Category Archives: Uncategorized

Cliff over Counterfeiters’ Cave at Ha Ha Tonka

The 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 … Continue reading

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FLOODING ON THE OSAGE – July 2015

Flooding along the Osage River has made news this week. #LakeoftheOzarks filled to over capacity with flood gates roaring. The swinging bridge in this video spans Greatglaize Creek near Brumley, in Miller County. Designed by Joe Dice in the first … Continue reading

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KANSAS CITY STAR – 53 years ago today – CORPS RECOMMENDS ADDING POWER GENERATION TO KAYSINGER BLUFF DAM

Twelve years after authorization of what was then called Kaysinger Dam, and a little more than two years before the actual groundbreaking commencement of construction, Army Corps of Engineers Lt. Gen. W. K. Wilson, Jr. recommended to the Secretary of … Continue reading

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DAMS and LOUIS EGAN ON HYPERCOMMON.COM

Lens & Pen has launched a new website (in addition to Dammingtheosage.com and our publishing site beautifulozarks.com). HYPERCOMMON.com will be a platform for a wide range of interests, encompassing our more than passing interest in pop culture. One of those … Continue reading

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A CREATIVE APPROACH TO DAM HISTORY

Pastoral and Monumental: Dam, Postcards, and the American Landscape is an original take on water resource development. Books on dams are usually politicized, often technical, and unnecessarily rhetorical. Rarely are discourses on river blockages as nuanced as Donald C. Jackson’s … Continue reading

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TWO LAKES – The Artificially Shallow and the Naturally Deep

July 20, 2014: The last Sunday in Colorado, we made a round trip drive along Trail Ridge Road from Estes Park to Grand Lake. Grand Lake – elevation 8,367 feet; formed by glaciation 30,000 years ago; estimated depth, 265 feet. … Continue reading

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Osceola residents were not universally in favor of Truman Dam… an Open Letter to the Corps of Engineers, 1997

Consequences (intended or not) and pernicious effects of Truman Dam and Reservoir for residents of the upper Osage River. We received a fat envelope in the mail a few weeks ago that included an “open letter to the Corps of … Continue reading

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Review of THE SCARS OF PROJECT 459: The Environmental Story of Lake of the Ozarks

Pollution at Lake of the Ozarks, complicated by denial and cover-ups Naturally environmentalists are more concerned about the degradation of rivers, especially if they cut through uninhabited, scenic country, than a reservoir whose shores are lined with condos and whose … Continue reading

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Chinese Paddlefish, Vanished Cousin of the American Paddlefish

As paddlefish snagging season nears its end in Missouri, we pay tribute to the its closest cousin, the Chinese paddlefish, (Psephurus gladius), which is likely now extinct. In the not-too-long-ago but far-away genre of story telling is the tale of … Continue reading

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The Peak that Pike didn’t summit

Recently I rode the Manitou and Pike’s Peak Cog Railway to the top of the mountain that Zebulon M. Pike didn’t summit on his 1806 expedition – although it bears his name. It was a chilly, overcast late winter/early spring … Continue reading

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