1931 issue of Where to go in the Ozarks by Keith McCanse, subtitled “The Book of the Ozarks.” 138 pages chock full of ads. Includes establishments on the new Lake of the Ozarks. Also includes excellent maps. “Outside the realm of ordinary vacation literature, this publication … serves you with actual, definite facts without exaggeration.”
Keith McCanse’s Scotch-Irish family settled in the Ozarks in the 1840s. His father, George, co-founded a bank and was a true believer in Republican politics. He took his son numerous times on the legendary Galena-to-Branson float trip.
After a stint as a stockbroker in Kansas City, Keith moved his family to Taney County due to touchy health issues. He fished and hunted and became active in organizations like the Isaac Walton League dedicated to the preservation of natural resources. In 1921 he became a game warden and gave talks on the value of protecting wildlife. In 1925, Governor Sam A. Baker appointed him commissioner of Missouri’s Game and Fish Department.
Having expertise in accounting and banking he remade the department, appointing more than 100 deputies, and producing movies and appearing on radio advancing the “gospel of conservation.” McCanse transformed the good-ole-boy political sinecure into a meritocracy, staffed by trained biologists. He increased revenue, grew the state park system from four to fourteen, and fish hatcheries from two to seven. Missouri Game & Fish News was expanded and improved. It became the template for the exemplary Missouri Conservationist magazine.
In 1929, lured by an offer that doubled his salary, he took a job with KMDX, St. Louis. He promoted tourism for the Ozarks, linking it to valuing the native landscape and its fauna. He worked with the Ozark Playgrounds Association and began producing a similar travel guide to theirs listing more than 1,000 places to “fish, camp, tour, play, and rest.” The guides cost fifty cents. Even with the support of the Sinclair Automobile Service Corporation and ads from every resort, town, and village in the region or near to it, given the work involved, Where to Go in the Ozarks probably wasn’t profitable.
Like many, McCanse invested in land near Sunrise Beach on the shores of the new Lake of the Ozarks. The crash of 1929 and the Depression caused the tourism industry to go flat for more than a decade.
Keith McCanse ran unsuccessfully for Lieutenant Governor in 1932. He moved to Texas soon after and became involved in real estate promotion and Republican politics. We don’t know the extent of his involvement with conservation after he left Missouri. His role in the creation of a natural image of the Ozarks was significant. He died in 1964.
Vintage Images is a column we provide to River Hills Traveler, a monthly publication. Lens & Pen Press publishes all-color books on the Ozarks. Our book, “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. Click on Buy our Books
