Congressman Dewey Short – Hillbilly and Orator and proud of it

 James Fork of the White, Lens & Pen Press, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Nov 092022
 

Press photo, May 9, 1938, showing Congressman Short, Rep. Dudley White and their wives at a DC barn dance.

Dewey Short was “an avowed Hill-Billy.” Neither he nor renowned folklorist Vance Randolph ever disavowed the term. Unlike the transplanted Kansas folklorist, the educated congressman was an Ozark native. Like politicians from Andrew Jackson on, he exploited his backwoods credentials. The cutline of this press photo, “Chicken and Fixin’s YUM YUM,” notes they were dressed in “approved rustic styles” at a D.C. barn dance. Galena’s famous son alternately postured as an Oxford schooled philosophy professor and a Stone County hillbilly. And he was both.

Born in Galena to a family of 10 children, he served in the infantry in World War I, then graduating from Baker University in 1919 and from Boston University in 1922. Short also attended Harvard University, Heidelberg University, the University of Berlin, and Oxford University. Dewey rose to national prominence as the Representative of Missouri’s 7th congressional district.

In 1942, the St.  Louis Star and Times sent a reporter down to Galena to find out, “Just who is Dewey Short, this 44-year-old, one-man hillbilly band from the Ozarks, who has been elected for four straight terms in Congress from the Seventh District in Southwest Missouri?”  Encountering Jackson Short, Dewey’s father, the reporter “came to the right place.”  Writer Ralph S. O’Leary noted that “the oratorical gifts” for which Dewey Short was noted came from his father, “who talks fluently and decisively.” Dewey’s own speechmaking talents earned him the moniker, “Orator of the Ozarks.”

 

From James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River, 352 pages with more than 400 color illustrations. 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.

 

River Guides at Owen’s Theater – near the end of the era

 Beautiful Ozarks, James Fork of the White, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Oct 052022
 

Jim Owen leans jauntily on the truck (front row, right), with artist Steve Miller and Owen’s float-fishing guides in front of his Hillbilly Theater, 1940.

At the height of the float trip era, Jim Owen and his team gathered for a photo on Owen Company truck, in front of the Owen Hillbilly Theater, Branson venue for early moving pictures. Table Rock Dam would ultimately kill the famed Galena to Branson float, but floating is still alive and well on interior Ozark rivers when this photo was taken.

James Mason Owen was many things – twelve-time mayor of Branson, bank president, car dealer, restaurateur, movie theater owner, dairyman, fishing columnist, breeder of fox hounds, manufacturer of dog food, and publicity genius. Never was he accused of being an Arcadian. Cigar-chomping capitalist and master of mass media that he was, Owen had the good sense to recruit old time river men like Charley Barnes when he launched the Owen Boat Line.

Owen’s roster included many who had pioneered floating the James and White back in the days when city folks detrained at Galena. A jokester himself, Owen encouraged colorful rustic behavior that fulfilled visitors’ expectations of being escorted downstream by a tractable variety of hillbilly.

Today, canoes and kayaks have replaced wooden john boats and lighter, more functional gear has made camp set up easier. These quick and easy floats, unlike the leisurely floats on the White River or on the James from Galena to Branson, don’t require guide services or provide colorful local characters to entertain the visitors. Newer generations don’t know what they’re missing.

In his memoir, Ted Sare, a guide for the Owen Boat Line in the 1940s, praised the colorful entrepreneur:

“There was no better promoter of that than Jim Owen. He was an ex-newspaperman and knew the value of advertising and also knew how to reach the famous and important people, and he did. He had some of the biggest names in the country and a lot of Hollywood movie stars as his clientele. Jim did more than any other one man to put White River and Branson, Missouri on the map.”

Today, the Historic Owen Theatre is the official home of the Branson Regional Arts Council presenting amateur and professional level Broadway musicals and plays year-round.

Photo from James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River, 352 pages with more than 400 color illustrations. 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.

 

DANCING AT PICNIC IN THE OZARKS, 1910s

 Beautiful Ozarks, James Fork of the White, See The Ozarks, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jul 202022
 

Real photo postcard by George Hall

Unlike the posed hillbilly family real photo postcard we shared in June this is a straightforward document of the surviving folk culture on the upper White River, circa 1910.  Hillbilliness is based on these anachronisms.

Locals at this hoe-down appear to be wearing store bought clothes. Once the railroad made its way to southwest Missouri, Stone Countians had access to prêt-à-porter clothing just like the tourists.

Music and the moves it inspires have always been part of life in the Ozarks. Some of the Arcadian resorts built dance floors and natives joined in with visitors. Distinctions between locals and visitors were not always clear when melodies filled the air and boots and shoes started tapping. That tradition continues today in music festivals in the hills as well as regular weekly gatherings like Friday night parties at the old McClurg general store. The decades old weekly gathering was recently well represented at the Smithsonian Folklife Fest, on the Mall in Washington.

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.

View from Table Rock – pre-dam, 1920s

 James Fork of the White, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jul 082022
 

Real photo postcard, 1920s, by Payne Johnson, Branson Mo.

The white lettering on the card can be hard to read. It says, “Table Rock Dam will be built across the big sand bar.” And so -eventually – it was.

Most bluffs along Ozark rivers are named. Table Rock Bluff had a relatively flat top (hence the name). The spot was accessible by road and afforded an impressive view of the pre-dam river valley. Fro generations, a visit to this overlook was on many vacationers’ itinerary.

In 1922, Empire District Electric applied for and received a preliminary permit to build a large dam at Table Rock, five miles southwest of Hollister. World War I had concluded satisfactorily, and Americans were optimistic about the prospects of better living through technology.

Still, it would be thirty-six more years before the lower James River became the James River arm of Table Rock Lake. For decades locals anticipated seeing machinery below building a huge dam. That this didn’t occur frustrated dam supporters and led them to question if the utility really intended to proceed. During that time utility companies constructed three hydroelectric dams within the Osage River system after Powersite Dam (1911-1913). None of the much-publicized private projects in the White River basin would go forward.

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

One of “10 Books to Read by Springfield Authors”

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
May 282022
 

Delighted to see our book among an impressive selection of works by SGF authors!

Posted to the Murney Associates blog is their list of 10 books you should read.  Our history of the famed mountain theme park in Branson is nestled amongst works by luminaries David Harrison, Nancy Allen, Shawn Askinosie, Ethan Bryan, Sophie Bryan and Brad Zweerink, Connie Yen, Robert Stephens (former mayor) and Stephen McIntyre.  Makes a body proud!

THE STORY OF SILVER DOLLAR CITY: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF BRANSON’S FAMOUS OZARK MOUNTAIN VILLAGE THEME PARK

by Crystal Payton
Love Silver Dollar City? You might enjoy seeing how it all began. Crystal Payton takes you through the years as Silver Dollar City grew in popularity in the Ozarks and became a nationally known brand. This book is an oldie but a goodie. Payton originally released the book in 1997. A lot has happened since then; maybe she’ll do a follow-up someday. Nothing describes SDC or Payton’s book better than the SDC slogan, “You’ve Got a Great Past Ahead of You.”

 

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.

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