LOST HAMLETS OF THE OZARKS PRESERVED ON REAL PHOTO POSTCARDS

 Beautiful Ozarks, See The Ozarks, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Mar 052025
 

The great spring that significantly increases the flow of the Niangua River attracted homesteaders in the 1830s. James and Ann Brice arrived from Illinois and purchased 400 acres and in 1837 constructed a watermill. Other pioneers settled nearby, and a community called Brice was created.

Another millwright, Peter Bennett, built a competing mill at the confluence of the spring branch and the Niangua. Somehow, Bennett’s name became attached to the spring which was then called Brice. Today, the Brice name is known only to historians and preserved in vintage photographs. The only relic of that early settlement is a frame church, which was protectively clad in stone in the 1950s.

Recreationalists have found the setting alluring since before the Civil War. In 1900 the Missouri Fish Commission released 40,000 mountain trout into the branch. Bennett Spring State Park became one of Missouri’s earliest state parks, when the spring and some surrounding land were purchased by the state for that purpose in 1924. Though evidence of its earliest settlement is scant, the park has numerous Arts and Crafts style stone structures, and several handsome bridges built during the Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).

Twelve miles of hiking trails wind through the wild and rugged surrounding terrain. A hatchery raises both brown and rainbow trout for release. The dawn of opening day of trout season attracts hundreds of anglers, including, often, the current governor. It’s a Missouri tradition. It’s also a spectacle, covered extensively by media.

Vintage Images are provided by Leland and Crystal Payton at Lens & Pen Press, publishers of all-color books on the Ozarks. “See the Ozarks: The Touristic Image” showcases many of the primary tourist destinations across the Ozarks. It is available for $22.50 (10% off retail), postage paid.

Indian Creek McDonald County – timeless

 Lens & Pen Press, See The Ozarks  No Responses »
Oct 292024
 

                                         Real photo postcard: Indian Creek Scouts, Anderson, MO. September 4, 1913

“Shall we gather at the river? The beautiful, the beautiful river?” Familiar lyrics bring images such as this to mind. Since before photography people have gathered at the river to play, to relax, to share momentous events and ceremonies like baptizings.

Indian Creek flows from the north into the Elk River in McDonald County. The clear, spring-fed streams of the Ozarks have always attracted folks for recreation. As this photo attests, Indian Creek outside Anderson has long been a magnet for summer recreation – fishing, swimming, boating, for generations. Today, it still attracts recreationists. Indian Creek is noted for spring floats especially, with 25 miles of a good, steady, fast run through relatively undisturbed countryside, despite its proximity to development. The Conservation Department has developed an access point to Indian Creek right in Anderson. The Dabbs Greer Town Hole Park and Access is in Anderson on Main Street next to the Post Office.

Describing a pleasant day’s float, the NW Arkansas Democrat Gazette (July 25, 2013) waxed eloquent:  “…Indian Creek, an Ozark waterway that is truly a stream of dreams.” –

This and many other vintage images of Ozarks recreation and activities are now in the collection of the Ozarks Studies Institute at MSU.

The Payton’s book on early tourism and recreation in our region, See The Ozarks: The Touristic Image, is now available on the website at www.dammingtheosage.com for $22.50 (10% off retail price of $24.95), postage paid.

Meramec Cave – early tourism

 Damming the Osage, Lens & Pen Press  No Responses »
Oct 012024
 

              Real photo postcard. Entrance to Meramec Cave in Stanton, Missouri. Probably 1930s

Caves have been inhabited and served as the stage for mythological tales in most cultures, past and present. Indigenous peoples used Missouri’s numerous caves for shelter long before Europeans arrived. For a century and a half after that, it was mined for saltpeter (potassium nitrate, which is used in the manufacture of fireworks, fluxes, gunpowder, etc.), and was even named “Saltpeter Cave.” By the time this photo was taken Meramec Cave had a well-known history.

After the Civil War, local residents found more genial uses for the cavernous space like celebrations, music events, and “cave parties.” In 1933, Lester Dill bought the cave and turned his marketing talents to its promotion. His billboards still dot our highways. But more significant to the evolution of tourism, Les is credited with the invention of the bumper sticker. While visitors toured the cave, Dill sent “bumper sign boys” into the parking lot to tie (no stick-‘em or glue those days) Meramec Caverns bumper signs on their cars. He got free advertising; visitors had another souvenir.

The Corps of Engineers had ambitious plans for the Meramec River and its surrounding landscape:

“A fifty-one-page booklet published in 1966 by the University of Missouri Extension Division summarized the master plan the Corps and other state and federal groups had to take over the entire Meramec basin.

In 1949, they undertook an ambitious planning process to build three reservoirs in the Meramec basin. They invited fourteen other state and federal agencies to participate in a grandiose improve­ment scheme. By 1965, they proposed thirty-one reservoirs, small, medium, and large, that would transform the region into a land of lakes and a motorboat paradise.”

Lawsuits were filed. The public was alerted:

“Don Rembach and Roger Pryor and other cavers and geologists brought out the fact the dam was not only built on a fault, it was in such a karst area it might not hold water. Mr. St. Louis Zoo and national TV star, Marlon Perkins, made a short film of floating the beautiful Meramec that was shown in movie theaters in St. Louis. Folk singer Tom Shipley wrote a protest song:

Well the generals laugh and the generals gloat /
but the people of Missouri, well they never got a vote /
they’re putting up a dam and we’re putting up a fight /
on the banks of the Meramec.”

Quoted from Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir.

The original postcard is now in the Payton Ozarks Collection of the Ozarks Studies Institute at Missouri State University.

Early Branding of the Ozarks – salubrious climate and agricultural opportunities, lures settlers

 Beautiful Ozarks, See The Ozarks  No Responses »
Sep 102024
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway brochure advertises Resorts and Attractions of the Southwest. Circa 1910.

This brochure is part of the Payton Ozarks Collection now housed in the Ozarks Studies Institute at Missouri State University

 

Railroads were built to facilitate timbering and mining. The Iron Mountain Railway was an American railway company that operated from 1856 until 1917 when it was merged into the Missouri Pacific Railroad. The Iron Mountain was initially established to deliver iron ore from Iron Mountain to St. Louis. American railroads ran on oak ties harvested from Ozark forests. Tie hacking was a major source of cash for struggling farmers.

Railroads also helped real estate sales, agricultural interests, and tourism. Their tourist promotions were lavish, full-color booklets promoting the salubrious climate, scenic beauty, and recreational opportunities of the region. Promotions often focused on economic opportunities for small farmers, with emphasis on specialty crops like apples, strawberries, and tomatoes.

Many progressive agriculturalists (including Laura and Almanzo Wilder) were “lured to the Ozarks by such promotions by railroad companies trying to sell parcels of the vast lands they had been given by the government as encouragement to invest in westward expansion.” (See the Ozarks: The Touristic Image, in the chapter “Opportunities in the Ozarks.”)

Laura’s bestselling series of “Little House books” included one on Almanzo’s childhood farming experiences, Farmer Boy. Attracted by railroad promotional material, they bought a farm in Mansfield they named Rocky Ridge (an appropriate moniker for an Ozarks farm). There they planted vegetable gardens and fruit trees and raised their daughter, Rose.  And there Laura Ingalls Wilder began to write of her pioneer childhood.

See The Ozarks: The Touristic Image is now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for $22.50 (10% off retail price of $24.95), postage paid.

“A Native Hunter”

 Beautiful Ozarks, See The Ozarks  No Responses »
Aug 272024
 

Circa 1910 postcard, captioned “A Native Hunter, Eureka Springs, Ark.”

Eureka Springs’ main tourist attraction was “taking the spring waters” which were thought to have medicinal value. Luxury accommodations were available and attracted upscale tourists to “The City that Water Built” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There was a Eureka Springs Gun Club and although local boosters didn’t promote hunting and fishing the mythic hillfolk were acknowledged as this postcard shows.

Probably there was more participation by the affluent visitors in horseback riding than hunting: “Large parties would ride far out into the country, have a prepared picnic lunch, and return to an evening of concerts, dancing, and in some cases, making the acquaintance of a member of the opposite sex of suitable social standing.”  (See the Ozarks: The Touristic Image. Lens & Pen Press.)  Local hunters likely did not return to “evenings of concerts, dancing” and flirting.

Missouri came by its moniker, The Cave State, honestly as many areas of the state are underlain by soluble carbonate bedrock, such as limestone or dolomite, that can be easily dissolved by water – a karst landscape. This creates the features we’re all familiar with—caves, springs, and streams that can ‘sink’ into the ground and resurface in another place.

See The Ozarks: The Touristic Image is available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for $22.50 (10% off retail price of $24.95), postage paid.

 

“Taking his medicine”

 Beautiful Ozarks, See The Ozarks  No Responses »
Aug 092024
 

Real photo postcard, circa 1920. “Taking his medicine in the Ozarks, Anderson Missouri.” Note the long gun on the ground by his feet. This hunter was thirsty!

The spring-fed creeks and  of the Ozarks were promoted in tourism literature from the beginning. Claims were made that additional benefits came from bathing and drinking from the pure waters flowing throughout the region. These met with less success than the promotions of Eureka Springs, which had extensive infrastructure to accommodate upper middle-class travelers. Even when there was widespread faith in the healing properties of spring water, Eureka’s gracious accommodations, fine food, shopping, and sightseeing edged out other health resorts at Heber Springs and Sulfur Springs, Arkansas and DeSoto, Missouri.

There were claims, as this postcard shows, that you could quench your thirst drinking from a surface stream. Even back then, we suspect that was not always a good idea. Ozarks creeks and rivers were clear and relatively unpolluted, and promotion of river fishing was justified, but drinking directly from a stream would have been perilous.

Image courtesy of Lens & Pen Press. See The Ozarks: The Touristic Image, with an extensive section on Eureka Springs, is now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for $22.50 (10% off retail price of $24.95), postage paid.

PEARL SPURLOCK, the Tourist’s Friend

 Beautiful Ozarks, Lens & Pen Press, See The Ozarks  No Responses »
Jun 202024
 

Pearl Spurlock, tourist guide and raconteur extraordinaire of the early Shepherd of the Hills days in Branson. “Sparky” was such a legend herself; we used this photograph as a full page illustration in See The Ozarks

Pearl Spurlock became as well known as the characters and locations of Harold Bell Wright’s best-selling 1906 novel, The Shepherd of the Hills. As ‘furners’ traveled to Branson to pay homage to the events and people of the novel, most were treated to the knowledgeable services of “Sparky” – early on by horseback, and later in her car. As they bumped over the rocky hills to Sammy Lane’s Lookout and Uncle Ike’s Post Office, Pearl “not only tells the story in a beautiful and impressive manner, but feels it, … and you feel it must be the first time (she has given it) … It has grown sweeter to her each time it is told.” (Harrison County Times, Bethany, Missouri, Nov. 1, 1934.)

Mary Elizabeth Mahnkey, poet of the hills, even penned a tribute to Pearl:

Velvet fingers, but grip of steel,

Eyes on the road, hands on the wheel,

A flashing smile and a kindly hail,

For passing friends on the shining trail;

 

And a fine, sure knowledge of hill and wood,

With legend, tradition, bad or good.

And Pearl Spurlock floats along

With her big car singing its steady song.

 

And yet, I wonder if sometime she

Dreams a dream of the used to be?

When a good horse answered her girlish skill

In a glorious gallop o’er vale and hill,

 

When the summer days passed gay and sweet,

On the little bay mare with dancing feet.

Today the same strong love abides

For her still streams, her mountain sides,

And that is why they all depend

On dear Pearl Spurlock—the tourist’s friend.

The article noted that Pearl was a Harrison County local, as her family was from there, well outside the territory of the Shepherd of the Hills.

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See The Ozarks: The Touristic Image is available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for $22.50 (10% off retail price of $24.95), postage paid.

 

Ozark Chair Shop, Beaver Dam.

 James Fork of the White, Lens & Pen Press  No Responses »
Jun 112024
 

Ozark Chair Shop, Beaver Dam.  Real photo postcard.

Although this was called Ozark Chair Shop, for the passing tourist what caught the eye were the colorful drip-glaze pots in many sizes that filled the shelves and yard. Nut head dolls, cedar boxes and wood carvings were more locally made souvenirs sold along the highways.

“You may also see many small jars in a very attractive variety of colors to please the many tourists who stop there. This craft is known as Como-Craft as originated by Harold Horine,” Pearl Spurlock, explained to her passenger.  Her knowledgeable patter informed and entertained many early visitors to the Shepherd of the Hills country. (quoted in See the Ozarks: The Touristic Image).

Beaver Dam on the White River in Arkansas was authorized by the same legislation that authorized Table Rock Dam near Branson. The Army Corps of Engineers webpage for the dam and reservoir notes: Construction began in 1960 and was completed in 1966. Total cost was $6,200,000. James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River has extensive coverage of Table Rock Dam’s history, controversies, and major milestones.

James Fork of the White is now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for $31.50 (10% off retail price of $35), postage paid.

COON RIDGE NOVELTY SHOP

 Beautiful Ozarks, See The Ozarks, Uncategorized  No Responses »
May 302024
 

 

The caption of this real photo postcard reads: “Rube St. Clair, Champion Basket Maker of the Ozarks, Coon Ridge Novelty Shop, Ozark Route US 65 … Reeds Spring, Mo.  Con Jock Studio.” This is a sharp, well-fixed image from a photographer/studio we have not encountered before. Unfortunately, a search of newspapers.com did not pull up any ads for the “Con Jock Studio.”

Distinctive souvenirs were produced in the Shepherd of the Hills Country and sold at roadside curio and gift shops like Coon Ridge Novelty Shop in Reeds Springs. This shop was owned by John and Mrs. Wallace. She was a teacher at the Crane school.

The shops were stocked with locally made baskets, wood carvings, wares made of cedar, Harold Horine’s colorful drip-glaze concrete pots, and chenille spreads brought in from the southeastern United States. Some of those once-inexpensive souvenirs now fetch many times their original price.

“You will see the natives all along the highways weaving baskets. This is a very pleasant as well as profitable work, as they sell enough to the tourists, or ‘furners’ as they say, to help them live a ‘right smart while.’ The baskets are made in various shapes and sizes, and mostly of white oak.” Pearl Spurlock, legendary taxi driver, tour guide, and raconteur of the Shepherd of the Hills Country, quoted in See the Ozarks: The Touristic Image.

This image and many others are now in the Payton Collection of Ozarks Memorabilia at the Missouri State University Libraries-Ozarks Studies Institute.

 

Lens & Pen Press books are on sale on our website, postage paid.   See the Ozarks is now priced at $22.50, ppd.

 

Scenes along the Mississippi 1848 and 2017

 Irish Wilderness, Lens & Pen Press, On the Mission and Fifty Years Ago, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jan 272024
 

Hogan describes the scenery along the river as the tug pulls the clipper ship slowly toward New Orleans, 107 miles distant.

Once I looked out over the ship’s bulwarks and saw we were between what seemed to be two long, low earth-mounds, one on either side of the river; there was a bend in the river at the place. These mounds, on which there were trees and houses and gardens and people, were the first patches of elevated grounds that I saw since the tug took us in tow. I was told they were fortifications or land batteries, Fort St. Philip and Fort Jackson by name, guarding the approach to New Orleans from invasion by sea.

At the end of our day of exploring Passe a Loutre we took time to ride and walk through the remains of the two forts Hogan mentions.

Fort St. Philip on the eastern bank of the Mississippi, is only accessible by boat or helicopter. Despite its deteriorating condition, it was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1960. “The earthen works fort was established in the 18th century. Fort St. Philip’s major engagements were 10-day naval sieges during the War of 1812 and American Civil War. The site is privately owned and deteriorating. Recent hurricanes like Katrina have added to the damage.” (Wikipedia)

Fort St. Philip is accessible by boat or helicopter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fort Jackson (below) on the west bank, is a historic masonry fort, constructed as a coastal defense of New Orleans, between 1822 and 1832, and it was a battle site during the Civil War. It is now a National Historic Landmark. It was damaged by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and its condition is threatened

Since 1970, The grounds of Fort Jackson have been the site of both the Plaquemines Parish Fair and Orange Festival. The fort was used to treat oily birds in the early weeks of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

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Bishop Hogan recounted his childhood memories and his voyage to America and to the priesthood in Fifty Years Ago: A Memoir, written in 1898 and published in 1907. His second memoir covered his early missionary years on the Missouri frontier, to his consecration as bishop of St. Joseph in 1868.  Our companion volume to Mystery of the Irish Wilderness contains both those memoirs plus additional biographical information I was able to learn from the archives of both the Kansas City-St. Joseph and St. Louis dioceses.

On the Mission in Missouri and Fifty Years Ago: A Memoir is available on our website for 10% off ($22.50), postage paid at www.beautifulozarks.com    Companion volume, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness: Land and Legend of Father John Joseph Hogan’s Lost Irish Colony in the Ozark Wilderness, is also available for $17.00, postpaid.

 

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