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Feb 132013
 

Bluffs on Osage

Real photo postcard, Osceola Missouri, 1913

The bluffs along the Osage may not have been as spectacular as the larger bluffs along New York’s Hudson, but they excited a similar esthetic appreciation in the writer of an 1888-something booklet extolling the unappreciated beauties of southwest Missouri:

How grand are thy works, O Master Divine! The Osage and the Sac Rivers vie with each other in their natural beauty. Here their river banks o’er hung with drooping elm or giant sycamore, there long reaches of pebbled, gravelly beach, on and further on great walls of rock and bluff stand boldly forth with the hoar of a thousand ages on their face, and check the waters of the ever flowing streams which bathe their rocky feet as if in conciliation and with peaceful curvette pass onward on the journey to the sea. . . .  A coming generation of scenic artists will find, that after the beautiful scenery of Colorado, Utah and the Sierras have been made familiar to the public, they can turn to the hitherto neglected scenery of the Osage and Sac rivers and find gems of surpassing beauty.

We noted that it sort of took, but the painters didn’t come. There was no Osage River Valley School of painting.


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Feb 062013
 

Mansion

Real photo postcard

Atop a small hill is a large frame house with an encircling porch (“veranda” they might have called it). In Kansas City or St. Louis, this would probably not have been considered a mansion, but in the more modest circumstances of Linn Creek, it was noteworthy and probably belonged to a doctor or banker or merchant. Linn Creek was the county seat of Camden County, a fairly stable community that was completely submerged by Lake of the Ozarks. The county seat was relocated to a newly created town called Camdenton. New Linn Creek is located farther up the creek and is today a smaller community.


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Jan 302013
 

Spring at Jerico

Real photo postcard by Suttle

This is an earlier version of the spring and basin (such as it is). Even in the early days, it didn’t pour forth a volume of water. Originally there was a sandstone or limestone rock wall, later surfaced by concrete, and a wooden bandstand between the spring and Main Street.  Today the wooden bandstand is gone. A stone bandstand, circa 1930, is now located on the other side of the spring.

Written on the back – “Dear grand son: Albert will send you a card of Jerico park.”

(Below) A recent photo of the spring site and park at Jerico Springs.

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Jan 232013
 

Foster Railroad Station

Cabinet card of Foster, Missouri, circa 1910

The watershed of the upper Osage/Marais des Cygnes, Little Osage and Marmaton rivers is more crisscrossed by railroads than that of the main Osage and contains a number of much-diminished towns like Foster.  Today, there is still a bandstand (but the band didn’t play on) and a post office (and with pending budget cuts this may soon vanish).

We spent a brief Sunday morning in Foster (Bates County) not long ago – capturing the photogenic, gradual decay and making friends with a black dog. (dog chasing shadow video) Even smart dogs never quite figure out shadows and reflections.


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Jan 162013
 

Decal Bagnell DamWater-based Decal, 1950s

Water dip decals are colorful cartoonish icons of vintage vacations. They decorated luggage and car windows, commemorating many a family vacation at Niagara Falls, a visit to a buffalo ranch, or Disneyland. Hobbyists have for generations used decals on car and airplane models.

Flanked by a couple of pink fish, this colorful unused decal is likely a souvenir of a weekend at The Lake. Popular imagery of Bagnell Dam rivaled pictorial representations of Boulder/Hoover Dam in both variety and abundance.

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Jan 092013
 

Real photo postcard, 1935-1945

Inscription on back reads – “We enjoyed a fine meal here today with Toots and Jack.”

Toots and Jack Stotler operated this thriving business from 1933 until selling to Buford and Anna May Foster in 1945. The Fosters changed the name to Night Hawk Café. A stunning large neon sign with a flying night hawk whose neon wings flapped hung over the sidewalk.  The parents of Leland Payton, senior author of Damming the Osage, went on dates to the Night Hawk, driving in from Versailles. Highway engineer Louis Payton rented a room in Versailles and met Ann Lewis Daniels at the Baptist Church.


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Jan 062013
 

726

Real Photo postcard, circa 1920

People have been taking pictures from the overlook on Highway 82 above the junction of the Sac and Osage rivers for a long time. Though the scenery along the Osage was not celebrated in oil paintings, locals have long appreciated its pastoral aspects and frequently photographed it.

 

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These photos were taken in March 2010

Dec 192012
 

8 x 10 press photo from Chicago.  4/21/41

The cutline reads: “BAGNELL, MO. – This bantam rooster, caught in the flood that has inundated several Ozark towns, found himself floating on a log down the Main Street of Bagnell, Mo., a new experience worth crowing about.”

Note that this flood happened ten years after Bagnell Dam closed off the Osage River creating Lake of the Ozarks. Note as well that the town of Bagnell is below the dam in what should have been a protected area. If the promised storage reserves are adequate, dams can help prevent downstream flooding. However, if the reservoirs are full and major rainfall or snowmelt occurs upstream (as happened on the  Missouri and Mississippi rivers in 2011), dams can create higher and longer flood crests


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Dec 122012
 

Real photo postcard by McKinney

A hundred years before the Army Corps of Engineers Visitor Center was built at the overlook, locals came to picnic and gawk. With a distant view of the Pomme de Terre entering the Osage, and easy accessibility from Warsaw, it was a popular day trip for generations of locals.

We have drawn a blank trying to learn the origin of the name of this overlook. We can’t find a Kaysinger family in any record we’ve seen, or even another name that may sound the same but be spelled differently. The word sounds German and there are a number of German families in Benton and surrounding counties. If anyone knows who Kaysinger was, please leave a comment.


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Dec 052012
 

Real photo postcard, probably 1940s

Lovers Leap was a cliff near Linn Creek, about which J. W. Vincent, editor of the local paper, penned a fanciful tale of a suicidal India maiden.  Virtually every declivity more than 25 feet high in the Mississippi River valley had a similar legend attached to it. When Lake of the Ozarks filled in 1931, the name stayed but the jump got shorter and the landing in water became more survivable. The little creature poised on the rocks in disregard of its safety appears to be some species of dog.


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