Lake of the Ozarks’ Lover’s Leap at Junction of Niangua and Osage Rivers

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Oct 162018
 

Real photo postcard, probably 1940s

Lover’s Leap on the Osage River was a cliff near Linn Creek, about which J. W. Vincent, editor of the local paper The Linn Creek Reveille, penned a fanciful tale of a suicidal Indian maiden. Virtually every declivity more than 25 feet high in the Mississippi River valley had a similar legend attached to it. When Lake of the Ozarks filled in 1931, the name stayed but the jump got shorter and the landing in water became more survivable. The little creature poised on the rocks in disregard of its safety appears to be some species of dog.

This site has been popular with postcard photographers and there are numerous versions, both real photo postcards and printed linens.

Today the knob where the dog sits has broken off and the site has grown up in brush. Nevertheless, it’s a well-known overlook; the trash indicates it’s a popular party spot. Recently it became a set for Netflix series Ozark.

This locaton and Virgin Bluff on the James River were among the sources of inspiration for our new project, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco. Lens & Pen books are available on this site, amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

1906 Springfield FALL FESTIVAL

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Oct 092018
 

Autumn in the Ozarks is a time to celebrate harvest, cooler weather and the beauty of the changing season. Ozarkers have celebrated this season with enthusiasm for generations.  Every year, The News Leader gathers a compendium of festivals large and small in the city and throughout the region. Research for each of our books regularly uncovers little-known facts or events that may have faded from memory. One such discovery for James Fork of the White was Springfield’s grand, even exotic, 1906 Fall Festival—a six-day extravaganza in October of that year.

Real photo postcard, postmarked October 17, 1906. Springfield merchants organized a six-day Fall Festival featuring a parade sponsored by a different organization every day. This postcard shows the Elks and Traveling Man’s Day – “Grand Wrap Up of the Gala Week.” Handwritten on the face of the card: “Had a different parade every afternoon and night for a week. This is a part of the Elks parade.”

Progress was the catch phrase of the day but old timers’ recollections about old times were popular newspaper features. Long before Silver Dollar City, Springfieldians were fascinated with a version of the primitive past that was more than nostalgia, less than history. A 1906 Fall Festival parade expressed this developing image of the Ozarks. Progress was the catch phrase of the day but old timers’ recollections about old times were popular newspaper features. Long before Silver Dollar City, Springfieldians were fascinated with a version of the primitive past that was more than nostalgia, less than history. A 1906 Fall Festival parade expressed this developing image of the Ozarks.

The carnage of the Battle of Wilson’s Creek now behind them, soldiers representing the North and the South stood peacefully on a float, their hands on the staff of an American flag. The next float themed Ozark karst geology—“The Onyx Cave of the Ozarks with its Glittering Stalactites.” An account of a well-attended fiddlers’ contest in the October 9, 1906 Springfield Republican linked a survival of pioneer culture with the rugged White River hills:

The fiddlers were there for the fun and those who went to hear the contest went there expecting to have a jolly time listening to those old-time tunes that are heard only “way down in the hills.” There was nothing classic about it, it was a fiddlers’ contest and not a violin recital. There wouldn’t have been any fun about a violin recital and there was a lot of fun at the fiddlers’ contest.

It was an eclectic event – an Airship Ascension, the Hon. William J. Bryan visited, Grand Electric Illumination and Captain Jack, the Missouri Horse That Thinks, Figures, Plays Music and does Everything but Talk. “Take the children to See Him!”

 James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River, page 136

Our forebears certainly knew how to put on a show!

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

Publisher’s BOOK SALE!

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Sep 232018
 

Announcing a backlist sale of our books. Now is the time to start planning holiday giving. Illustrated histories of our own Ozarks region are the perfect gift.

We’ve posted reduced prices for all our books on our website. Click here http://www.dammingtheosage.com/buy-the-book/ to order.

As always we pay postage!

Damming the Osage $35 now $30

James Fork of the White $35 now $30

Publisher’s Special… Buy the two “river books” (Damming the Osage AND James Fork of the White) for $52.50. This is a savings of $17.50 from the full retail price. Plus free shipping.

 

 

 

 

 

The Beautiful and Enduring Ozarks

 

Beautiful and Enduring Ozarks, $19.95, now $17.50

 

 

 

 

 

See the Ozarks, $24.95, now $17.50

 

 

 

 

 

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness, $18.95 now $17.50

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the Mission in MIssouri, $24.95, now $22.50

 

 

 

 

 

All are available on Lens & Pen website with any credit card. Or, if you prefer paying by check, mail to:

Lens & Pen Press, 4067 S. Franklin, Springfield, MO 65807

Lake of the Ozarks Landmark appears in Netflix Series

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Sep 102018
 

Linen postcard, Lover’s Leap at Lake of the Ozarks, 1940s.

Season 2 of the Netflix streaming series, Ozark, dropped August 31. In Season 1, a few establishing shots were grabbed at Lake of the Ozarks, but the series itself was filmed in Georgia thanks to that state’s generous tax credits for filmmakers. To our utter amazement, the last scene of that first episode showed Marty Byrde’s (Jason Bateman) first sight of the Lake at a spot we recognized as Lover’s Leap, a precipitous bluff near the drowned town of Linn Creek. J. W. Vincent, editor of the Linn Creek Reveille, included his version of the tale that gave the spot its name in his  1913 booklet, Tales of the Ozarks. Winona states she “will die rather than be false to her lover” before leaping off the cliff.

Lover’s Leaps on the Osage and the James rivers got us interested in the subject. Then we ran across Mark Twain’s satiric comments on the fate of Winona and the legend of Maiden Rock (Wisconsin). “There are fifty Lover’s Leaps along the Mississippi from whose summit disappointed Indian girls have jumped but this is the only jump in the lot that turned out the right and satisfactory way.” That got us working on our new project, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Te of Waco.

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

Irish Wilderness and Eleven Point River – 50 years a Wild and Scenic River

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Sep 032018
 

This afternoon Google alerted us to an article by Andy Ostmeyer in the Joplin Globe: Worthy companions for a wild river: Eagles escort float down one of country’s inaugural wild and scenic rivers

In loving detail Ostmeyer recounts his float on the Eleven Point River, which flows through “the Irish.” This jewel of a river was among the first eight rivers designated National Wild and Scenic Rivers when Congress passed that legislation in 1968.

Ostermeyer’s musings as he floated the river  addressed the Eleven Point’s past (which brought mention of our research for Mystery of the Irish Wilderness), its present and future prospects. We appreciate his mention of our work as we too give thanks for the land, the people and the river than flows through it.

 

 

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness ($18.95, ppd) and other Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

THE LATEST – AND BEST YET – TAKE ON THE OZARKS. Brooks Blevins’ A History of the Ozarks, Vol. 1 The Old Ozarks

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Sep 012018
 

The ability to integrate anecdotes into concepts isn’t universal among novelists, much less historians. Even rarer is the talent for melding personal observations with academic studies. Brooks Blevins is a writer with both these gifts. This first installment of a trilogy on the Ozarks sets a new standard for the region’s history. Provocatively, he challenges the long-held idea that the Ozarks is an “arrested frontier,” but doesn’t yield to the temptation of revisionists to dismiss all earlier thinking on the subject.  Inappropriately applied concepts are part of our human past.

The seeds of Ozark primitivism came from beyond its borders. Some Ozarkers even watered this weed. They did so for complicated reasons—not the least of which was their inability to devise an original, more realistic narrative to explain their sometimes-difficult existence in a place with negligible political power and an original economy based on small-scale agriculture and extractive industries. Lack of originality in matters of identity creation—either individually or collectively, isn’t unique. It’s unlikely by this late date these deep, romantic roots can be ripped out. Occasional pruning is in order and Dr. Blevins has sharp shears.

A History of the Ozarks, Vol. 1: The Old Ozarks is available at Barnes & Noble in Springfield, and on amazon.com in hardcover ($31.45) and in Kindle editions ($14.95)

 

  • ISBN-10: 0252041917
  • ISBN-13: 978-0252041914

 

What lies beneath…

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Aug 292018
 

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.

Virgin Bluff Dam-That-Never-Was

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Aug 092018
 

Real photo postcard by George Hall circa 1915. Virgin Bluff was a landmark on the Galena to Branson float. While tame compared to the shoals of the upper reaches of some Ozark rivers, the rapids just before the big bluff were sporty for the James.

While working on our last book, James Fork of the White, we encountered mentions of Virgin Bluff and a crazy scheme to drill a hole through it to connect with the James River miles downstream to generate hydroelectric power. The wild scheme envisioned by William Henry Standish (a.k.a. General Standish) about 1908 was to build a dam to back up the James and drill a tunnel from the bluff, through the hills to come out 30+ miles downstream. The river’s water coursing through that tunnel (rather than along what would become miles of dried-up riverbed) would turn generators to produce electricity to power Springfield. Stories of Standish’s fundraising and project development made local newspapers. He sought and found local investors, started preliminary work and pushed bills through Congress (despite President Teddy Roosevelt’s veto of one) in pursuit of wealth and fame.

Hustle as he did, however, the project was not to be. A short notice in a June 19, 1913 Ste. Genevieve paper is the only mention we found of this bizarre undertaking’s collapse:

Ozark Dam Site Changed. Springfield. – The Virgin Bluff Project involving the erection of a dam across James river and the digging of a tunnel which would shorten the course of the river nearly 30 miles has been temporarily abandoned, pending the possible obtaining of legislative authority to construct a dam near Hollister.

Early talk of a big dam above Taneycomo—the project that became Table Rock a half century later–finished off the troubled and underfinanced Virgin Bluff tunnel dam.

A more detailed account is included in James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River.

James Fork of the White is available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

The Language of Trees – Steve Wiegenstein’s compelling new novel

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Jul 292018
 

The Language of Trees is the third in Steve Weigenstein’s historical novel trilogy about the people, the ideals and the realities of the democratic community of Daybreak, Missouri, before, during and after the Civil War. Readers who have followed Charlotte Turner and others through settlement, war, bushwhackers, love and loss will find this new ‘chapter’ in the saga a lively and rewarding read.

Each chapter is written in the voice of one of the main characters, but these are not jump cuts. They flow evenly through the narrative, bending to each point of view, but following the arc of the story. Minor characters are woven through the events and actions of the main characters. Even Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s 1821 Journal of a Tour to the Interior of Arkansas and Missouri (a familiar work to Ozarks historians) is  a minor player, setting a tone and serving as the gateway for one ‘outsider’ to find his way into the heart of Daybreak. Historical in its setting, the narrative deals with universal passions (greed, lust, regret) and contemporary challenges (exploitation of resources, power grabs and callous ambitions).

Wiegenstein captures the changes in outlook brought on by age, loss, experience and the implacable intransigence of human character that, more than any political or ideological conflict, affected the survival of such communities across time and country. Charlotte Tuner, one of the “originals,” and Josephine Mercadier, of the second Daybreak generation, two strong and principled women, drive the narrative just as they shape and knit together the community of Daybreak.

Wiegenstein’s focus on utopian societies is itself intriguing. In the nineteenth century, many groups came together based on practical, ideological, political, religious or common cultural ties, seeing in the New World landscape a tabula rasa on which to write their own mission and goals. In that context success or failure might hinge on personal or group weaknesses and strengths as much as their inherent friction with old ways or the weaknesses of human character. Might. But those frailties and hard rock traditions broke or significantly modified most dreams.

Wiegenstein’s skill in weaving a story fraught with passion, greed, ambition and idealism pulls the reader into the narrative. Learning that comes with age, pain, joy and experience both frees and surprises reader and characters alike. One comes away from The Language of Trees with a sense that Charlotte, Newton, Josephine and J.M. (John Malcolm – although he didn’t claim his given names) Bridges would carry on. The community might even survive… at least the reader can hope there is still more to the story.

The Language of Trees was published by Blank Slate Press in St. Louis. It is available on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble and independent publishers.

James River’s Virgin Bluff and our Lover’s Leap Legends project

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Jul 182018
 

Our new project, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Te of Waco, may not seem on the surface to be a logical offshoot of past projects—but in fact it is. Inspiration from our hero, Mark Twain, and finding in each of our river books their own #Lover’sLeap legends and locations pulled us logically to this new subject.

Real photo postcard by George Hall circa 1915. Virgin Bluff was a landmark on the Galena to Branson float. While tame compared to the shoals of the upper reaches of some Ozark rivers, the rapids just before the big bluff were sporty for the James.

Research on the James Fork of the White brought us to #VirginBluff, a spectacular, sheer rock face on the James, that was a landmark on the Galena-to-Branson float. Johnboats floated through a long, deep, fish-filled pool along its face, then the current pulled the boats into the sporty Virgin Shoals.

This bluff came with its own Lover’s Leap legend – or so we were told. Moon Song, the lovely daughter of an Indian chief, threw herself from this imposing cliff when her father threatened to kill the handsome, gold-seeking Spanish soldier she loved. Angry and heartbroken, her father ordered the medicine man to place a curse on the tragic place. Moon Song’s anguished cries can yet be heard on dark nights, some say. Before the lake the shoals below claimed the lives of several floaters.

The Virgin Bluff dam-that-never-was may have been victim to the medicine man’s curse. William Henry Standish envisioned a dam on the river and a tunnel through the hills from the bluff to shoot the pooled water on a 40-foot drop over several miles to hit turbines to spin generators to create electricity for Springfield. This crazy scheme would have dried up 30+ miles of the river.

A November 23, 1958 Springfield News-Leader feature, “The Indian Curse That Killed Dam Project,” by Gerald H. Pipes, is a rare remembrance of Standish’s plan. Pipes did acknowledge the adverse financial climate of the times (just before World War I), but speculated the abandonment of Virgin Bluff dam might have been due to workplace accidents related to the Indian legend:

Today the lonely “cries” of Moon Song may still be heard along the bluffs, but the dangerous shoals will soon be gone, for they will become a part of mammoth Table Rock Lake. The waters will climb over and hide the Indian maiden’s grave and the scars left by the dam-builders. But will they erase the curse placed on the bluff by Moon-Song’s chieftain father? Only time will tell.

James Fork of the White, page 275

Today, the bluff rises above the flat waters of #TableRock Reservoir. A fall from this bluff is still dangerous; the view from its heights has changed considerably. The legend lingers in the name, Virgin Bluff, and a small winery on the bluff once produced several varieties including Moon Song Blush, Virgin Bluff Red, and Virgin Bluff White.

James Fork of the White and all our books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

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