May 132016
 

Entitled “Trout Glen” and written in red ink “Ha ha ton ka,”  this real photo postcard was published by Jas. Bruin, Linn Creek, MO. Unsent.

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Before Bagnell Dam, this spring outlet fed into the Niangua River. Springs throughout the Ozarks were stocked with several varieties of trout beginning in the late 1800s. Trout and even salmon were also dumped into streams that were too warm for their survival. Rainbows from the McCloud River in California proved to be the hardiest. In very few of these environments will they reproduce.

Robert McClure Snyder put in a small dam and a mill on this spring branch, creating a cool pool for trout. The pond was swamped by the warm muddy waters of the Osage as it backed up and spread out when Bagnell Dam closed. The loss of the trout pond was one justification for the Snyder family’s lawsuit against Union Electric.

The millstone is embedded in the concrete today as a decorative element along the path.

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Mar 182016
 

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Real photo postcard, published by G. A. Moulder, Linn Creek, MO. Unsent. “Hahatonka, MO” pencilled on back.

We’ve gone back and forth on whether these are ruins or some natural rock formations. Obviously, the castle didn’t burn until much later than when this card was published, which we estimate to be the 19-teens or ‘20s. Does anybody know what this represents?

The Moulder family was  prominent in Linn Creek. While I haven’t precisely identified G.A. Moulder, his family had been in Camden County for decades before this photo was published. Morgan M. Moulder was the prosecuting attorney for Camden County when the dam on the Osage was under construction. He, with other town leaders, tried to stop the dam that would drown their community. The family also owned a hotel in town that, ironically, hosted corporate representatives who came to oversee construction. I

In Nellie Moulder’s memoirs of the town before the dam, she  recalled: “jovial Fred Moulder, who loved children, chipping and sharing slivers of ice to waiting children as he came to the ice house for needed ice in in his meat counter display.” (page 106, Damming the Osage)

Mar 132016
 

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Real photo postcard. No publisher.

“Dr. Moore L. C. Mo.” is written in red ink. L.C. is Linn Creek Unsent. Penciled on back, “Linn Creek, Mo.” There appear to be some political advertisements pasted in the window. Shows a horse-drawn carriage, sans horses, and a farm wagon hitched to two mules.

Someone really wanted others to know that this scene was in Linn Creek. It says so on the back and twice on the front.  Linn Creek, the seat of Camden County, in spite of being subject to periodic inundation was a thriving little burg before Bagnell Dam. Linn Creek and Tuscumbia were the last towns to have regular steamboat service on the Osage.

Does someone know who Dr. Moore was?

 

 

Mar 092016
 

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Real photo postcard published by Jas. Bruin Linn Creek, Mo. This card was never mailed but has a penciled message on the back from Georgia Heaton to Merton Heaton: “This is your little Fluzzy in the hack for a ride. The mules & hack belong to J Bruin the photographer. The one on the left mule yst (sic – used) to be our’s but we sold it to Bruin quite a while. This is by the yard gate.”

Mar 042016
 

sc416The wild scenery at Ha Ha Tonka was appreciated by our ancestors. The walls of the collapsed cavern defied development so they look pretty much today like they did a hundred years ago. The story is (and it’s on most websites about Ha Ha Tonka) that a ring of counterfeiters operated out of this region in the 1830s. We don’t know if they used the cave or not but the name has been affixed to this cave, which is currently off limits at Ha Ha Tonka State Park.

A Chicago Sunday Tribune, April 22, 1956, article about Ha Ha Tonka, “Rainbow Trout Brought a Castle to the Ozark Hills,” describes a driving getaway for Chicago readers at the then-relatively-new Lake of the Ozarks. About Counterfeiters’ Cave, writer Marge Lyon gives a few more details: “There a band of men had turned out excellent half dollars, quarters, and dimes until tracked down by one Augustus Jones, deputy sheriff, in 1834.”

In 1956, it cost a dollar to drive to the ruins and “see stones put together as neatly as books in a case, age-old wonders of nature that have remained unchanged despite dams, castles, hard roads, and all other human innovations that have been brought to this area.”

This is a real photo postcard, by Jas. Bruin, Linn Creek, Mo., postmarked Linn Creek, 1910. It was mailed to Georgia Heaton, Joplin, MO. The penciled writing on the correspondence side of the card is too light to read.

BTW – before the name Ha Ha Tonka, this area was called Gunter Spring, for John Gunter, an earlier landowner from Alabama. More on that later!

Oct 212014
 
BrownsFordBridge

(click photos to enlarge)

This “swinger” over the Osage at Brown’s Ford was built between 1912 and 1915 by E.A. Bledsoe and Ira Alspach, who also built the suspension bridge at Monegaw Springs.  (see earlier post here)

On June 21, 1940, the aging Brown’s Ford suspension bridge collapsed. The bridge went down as Mr. Bledsoe and others were working to repair it. E. A. Bledsoe, who had designed and built the structure almost 30 years before, died on his bridge.

On the back of press photo of the bridge wreckage is the brief account published in the “Times” (no other attribution) on June 22, 1940:

“Looking toward the east side of the Osage River, this picture shows the wreckage of the Brown Ford bridge, an old 1-way structure 6 miles east of Lowry City, Mo., after timbers under one of its suspension cables on the west band about 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon. Two workmen and a bystander were killed. Lloyd Allen Snyder, 8 years old was last seen in the center of the fallen structure and was believed to have drowned. Three workmen were injured critically. All were either on or near the cribbing when it slipped.”

744The St. Clair Democrat, June 27, 1940, carried on page 1 a much more detailed account of the event: TRAGIC ACCIDENT TAKES TOLL OF FIVE LIVES. The article identifies the others who died as two workers and two boys who had been watching them. More photos and comments are also posted on bridgehunter.com

ST. CLAIR COUNTY DEMOCRAT, Thursday, June 27, 1940

One of the most tragic accidents in the history of the county occurred Friday evening when the cribbing supporting one of the piers on the west end of the Brown’s Ford bridge collapsed causing the suspension cable to give way, taking the lives of five people, three men and two boys. Three others were injured.

The dead were E. A. Bledsoe, who had charge of the repairing of the bridge, Claude Terry, 45, a workman, Robert Shaw, 18, another workman, George T. Randall, 16, a bystander and Lloyd Allen Snyder, 12, who fell in the river when the bridge collapsed. The injured were Lowell Smith, in the Appleton City hospital whose condition is reported as still critical, Edy Snyder in the Clinton hospital where his condition appears to be somewhat improved and Wayne Snyder a bystander who suffered a broken arm.

745The cause of the collapse of the cribbing probably never will be known. It was one of those accidents that occur even when the best of care and precaution is taken. The heavy timber that had been used to build up around the old piers were strewn about like so many match sticks, and it was these timbers that caught the workmen with crushing force.

There is a report that someone heard something ‘pop’ and called Mr. Bledsoe’s attention to it. It is said that he climbed up on the cribbing to investigate. Just then the whole thing gave away. Mr. Bledsoe was crushed in the falling debris, and the fact his watch was stopped at 3:31 indicated that was the time when the accident occurred.

All of the dead and injured were recovered shortly after the accident and removed from the wreckage with the exception of young Lloyd Allen Snyder. His body was not recovered until Monday evening when Bert Milam of Warsaw discovered the body floating down the river along with lumber and wreckage from the bridge. The distance from the scene of the accident to the point where the body was found is estimated to be about sixty-five miles. Mr. Milam notified Benton county authorities and Prosecuting Attorney Frank Brady telephoned Sheriff R. Homer Gerster, who immediately sent O. S. Hull, Jr., to have the body identified and return it to Osceola.

The Brown’s Ford bridge was built about 25 years ago by Mr. Bledsoe and Ira Alspach. It is one of the quirks of fate that the bridge should claim the life of one of its builders while in the process of repairing the structure to strengthen it.

The old wooden piers that had been erected at the time the structure was built had become dangerous for traffic and it had been the plan to replace these piers with steel beams that would support the cables and the heavy weight of traffic upon the structure. For the past years the bridge had been condemned and not more than one car was allowed on the structure at a time, for fear that it might collapse.

The wooden cribbing was used around the old piers to enable the workmen to jack up the cables and get them slightly to one side, the after the wooden structures were removed the steel beam was inserted in place and the cable then lowered into position. It is believed that one of the jacks used in raising the cables had given away allowing the cable to fall back onto the cribbing before the workmen were ready to lower it into position. This threw the weight of the entire bridge structure suddenly upon the heavy timbers, around the piers and the cribbing crumbled under the impact.

What is to be done about the bridge is not yet known. The county court will hold its regular meeting next week, at which time, no doubt it will be determined what is to be done about the old structure and whether a new one will be erected to replace it or not.

A replacement suspension bridge was built. It was just as scary to drive over with the slats rattling under your tires, but it never fell in on its own. That bridge was replaced by a modern concrete and girder bridge when Truman Dam was built.

Oct 142014
 

“Escape the pressure of the city for a life at the Lake!” proclaims this late 1940s or early 1950s real estate brochure. 

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(click to enlarge)

Interior copy promises a private domain to armchair shoppers reading and dreaming from their harried homes in the big city.

See the Splendor of SHAWNEE BEND or HORSESHOE BEND

The magnificent 4500 acres of Shawnee Bend and the picturesque 5500 acre Horseshoe Bend are the finest acreage at the Lake of the Ozarks. The green hills are thick with oak, cedar and dogwood. Much of the land slopes gently to the shores of the lake … requiring little clearance and offering wonderful beaches. All sites have ample lake frontage with plenty of room for your own individual beach and dock space. This lake frontage belongs to the owner of the land. State approved water systems, electric power, and fine all-weather roads offer you all the conveniences of the city.

Promises made back then are still controversial today. Recently Ameren and Lake homeowners disagreed on who owns the land to the water’s edge.

The buy of the century! Does anyone know what happened to the business? It was not a fly-by-night outfit and continued well after Cyrus Willmore’s death in 1949. (more info on Cyrus Willmore and the lodge on page 127 of Damming the Osage)

We have a link to Willmore Lodge in our Resources menu.

 

 

Oct 072014
 

750“Swinging Bridge, Monegaw” (click to enlarge)

Incredible 6 x 8 cabinet photograph of the SUSPENSION BRIDGE AT MONEGAW SPRINGS.

Joe Dice wasn’t the only builder of suspension bridges in the Osage River valley. The plaque on this bridge reads: “19-Monegaw -13 Built by Bledsoe & Alspach”.

The wooden towers protected the connections of the suspension wires from weathering. A farmer in coveralls stands by bridge, as two guys in a horse-drawn wagon cross it. This “swinger” is numbered in the inventory of historic bridge on bridgehunter.com. In the comments you’ll find some personal recollections of the bridge. One brought up the Jesse James/Cole Younger gang. Another person remembered that his grandfather used to fish from the bridge and  “now all that is left is just the pillars of it.”

bridge1-Monegaw-LP photoThe suspension bridge at Monegaw is long gone, but the supporting  stone pilings  still stand on the banks of the Osage. … seen from Younger’s Bluff in morning light. (Leland Payton photograph – click to enlarge)

 

Sep 152014
 

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This hand tinted postcard from 1911 shows one of the small steamboats of the late era of commercial river travel. Published by James Bruin, Linn Creek, Mo.

While this is rather late in the history of commercial steamer traffic on the Osage, a boat’s arrival still generated much interest, as evidenced by the many folks along the riverbank and hanging on the boat itself.

Sent by “Charlotte” from Linn Creek in July, 1911, to Miss Nellie Nagle in Billings, Missouri. Her message: “… making a drive … Everything delightful.”

People seemed to like Old Linn Creek. The town was up the creek, not right on the river, but in easy walking distance. Infrequent floods happened only if the Osage River backed up significantly. Linn Creek actually had an Upper Town (away from the flood plain) and a Lower Town, around the boat landing on the river in a commercial area.

Aug 202014
 

Osage Delegation meets with Pres. Calvin Coolidge(click to enlarge)

Press Photo, 8 x 10, dated January 23, 1924 (by UNITED)

Official caption pasted on the back of photo:

RICHEST INDIANS GREET PRESIDENT.
The delegation of Osage Indians, in the Capital seeking additional allowances from their government held incomes from oil lands, call at the White House and pose with President Coolidge.

Unfortunately the caption does not identify any of the Osages in the photograph. We wonder if the man on the far left is not Chief Bacon Rind (see previous posts: http://www.dammingtheosage.com/osage-chief-bacon-rind/#comment-196 ). We welcome confirmation of that guess or any identification of others in the photo.

Money generated by the sales of drilling rights had made enrolled Osages “probably the wealthiest people on earth” (New York Times November 18, 1898). Since 1897, oil wells have been drilled in Osage County, Oklahoma. With extraordinary foresight, the tribe had reserved subsurface mineral rights even though the land had been allocated among the 2,229 enrolled Osages. . . . . By the 1920s, those Osages who owned headrights, or shares based on their or their ancestors’ listing on the official rolls of 1906 had become rich from oil revenues.” (page 280, Damming The Osage)

Note the peace medals the two Osage men wear. Genuine medals today are quite valuable, but there are a lot of copies. The otter skin ‘bandeaus’ they wear are characteristic Osage head wear.