“Staff” of Jim Owen’s Float Service

 Uncategorized  2 Responses »
Jul 112018
 

Owen and his band of guides, raconteurs and artist Steve Miller hang out in front of Owen’s Hillbilly Theater in downtown Branson.

Owen’s roster included many who had pioneered floating the James and White back in the days when city folks detrained at Galena. Few guides worked full time. Some continued to offer their services to Galena operators. The Branson businessman’s aggressive advertising reeled in the most clients and in the twenty-six years he packaged trips he would use almost every river man at one time or another. Jim Owen became an institution, but some of his guides had reputations for their fishing acumen, campfire cooking skills, or country wit. A jokester himself, Owen encouraged colorful rustic behavior that fulfilled visitors’ expectations of being escorted downstream by a tractable variety of hillbilly.

James Fork of the White (p. 235)

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

BURIED BY TABLE ROCK – fascinating reveal of life before the lake

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jul 022018
 

Most often reviews of books are done when the book is first published. So this review of Buried by Table Rock: Tales, anecdotes and facts about everything covered by the lake is late in coming, although Koob has recently published a revised edition. However, we discovered this small volume as we researched James Fork of the White, and it has been more than useful. It is a modestly published book, but an invaluable resource.

Tom Koob dug into newspapers, government records and—most importantly—he talked with the people, drove the roads, climbed the remaining hills, found the remnants of summer camps along the river. He gathered rare images to illustrate both past and present reality. He scanned the flat waters covering a once-peopled landscape and searched out the families and towns that once occupied it. River guides, mill families, and farmers recalled life with a river that gave them recreation, transportation, danger and sustenance. Nostalgic memories are tinged with regret at the loss of their river.

He identifies the visible remnants of places he describes in the text:

“Two small islands can be seen to the north from the Long Creek Bridge. The larger island is the top of Goat Hill, the site of the small town of Oasis. The smaller island, where a handful of trees cling tenaciously, is the peak of the slope that rose behind the town.”

Our own environments have become more homogeneous. We have Homeowners Association suburbs with architectural and landscaping covenants; uniformity of fashion in national chain department store shopping centers; even local government policies aspiring to emulate those of major urban centers—sameness creeps over daily life and we hardly notice. But the lives and landscape Koob describes are regionally specific and adapted to Ozarks geography. As he said so clearly:

I have come to realize though, that the real story is something else. It is the story of a rugged land and rugged people. It is a tale of a somewhat isolated culture thrust into a modern world not necessarily of its own choosing.

The final pages have photos of the rising waters covering landmarks in the White River basin—Stallions Bluff, the Bridge at Mash Hollow at Cape Fair, and the James River Bridge at Cape Fair.

Those who read Tom Koob’s book will never look at Table Rock Reservoir the same way again.

You can find Tom Koob on Facebook  His newest book is a historical novel, Virgin Bluff. He has just published a revised edition of Buried by Table Rock. His books (The History of Fishing Table Rock; Buried by Table Rock; and Enon to Radium Springs) are available on Amazon Kindle

Women Anglers’ Evening Campfire on Owen’s Famous James River Float Trip

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jun 092018
 

Floating was never an exclusively male sport. Fishing may have been the justification for a five-day, four-night float on the James River, but the evening campfire was its own sensual experience – a time for the universal pleasures of freshly caught fried fish, tall tales, and leisurely conversations.

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

Why would a town up and move?

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jun 022018
 

A good question. One asked and answered in a recent article by The Buffalo Reflex – because of dams built on the rivers that created lakes that swallowed the townsite. It’s as simple and complex and painful to those forced to move as that.

View of Bagnell Dam under construction

This first installment tells the story of Linn Creek on the Osage River, which we covered extensively in Damming the Osage.

The next installment will cover the move of Forsyth from the mouth of Swan Creek on the White River to a high bluff above what became the upper reaches of Bull Shoals Reservoir.

On our Damming the Osage blog, we posted a number of entries on Linn Creek.  Here are just a few:

Steamboat’s A-comin’! The Ruth at Linn Creek

Old Linn Creek 1909 – before Bagnell Dam

Old Linn Creek – flooded by the Osage

Steamboat landing in Linn Creek, 1911

Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir is available on this website, amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

 

 

WORLD TURTLE DAY!! Let’s Shellebrate!

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
May 232018
 

Returning a road-rescue turtle to a more suitable habitat.

From Turtle Spirit Animal:

The American continent is referred to as “Turtle Island” in the Native American folklore. It is said that the Turtle carried the weight of the land of that continent on her back. This image is also present in Hindu and Chinese cultures, where the turtle is the animal carrying Mother Earth and holding the world in balance.

Having the turtle as totem means that you have an affinity with the ancient wisdom of the earth. You are naturally tuned into the elements, land, plants, people and animals. You carry your home on your back figuratively speaking and feel at ease wherever you are.

From Wikipedia:

Turtles are diapsids of the order Testudines (or Chelonii[3]) characterized by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs and acting as a shield.[4] “Turtle” may refer to the order as a whole (American English) or to fresh-water and sea-dwelling testudines (British English).[5] The order Testudines includes both extant (living) and extinct species. The earliest known members of this group date from 220 million years ago,[1][6] making turtles one of the oldest reptile groups and a more ancient group than snakes or crocodilians. Of the 356 known species[2] alive today, some are highly endangered.[2]

Find out more about the annual celebration of our hard shelled reptilian friends at the World Turtle Day Facebook page

They’re in the news too First Sea Turtle Nest of the Season found on World Turtle Day;

 

CLASSIC OZARK HICKORY BASKETS. Real Photo Postcard, circa 1915

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
May 162018
 

Basket-making was a pioneer necessity that became a commodity for early souvenir shops. This selection of handmade baskets of split hickory is not only beautifully made, the composition of the photograph and its technical qualities are excellent.

Ozark crafts had some reinforcement from benevolent institutions and government programs but it was much less and more sporadic than it was for Appalachian craft industries. The crafts business seems to have revolved more around roadside souvenir shops, with some encouragement from School of the Ozarks and later from WPA programs. Silver Dollar City was an early supporter of the original souvenir-shop products and provided an environment where people could see these and other traditional handmade items being made by local craftsmen. Handmade baskets are still produced but they join additional Arts & Crafts technologies like glassblowing, woodcarving and pottery making. An original Ozarks craft centered in Hollister was the making of concrete yard ornaments and flowerpots decorated with drip paint (“Ozark drip pottery”), a process invented by Harold Horine.

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

Hannibal Missouri’s Own Lover’s Leap – Road Trip No.1

 Uncategorized  2 Responses »
May 132018
 

With Mark Twain’s humorous comments on Lover’s Leaps up and down the Mississippi as inspiration, the destination for our first road trip on this project was his own jumping off place, Hannibal, Missouri.

March 25, 2017 was not an auspicious day to head out on a photographic safari. We left home in a chilly downpour, heading up I-44 before cutting northward diagonally through eastern Missouri to arrive at Hannibal in early afternoon. We took Market Street past closed or about-to-close businesses to downtown, then drove south on Main Street to Bluff Road below Lover’s Leap. Bluff Road parallels the Mississippi River on the flat floodplain where once was a busy railroad yard.

High above, the precipice jutted out toward the river over the slumped talus slopes.

The Midwest has a palette of grays and browns in the first overcast days of spring. This sometimes bleak appearing landscape has its advantages, however. Later in the spring, when the trees leaf out, many details of a vista are hidden until the seasonal cycle moves through and the leaves fall again. An overcast sky provides even light, no harsh shadows or stark contrast – like a great soft box in the sky.

 

We circled around the bluff and took the steep road up to Lover’s Leap, now a city park.  An additional perk comes with this new subject–generally speaking, these sites are located in very scenic if not spectacular natural settings.

 

Hannibal’s Lover’s Leap is notable for the distinct delineation of the strata of rock that compose it, as well as the sentimental story that gave it its name. The 46th Annual Meeting and Field Trip of the Association of Missouri Geologists was held at Hannibal, Missouri September 24-25, 1999. Lover’s Leap was visited and in their bulletin the group’s preference for hard mineralogical facts over softer romantic fables was apparent:

There are several versions of the legend of Lover’s Leap, but the view of the river and valley and exposed rock are the real attractions of Lover’s Leap. The exposure of strata seen from the base of the bluff shows the Devonian System Louisiana Limestone, and the Mississippian System type-section of the Hannibal Shale, the Dolbee Creek Limestone, a local division of the Burlington Limestone. The famous promontory is Burlington Limestone topped with Wisconsin-age loess.

Still overcast and gray, we didn’t anticipate finding other sightseers, but the vista entices visitors in all seasons.

The Hannibal Courier-Post Days Gone By column reprinted what is said to be the original lovers leap story, starting with a disclaimer: “Nearly every cliffed town, along nearly every river has a Lover’s Leap, and the legend behind the name of the high-topped bluff is nearly always the same. Hannibal is no exception.” Hannibal’s tale tells of a beautiful daughter of an Indian chief who loved a handsome warrior of an opposing tribe. Parental consent was not to be had.

James Fork of the White and all our books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. We’ll let you know when Lover’s Leap Legends is published

Thomasville, Missouri – then and now

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
May 092018
 

When John Joseph Hogan was looking for land for Irish immigrants in 1857, his second exploratory trip to the Ozarks took him from Shannon County as far west as Thomasville. He noted the “broad alluvial valley” spreading out around the headwaters of the Eleven Point River.

When Hogan and his friend Father Fox rode through tthis valley in 1857, it would have been planted in corn, not pasture grasses as it is today.

Just over a year ago, Thomasville was hit with the massive floods that affected the Irish Wilderness and much of the central Ozarks. Recovery is slow coming to the small town with a long history.  It was laid out in 1846 and named for George Thomas who settled there in 1817. Thomasville is the oldest settlement and first county seat of Oregon County.

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness is available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

Between Gravity and What Cheer – Review of Barry Phipps new book

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Apr 302018
 

Being a photographer who has burned several thousand rolls of film (and who knows how many megapixels) in remote and fading small towns in these center states, Leland ordered Barry Phipps book from amazon.com the day he found it. He wrote this review but amazon wouldn’t post it yet as the publication date is still a couple of weeks away.  He’s sharing his thoughts anyway!

Between Gravity and What Cheer is certainly a quirky name for a book. The images in this photo essay don’t betray that title. Apparently rural Iowa has become one big funky outsider art project. Does photographer Barry Phipps get a phone call when the inhabitants of these burgs have finished an installation of abandoned buildings, leftover signage, architectural details painted orange, the whole ironically juxtaposed? Does he then motor out and snap a picture? You’ve heard of “found art”—this is a collection of “found towns.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that—it’s all very, well, quirky. This obvious collaboration between Iowa villagers and the hip (former) big city photographer regrettably is not  acknowledged. Had the book credited all the small town folks though who have created these surreal tableaus it would have needed a couple of extra signatures.

It’s delightfully upbeat and pretty bold for a university press. I’ll be buying several for Christmas presents. This is a great gift to one’s urban acquaintances who scoff at the postmodern esthetic sensibilities of those of us who live out here in the cultural wasteland of the flat (once) tall grass prairie Middle West.

Between Gravity and What Cheer will be available … or is available now on amazon.com. Try your luck.  We ordered and received our copy, but they wouldn’t let Leland post his review yet as the publication date is May 15.

 

POWERSITE DAM and Lake Taneycomo

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Apr 252018
 

Powersite Dam went into service in 1913 on the White River near Forsyth, Missouri, the first hydroelectric dam in Missouri. Designed in 1911 by Nils F. Ambursen as the largest concrete buttress dam of its kind, the dam is still privately owned by the Empire District Electric Company.

Powersite was hardly a visual embodiment of modernism like the later high dams out West. It more resembled a big milldam. Its forebay was little more than a pool in the White River. As it was a run-of-the river dam, Lake Taneycomo’s shoreline fluctuated very little.

The narrow, twenty mile-long lake it created became regarded as part of nature, indistinguishable from the free-flowing river it replaced. A March 12, 1913 article in the Springfield Republican, “Lake Taneycomo Is Name Bestowed By Branson Club,” compared the lake to the more famous Lake Como in the Alps. The new lake “nestled among the bluffs of the beautiful Ozarks” was part of the White River, “which no more picturesque stream can be found.” The Branson Club created the name from Taney County Missouri.

Until Table Rock’s discharge of frigid water turned it into a trout environment, Taneycomo was popular with swimmers and bass fishermen. Rockaway Beach flourished as a summer resort from the 1920s through the ’50s, until Table Rock drastically changed the lake’s water temperature.

Some local promoters got it in their heads that the price of electricity near the plants would be so low that factories would automatically spring up. A headline in the Springfield Republican (November 18, 1911) proclaimed “Cotton Mills Will Come To White River: Dam Proposition Is to Furnish Power for Big Industries From New England.” None of this happened. Electric rates were not less close to the dam. Cotton production did not swell.

Adapted from 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.

 Older Entries  Newer Entries