for the campout; the woman in the background on the horse must be local, and maybe she brought the clothes’ pins to hang the textile on a line that is attached to the tree on the left;
The “T-pee” was popular with the emerging scouting and rural life movement that often included something “Indian” in costume, dress, etc.; the stripped wagon-type tent is surely another mail order product; the one girl in middle looks like she’s doing an Annie Oakley imitation;
The boy may be sitting on a “picnic” table, usually not seen in urban sportsmen images; the box on the ground behind the man on right might be a dry goods box of canned food and/or gear brought to the site;
but, puzzling to me is the apparent bamboo or cane poles that could be fishing poles, but why are they bound/wrapped high up unless that was just for traveling?
Regardless of guesses, the card is a keeper and should be published!
KWTO (Keep Working for the Ozarks),
Lynn
Lynn Morrow is the retired director of the Missouri State Archives’ Local Records Program, Missouri State University alum, and an Ozarks historian. His book, Shepard of the Hills Country: Tourism Transforms The Ozarks, occupies prime shelf space in our office and is festooned with post-it notes.
If anyone knows about it or has another interpretation please let us 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.)

Portuguese Point on the Gasconade River

 Beautiful Ozarks, See The Ozarks, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jul 072020
 

Real photo postcard, 1930s. Written on the postcard, “Looking down on Gasconade River from Portuguese Point. S-243.” Inevitably, photographs of the panoramic landscape contain a figure poised at the edge of the cliff.

There is a bluff called Portuguese Point overlooking the Gasconade River valley about eleven miles south of Dixon, Missouri. It has a splendid view, is easily reached, and photographers and artists, professional and amateur alike, exploit its graphic opportunities. The mystery is, what were the Portuguese doing in the Ozarks? We found a credible explanation in the KJPW’s Old Settlers Gazette, July 26, 1997, in an article by Gary Knehans. Apparently, John Anderson Smith immigrated to the Ozarks in 1858 and ended up in a fertile valley in a bend in the Gasconade. The pioneer had Cherokee blood and apparently, he and his children had Native American features. Fearing prejudice against Indians, he told his neighbors he was of Portuguese ancestry. Smith had a colorful life. Bushwhackers hung him but he survived somehow to die of dropsy in 1922. As he had voted twice for Henry Clay for President, his age was variously calculated at 110 or 116 years old. The article doesn’t cite any references but it’s an interesting and credible explanation.

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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.)

 

Irish Wilderness – More on the Mystery

 Irish Wilderness  No Responses »
Jun 012020
 

While organizing our extensive collection of Ozarks ephemera we found this June 1952 issue of the Ford Times with an article on “Missouri’s Irish Wilderness,” by Don Cullimore. As the article seems to be largely devoted to the springs and stream (“The Narrows”) where aquarium plants were harvested, we didn’t reference it in Mystery of the Irish Wilderness. Cullimore mentions the lost colony of Irish immigrants founded by Father Hogan in the article. The purpose of the Ford Times, however, was to encourage folks to drive their Fords to new places, so this article focuses on the Morgan family’s “spring-water moss farm” (Myriophyllum harvesting, for use in home aquariums)  in a remote and scenic location, on the Eleven Point River in Oregon County, Missouri.

In 1951 and 1952, Cullimore and Dan Saults, editor of the Conservationist, with photographer Don Wooldridge, researched and published a series of 12 articles about the Irish Wilderness for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They drove the roads with E. R. Barrow, step-grandson of original Irish settler, Billy Griffin, exploring the locations and recording the stories of that early settlement. The result of their deep dive into its history was a remarkable series of articles encompassing what was known or could be discovered at that time about Hogan’s settlement. Those articles we read and referenced in Mystery of the Irish Wilderness.

Their articles and the continued interest of Cullimore, Saults and a coalition of environmentalists led to the inclusion of these legendary forested hills in the national wilderness protection system: The “Irish Wilderness Act of 1984”. Sec, was passed by Congress, “2, (a) In furtherance of the purposes of the Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 1131-1136), certain lands in the Mark Twain National Forest, Missouri, which comprise approximately sixteen thousand five hundred acres, as generally depicted on a map entitled “Irish Wilderness”, dated March 27, 1984, are hereby designated as wilderness and shall be known as the Irish Wilderness.”

Today – the aquarium plant business is no more. The Morgan family opened the aquaria plant farm in 1951 and continued in business until 1978. The United States Forest Service purchased the area in 1972.

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness: Land and Legend of Father John Joseph Hogan’s Lost Irish Colony in the Ozark Wilderness is available on amazon.com or discounted on this website, postage paid.

To learn more about the remarkable Catholic priest who established this Ozark colony and later became the first bishop of Kansas City, our book “On the Mission in Missouri and Fifty Years Ago: A Memoir” reprints both of his memoirs in full. We included additional biographical information found in our research. Also available on amazon.com or discounted on this website postage paid.

Historic Randles Court motel in Eldon

 See The Ozarks  No Responses »
May 192020
 

Jennifer Hart by the just-restored Randles Court neon sign.

The rock rubble classic motor court from the early days of America’s roadside culture is coming to life again along Business Route 54 through Eldon, Missouri. Jeremy and Jennifer Hart are renovating the place to offer hospitality for nostalgia-driven travelers. The nostalgia bringing me to Eldon was hunger for some of the world’s best onion rings, which we used to get at two restaurants there – a discovery made the summer we spent in Eldon making a very early direct-to-video horror movie, Copperhead. But I digress. Both restaurants are gone now. One of them was part of the Boots-Randles Court Motel. It burned to the ground, but the motel remains.

Jeremy’s aunt and uncle owned the place in the 1970s and through a series of karmic events, it has come to them. Jennifer can explain the full string of connections that finally put this roadside jewel in their hands. She’s made it her mission to put the pieces of history together, treating herself to occasional visits to the Eldon newspaper to search their archives.

One article she found indicates that Lloyd Boots started building his motor court in 1931, with a plan that called for a gas station and five cabins with attached carports. That was the year that Bagnell Dam closed. Eldon soon took the motto: “Gateway to Lake of the Ozarks.” The carports don’t show in the façade of the building today but architectural evidence remains. As the Hart’s renovated, they found original hardwood floors in every other room, and concrete floors in the ones between.

Last year, a tornado hit Eldon and the Randles Court. The stone building survived; roof, windows and the classic neon sign were damaged. Cleanup and repairs from the tornado carried on through the summer and early winter. Plans made for a grand reopening were put on hold with the coronavirus lockdown. Now with stay-at-home orders lifted and the classic neon sign fully restored and reinstalled, they are planning the lighting ceremony for this Friday night, May 22, the one-year anniversary of the tornado. Check their Facebook page for more information.

Provided to the Harts for the amusement and edification of their future guests, our book See the Ozarks, a visual history of the early days of tourism in our region.

Nikola Tesla, Niagara Falls and Lover’s Leap Legends

 Lover's Leap Legends  No Responses »
May 172020
 

Nikola Tesla, whose spark of genius helped harness the power of Niagara Fall, now overlooks his roaring, liquid engine.

May 17 – Only two years ago today, we were in Niagara Falls (Canada side)—on a photo safari for our then-upcoming, now-published book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco. My “Trip Notes” comment for that day: “Up early and over to Canada to shoot Nikola Tesla statue on Table Rock.” That’s Leland’s version of “early” …. i.e. up before sunrise to be in place when the light of the rising sun best defines the subject…. But I digress.

We had come to investigate the two similar, but different, legends of the Falls and wound up with an entire chapter examining the “Legend of the White Canoe, aka Maid of the Mist.” With the rich graphics associated with generations of travel to the legendary Falls and the complexity of the legend adapting to evolving social attitudes, it became its own full chapter in the book.

One of the great advantages of these research trips is learning so much beyond your stated subject. The Falls has a fascinating history of Indian presence, explorer accounts, pop culture iconography and industrial exploitation. We documented some of that as we explored:

Few of the scientific geniuses that unlocked the secrets of nature have the hero status they once enjoyed. An exception is Nikola Tesla who, though a brilliant electrical engineer, was New Age before the term was coined. His discoveries or improvements to existing technologies were impressive, but his alluding to death rays and limitless free electricity along with his dalliances in the paranormal and belief in extraterrestrials has struck a chord with contemporary fans.

Tesla has bronze memorial statues on both the American and Canadian sides of the Falls.

Branson’s College of the Ozarks had its beginnings in Forsythe

 James Fork of the White, See The Ozarks  No Responses »
May 062020
 

Real photo postcard of some faculty of the School of the Ozarks on a 1909 outing at Swan Creek.

Along with Harold Bell Wright’s moralistic Shepherd of the Hills influence, a component of the region’s image has been the School of the Ozarks, now called College of the Ozarks (“Hard Work U.”). It began as an effort by the Presbyterian Church to expand the limited educational opportunities for Ozark children in the early 1900s. A $20,000 brick building was built on a hill overlooking Swan Creek. A fire destroyed it in 1915. The school used the facilities of the Forsyth Public School for a time until a campus was started at Point Lookout in Hollister where the College is today.

The Christian ethical influence of Harold Bell Wright and College of the Ozarks is in sharp contrast with the more secular origins of another Ozark tourist draw, Lake of the Ozarks. Two of the three men most influential in the creation of Bagnell Dam and the Lake did time in federal penitentiaries.

Lens & Pen books are available for purchase on this website on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. See sample pages from our new book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco, on our website: hypercommon.com

Newspaper article claims, “Paddlefish survive wild ride over dams.” Do they? Really?

 Damming the Osage, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Apr 262020
 

The Springfield News-Leader ran an intriguing article on paddlefish going over dams and surviving. Sadly, it didn’t mention that most are killed whether they go through the turbines or over the top in a flood. It’s common to see pieces of paddlefish below dams after they were sucked into turbines and chewed up. Our guess is one out of hundreds survive.

But it’s heartening to know that this incredible, giant prehistoric fish occasionally gets lucky. Corps of Engineers’ dams have contributed to their conceivably endangered future. While the adults thrive in reservoir pools, damming blocks access to their spawning grounds.

In our book, Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir, the fate of the paddlefish occupies many pages. Truman Dam destroyed the best spawning grounds in the country. All the paddlefish in Missouri are hatchery-spawned and raised. We quoted a publication by the American Fisheries Society entitled, “The Paddlefish: Status, Management and Propagation” (1986):

Finally, a note of caution. Although techniques for producing and stocking paddlefish were presented in this symposium, we do not consider stocking to be an answer to habitat deterioration and management problems. These techniques were developed for special circumstances where stocking was the only way to maintain a population. Artificial propagation and stocking should not be used as a cure-all or substitute for wise or practical management. Trying to solve problems by treating symptoms is expensive and ineffective. In addition, stocking would affect the integrity of paddlefish gene pools and is ill-advised until we know a lot more about the genetics of this species.

The MICRA paddlefish-sturgeon committee issued a warning in 1998 that “the use of hatcheries to reduce population declines is not a substitute for solving the causes of declines.” In addition to genetic considerations, the paper listed six other problems with stocking,hatche of which “delaying habitat restoration” was the worst.

page 236, Damming the Osage

The Department of Conservation fisheries people are to be praised for keeping the paddlefish from vanishing from Missouri waters. It’s an expensive program and should there be a severe recession raising paddlefish might be defunded. MDC gets most of its money from a conservation sales tax. This largely bypasses political control. Some politicians wish to do away with this arrangement. It’s likely, should the state legislature control the MDC budget, urban interests might not be favorably disposed to maintaining the paddlefish-raising program. Paddlefish might be seen as expendable.

The fate of the paddlefish (or spoonbill) was central to a lawsuit to stop Truman Dam—which obviously failed. Our 304-page book, Damming the Osage, is available on amazon.com or this website at a discount, postage paid

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