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CHARLEY BARNES, famed James River fishing guide, with brothers John and Herbert

 James Fork of the White, Lens & Pen Press  No Responses »
May 122022
 

Robert Page Lincoln profiled Charley Barnes, James River guide and john boat builder, in a long article titled “Floating Down the River” in the March 1948 issue of Fur-Fish-Game magazine.

The caption from the 1948 article reads, “This photo of Charley Barnes and his two brothers, Herbert and John, was taken in 1909 about the time that the Barnes float trip business at Galena, Mo., was at the height of its success. Barnes told Lincoln that the bass shown in this photo are the same average size as those taken now. Reading left to right are Herbert, John, and Charley Barnes.”

Charley later developed a distaste for trophy photos. Fishermen would keep more fish than they could eat to take an impressive picture. All the early river guides were supporters of the conservation movement and fish and game laws as they viewed the protection of natural resources to be in their business interests and encouraged an early form of catch-and-release.

Barnes was born near Mount Vernon in 1878. The family moved to a farm near the James three miles from Galena when he was eight. He and his brothers spent much time fishing this historic river and their catches were such that Barnes conceived of the idea of making boats and taking out fishing parties. At the age of 26, in 1904 Barnes started taking out his first parties.

Though his big city customers may have considered Barnes a “hillbilly” – he not only built the john boats they floated in, but with his brother he also owned the Galena Ford agency.

 

Lens & Pen Press is having a half-price sale for all titles. James Fork of the White, Damming the Osage, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness and other titles– all are now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for half the original price, postage paid.

“Largest ever” – James River float trip for L. B Price Mercantile, 1923

 James Fork of the White, Lens & Pen Press  No Responses »
Apr 132022
 

Real photo postcard, by Fox. 1923

The L.B. Price Mercantile Company was incorporated 18 February 1898 and almost made it to 100 years, being dissolved in 1993. In its heyday it was a “great business house,” whose main offices and storerooms were at 13th and McGee in Kansas City. According to an undated (but likely early 1900s) article in the Kansas City Star profiling the firm, L.B. Price had retail stores selling “household specialties” across the southeast and into the Midwest and employed more than 600 people.

This 1923 photo most likely shows men of the company’s management. A short bio of L. B. Price called him one of Kansas City’s “millionaire merchants.” We speculated in James Fork of the White (p. 249) that the large, relaxed group might have been traveling salesman (then called drummers). However, the article lauded the company for annually bringing its managers from around the country to Kansas City to report on their year and plan the future.  Considering that, it’s more likely that this “largest ever” James River float trip might have been a reward to managers for a successful year of sales.

Urban clientele like this were no doubt entertained by the tall tales and witticisms of the colorful local guides. Doubtlessly the businessmen referred to them as hillbillies, but not in a derogatory fashion.

 

From James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River, 352 pages with more than 400 color illustrations, which examines the entire watershed of the famed Ozark float stream, a tributary of the White River. 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.

WHAT A COMBINATION—PHOTO GALLERY AND BUTCHER SHOP!

 Damming the Osage, Lens & Pen Press, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Apr 032022
 

Cabinet card, Linn Creek, Missouri, circa 1890. F. Lloyd, photographer.

Young Sam Clemens grew up in a bigger Missouri river town than Linn Creek, but this photograph preserves a scene not unlike those Mark Twain described of his Hannibal childhood. Linn Creek on the Osage River would be drowned by Lake of the Ozarks in 1931 but this insane image—three Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn types on a steer in front of The Combination Meat Market and Picture Gallery, suggests it was not unlike the great writer’s hometown, a place populated by high-spirited folks with a sense of humor.

Once the county seat of Camden County, Linn Creek was a lively steamboat landing 31 miles upstream from where Bagnell Dam would be built in 1929. A merchant advertised in 1848 three steamships had delivered “One Thousand Sacks G. A. Salt, 150 Bags Rio Coffee and 70 Barrels of Rectified Whiskey.”  That confirms what everyone knows—frontier Ozarkers drank a lot of whiskey. It also challenges several other assumptions. Everyone in the Ozarks wasn’t a moonshiner making their own booze.  And the region wasn’t as isolated as is often assumed. Goods were coming in from far away.

Wish we had acquired this image some years ago when we published Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir, which had extensive coverage of the drowned town. Leland’s grandmother (whom he never knew) was born in old Linn Creek. Perhaps she bought some pork chops at the combination establishment after having her portrait taken by F. Lloyd, about whom we could find no information.

 

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.

Arcadian Tourism

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
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.

 

Powersite Dam On The White River

 James Fork of the White, See The Ozarks, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Feb 122022
 

Finished in 1913, Powersite was Missouri’s first venture into hydropower. A consortium of St. Louis investors engaged the Ambursen Hydro-Electric Construction Company of Boston to build one of their patented hollow, reinforced concrete structures. As would be the case eighteen years later on the Osage River, the original investors were replaced by a more substantial concern. New York capitalist Henry Doherty took over the project ultimately adding it to his Empire Electric Group, part of his mammoth Cities Services holding company.

Hundreds of these run-of-the-river dams with no storage capacity had been built back East where streams with adequate fall ran near populated areas. Missouri was late in developing hydropower because suitable Ozark rivers were far from cities. An incentive to build Powersite Dam was the opportunity to sell electricity to the mines of the Joplin lead district. Supplying power to St. Joseph Lead Co. in the St. Francois Mountains would be a consideration in the decision to build Bagnell Dam.

 

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. Lens & Pen Press is having a half price sale for all titles. James Fork is now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for $17.50 (half the original price of $35), postage paid.

Legendary Ha Ha Tonka “Castle”

 Damming the Osage, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jan 262022
 

Robert M. Snyder engaged the services of a Kansas City architectural firm, A. Van Brunt and Brother, to design a spacious residence and complex of supporting structures. Like Snyder, Adriance Van Brunt had come to Kansas City around 1880 and with his brother John enjoyed rapid success. He was a believer in the City Beautiful Movement and for a decade was a member of the Board of Park Commissioners. This outlook and experiences made him a singular architect to transform wild Ha Ha Tonka into the “gentleman’s estate” the senior Snyder desired.

From Ha Ha Tonka State Park History: He envisioned a European-style castle with 60 rooms and a center atrium rising three and one-half stories to a skylight. He also planned a water tower, greenhouses and stables. The materials were extracted from the area, with sandstone quarried nearby and transported by a mule-drawn wagon and miniature railroad.

Construction of his dream home in the Ozarks began in 1905. Robert M. Snyder was killed in a car accident in Kansas City in October of 1906 and it was left to his sons to complete. After his father’s untimely death, one of Robert Jr.’s duties was to dispose of the distant estate. Colonel Scott’s Carter’s Magazine article had already given it some status as a natural wonder, calling the place a park. With Herbert Hadley, the float-tripping progressive Republican as governor, it seemed that selling Ha Ha Tonka to the state might go easily. In 1909, a bill authorizing its purchase failed by one vote in the Missouri House. From then on Robert Snyder Jr. encountered years of frustration trying to facilitate an adequately compensated transfer to public ownership. In his booklet, Hahatonka in the Ozarks (1914), Snyder emphasized the place’s aesthetic and historic value. As much as he loved it, the family needed to sell it.

Bob Snyder, Jr. became an expert on early Missouri history and a collector of its literature.  He was passionately involved with the property he was trying to sell.

 

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.

 

A Kansas City Capitalist Discovers The Ozarks

 Damming the Osage, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jan 062022
 

Robert M. Snyder was a Kansas City businessman, capitalist, and lover of the outdoors.  R.M Snyder’s triumphs had come in the natural gas, oil, real estate, and banking businesses, and he was the organizer of what became the Kansas City Life Insurance Company.

While staying at a hotel in Lebanon owned by Major Kellogg, Robert McClure Snyder Sr. was told about fabulous Ha Ha Tonka by Colonel R. G. Scott. The Kansas City capitalist was an active sportsman. His great-grandson, Bob Snyder, reported he had considered buying Roaring River. In 1904, he purchased Ha Ha Tonka spring and lake from Col. Scott and added sixty tracts.

According to Scott, Snyder’s holdings amounted to 5,300 acres “of Camden county’s most beautiful hills and streams.” In an extensive interview (The Springfield Press, Oct. 19, 1929), he recounted the beginnings of Snyder’s Ozarks retreat:

“Mr. Snyder’s advent in the Ozarks gave me (Col. Scott) new hope. It brought development to the county I believe to be Missouri’s greatest asset. Twenty-four years ago we started building the Snyder castle and tower at Ha Ha Tonka. But death intervened to prevent Snyder seeing his dream castle completed.”

When his big new green Royal Tourist motorcar skidded on the freshly oiled street, Snyder was fifty-four. He had come far since arriving in Kansas City around 1880 to engage in the wholesale fancy grocery business. The paper mentions his ambitious project in the Ozarks:

Two years ago Mr. Snyder acquired, under a mortgage foreclosure, Ha-Ha-Tonka Lake and a tract of 2,700 acres surrounding it, a famous natural park in southeast Missouri. Ha-Ha-Tonka Lake, a beautiful sheet of water seventy acres in extent, includes an island, precipitous, picturesque and honeycombed with onyx caves. On the topmost crest of this island Mr. Snyder set about the erection of a summer home of such proportions as to astound the residents of that remote district. The structure had an appearance of a hotel rather than of a private residence, and was to cost, it is said, $50,000 or more.

“Here I will spend my leisure—secure from the worries of business, and the excitement of city life,” the owner said. “I will fish and loaf and explore the eaves in these hills, with no fear of intrusion.

“At the time of his death,” speculated the Star, “It was generally understood he was making money rapidly. He was a man who understood big things and made them win by keeping up the fight when other men might have been ready to give up.”

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.

THE OZARKS: Where It’s Been, Where It’s Going. Vol. 3 in Brooks Blevins’ Trilogy

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Jan 022022
 

Brooks Blevins discussing the third volume of his trilogy, A History of the Ozarks, Dec. 13 at The Library Center in Springfield.

Brooks Blevins finds it endlessly fascinating why a modest uplift in the center of America is believed to be the homeland of a race of slack-jawed yokels in spite of compelling demographic evidence it is inhabited by a populace not dissimilar to those of surrounding states. Fans of Dr. Blevins will find in Volume 3 of A History of the Ozarks: The Ozarkers a definitive answer to that paradox and a good guess as to the durability of that region’s hillbilly identity. Given the long literary origins of the trope it seems unlikely associating the Ozark hills with old timey ways will completely die out even though the place is in a rebranding phase.

Professor Blevins is more familiar with popular culture than many historians—and more respectful of its influence. His lively writing style is animated by these cultural conflicts. He points out a year before Alice Walton’s (of Walmart) toney art museum opened, a violent meth film set in the Ozarks premiered: “The fact that the movie Winter’s Bone dominated national perceptions of the Ozarks during the year and a half preceding the opening of Crystal Bridges made the museum’s premiere that much more jarring and its impact on the region’s image that much more transformative … But the twenty-first century has certainly sparked a reimagining of the Ozarks and Ozarkers. It was inevitable that at some point the reality of life in the Ozarks would stray so far from the region’s stubborn image that the dissonance would be impossible to ignore.”

His two earlier volumes are solid reconstructions of the place’s past. Volume 3 brilliantly shows how legend and myth infiltrate our perceptions of the past. Such stereotyping displeases the business community but is a gift to novelists, folklorists, and souvenir makers. The hillbilly was once a tourist icon—and to some degree may still be in spite of greater sensitivity to negative regional profiling. Another reasoned, well researched, and fun read from Missouri State University Professor Blevins.

 

A History of the Ozarks: The Ozarkers is available at the University of Illinois Press or on amazon

 

Origin of Ha Ha Tonka Mythos

 Damming the Osage, See The Ozarks  No Responses »
Nov 102021
 

In Damming the Osage, we wrote about the connection between Col. R. G. Scott and Robert M. Snyder, who built Ha Ha Tonka.

Colonel R. G. Scott came from Iowa to the Ozarks around 1890 where he futilely attempted to promote a railroad linking Jefferson City and Springfield. He and a friend, Major R. D. Kelly, bought or optioned a large parcel of land around Gunter Spring from Jack Roach. His son, Sydney Roach, was an attorney on the Snyder legal team.

Likely, it was the Colonel who built the low dam that created the lake that would be subsumed by Lake of the Ozarks. Possibly, it was he who stocked it with rainbow trout. Probably, it was Scott who coined the name Ha Ha Tonka, although he claimed a Captain Lodge learned that name from a group of visiting Osage Indians. Certainly, it was Colonel Scott who published the first article extolling Ha Ha Tonka’s natural wonders in an 1898 issue of Carter’s Magazine.

A 1929 article in The Springfield Press (Oct. 19), “Pioneer Enthusiast Of the Ozarks, Who Dreamed of Dams, Hopes to Live to See Vision Accomplished Fact,” confirms our supposition: “(Ha Ha Tonka was) the first development in the Camden county Ozarks and came through the vision of Colonel Scott, who sold the land and the idea to the late R. M. Snyder, and incidentally it resulted in Scott building the first dam in the Ozarks to form Ha-Ha-Tonka lake. “

“Colonel Scott said he named the Snyder tract Ha-Ha-Tonka because it is the Osage Indian name for Laughing Water.” This was the beginning of our awareness of the bogus nature of many “Indian legends,” which some years later led us to research and write our recent book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco.

After the death of R.M. Snyder as the backed-up Osage obliterated Ha Ha Tonka’s small lake, the sons battled Union Electric for compensation for damages for their lost trout lake. From 1930 to 1936, trials and appeals continued in the courts. At his death on February 9, 1937, Robert McClure Snyder, Jr. was planning an appeal to the Supreme Court.

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.

LOVER’S LEAP LEGENDS Earns Awards and High Praise

 Lover's Leap Legends  No Responses »
Nov 022021
 

LOVER’S LEAP LEGENDS

FROM SAPPHO OF LESBOS TO WAH-WAH-TEE OF WACO

Visit a Lover’s Leap on your Vacation—but don’t jump! Award-winning new book reveals locations of these tragic, but invented, Indian legends.

“The views,” adds co-author Crystal Payton, “are grand and these romantic stories, though fakelore, are fascinating.”

SPRINGFIELD, Mo.– Authors Leland and Crystal Payton are pleased at the popular and critical reception of their 352-page book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco. Published by Lens & Pen Press, it contains 545 color illustrations.

A reviewer on Amazon agreed Lover’s Leaps are intriguing places to visit: “This book is divided by area and would be a wonderful travel companion for side trips, or day trips to one of the legend sites and add an interesting and fun adventure to a vacation.”

Families have visited Rock City with its spectacular Lover’s Leap in Chattanooga for generations. How many realized that a short drive away in Gadsden, Alabama, leaping Noccalula is cast in bronze in a city park? Mark Twain’s hometown, Hannibal, Missouri boasts a stunning Lover’s Leap overlooking the Mighty Mississippi. Upriver in Wisconsin they found the spot where, in 1805, Zebulon Pike recorded the first known Lover’s Leap legend featuring Native Americans. Research unearthed many other obscure sites as well.

The Missouri Writers Guild awarded Lover’s Leap Legends First Place for Nonfiction, 2021. The book was also a Finalist in the Multicultural Non-Fiction category of the 2021 International Book Awards.

A Mind-Boggling Work of Research, concluded an Amazon top reviewer. “This is, I believe, the only book-length account of Lovers Leap legends in the United States and beyond, and it’s a terrific one. Folklorists both amateur and professional will find much to savor in this book. And did I mention that it has an excellent index, the sign of an author who has truly taken care?”

At the 2020 Independent Publishers Book Awards, the oldest exclusive contest for independent presses, Lover’s Leap Legends was awarded a bronze medal in the Popular Culture category.

A Benjamin Franklin Awards judge was enthusiastic: “Lover’s Leap Legends is a spectacular leap into contrarian history, a celebration of ” sentimental romantic infection.” It is one of the oddest surveys I have ever read; I could not tear myself away from it. Bonus, it is lavishly illustrated, and a gift at its retail price. Describing themselves as “former flea market pickers,” the author/photographers/cultural anthropologists are perversely suited to this adventure. And what a treasure trove of local legend and artifact. And they are seriously funny. I had no idea that our fascination with this myth was as firmly embedded as they find. WOW. I immediately wrote a half-dozen history buffs to alert them to this marvel.”

Midwest Book Review said, “An inherently fascinating, beautifully illustrated, impressively informative, expertly organized and presented study, Lover’s Leap Legends is an extraordinary, unique, and unreservedly recommended addition to personal reading lists, as well as community and academic library collections.”

Lover’s Leap Legends, though intended for a general audience, has proven useful to scholars. A PhD candidate whose thesis examines the phenomenon wrote: “Your collection is really phenomenal and beautifully presented. I believe that everything you have written and collated provides valuable information and much food-for-thought for future scholarship. As I read it further, I am amazed at the variety of information you have collected. … Your publication … has really helped me to hone my presentation, so your work has already been useful in scholarship!”

The authors were honored that a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania and celebrated author concluded: “Lover’s Leap Legends is the definitive visual sourcebook for an American tradition that is as disturbing as it is amusing.”

Lover’s Leap Legends is available at amazon.com. Lens & Pen Press currently has a sale offering all their titles at 50 % off postage paid. http://www.dammingtheosage.com/buy-the-book/

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www.beautifulozarks.com www.dammingtheosage.com www.hypercommon.com

 

Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco

ISBN: 978-0-9673925-9-2

352 pages, 7.5×10 545 color illustrations

$35.00

 

 

 

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