blog – Page 5 – Damming the Osage

Gatlin’s ROCKY COMFORT Lodge / Boat Yard on Lake of the Ozarks

Aug 112014

Surveyor’s Plat of Rocky Comfort at Lake of the Ozarks, 1937

We can surmise that this is a surveyor’s map of a subdivision of seventy-four lots laid out by then-owners H. O. (Orville) and Ruth Gatlin, notarized on July 6, 1937 by “George Clifford Williams, Notary Public in and for Morgan County.” This mimeographed map handout shows residential lots apparently being offered for sale along the lake shoreline. The Gatlins were pioneer developers to an area as yet largely undeveloped for recreation and tourism, especially along the upper stretches, away from “The Strip” at Bagnell Dam and Osage Beach.

(click to enlarge)

In the early days of the Lake, Union Electric was more concerned with power production than with real estate sales. Truthfully, the sale of shoreline property and vacation homes wasn’t much of a business during the Depression and World War II. It’s possible that some of the current conflict over the intrusion of private shoreline lots into Union Electric property goes back to the early days of the utility company’s sales of shoreline properties. We don’t see on this map any indication that there is between the privately owned lots and the lake a zone that belonged to Union Electric by law. We wonder if this was disclosed to the buyers of these lots back in those days. It is now alleged that owners have encroached on power company land. For more info, see Donald Bradley’s article in the Kansas City Star (May 24, 2014), Lake of the Ozarks residents take land dispute to court.

The federal government saw the real estate arm of Union Electric as a conflict of interest and the company was required to divest itself of large blocks of land around the lake. We’ve recently acquired an early printed brochure of the Willmore Company which “won the 1945 auction of Union Electric’s 42,000 acres ordered by the Securities and Exchange Commission.” Willmore later tried to sell 4,000 of those acres to a local businessman for $10,000, but Buford Foster couldn’t swing the deal. (Page 138, Damming the Osage). Those acres included virtually the entire Shawnee Bend area with miles of shoreline.

According to Lake historian H. Dwight Weaver, the Gatlins moved to the Gravois Arm of the Lake the same year that the subdivision was platted (1937), purchasing 110 acres where they built Rocky Comfort Lodge. The large rock and frame lodge served guests until it burned in 1942. Rather than rebuild the lodge, the Gatlin’s turned their attention to their boat yard. The boat yard continued through several owners and today is Kelly’s Port Marina. Weaver’s book, History and Geography of Lake of the Ozarks, Vol. Two, provides a two-page account of the Gatlin’s businesses at Rocky Comfort and subsequent ownership of the property.

Mr. Weaver’s books are available through his website: Lake of the Ozarks Books – http://www.lakeoftheozarksbooks.com/

TWO LAKES – The Artificially Shallow and the Naturally Deep

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Aug 052014

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.

Grand Lake, Colorado: Largest natural lake in Colorado and headwaters of the Colorado River

July 27, 2014: Back home in Missouri, we made a Sunday drive to the Warsaw area and Truman Dam and Reservoir.

Truman Reservoir – elevation 706 feet; formed by the Corps of Engineers in 1979; average depth 22 feet.

Truman Reservoir on the Osage River: purpose – flood control, hydropower, recreation

Mountain lakes are commemorated in paintings, promoted on postcards and praised in poems. One could draw the conclusion that in areas of high relief, lakes are more successful. Even artificial lakes built for both flood control and hydropower purposes are more effective in mountainous areas. Blocking prairie streams with relatively gentle relief – like the Osage and South Grand rivers – creates inefficient flood storage and minimal hydropower possibilities. One would think the Corps of Engineers would have realized this. Actually – they probably did, but they were being incentivized by construction companies and encouraged by delusional local advocates and politicians. Today they would never undertake a marginal project like Truman Dam and Reservoir. Lessons have been learned … at least we like to think so!

Review of MISSISSIPPI RIVER TRAGEDIES: A Century of Unnatural Disaster

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Jun 022014

From Twain’s portraits of the river and its denizens to romantic photo essays, environmental analyses, and personal memoirs, a river of words about the Mississippi have flowed through the nation’s literary history. It’s an imposing torrent in which to launch an account of generations of legal and political actions that have shaped the ‘river’ as we experience it today.

Mississippi River: A Century of Unnatural Disaster is a tale of hubris told by clear thinking legal storytellers. Describing the high (or low) points of disasters and legislative and political reactions, Mississippi River Tragedies showcases the many and myriad ways that greed arrogance and – mostly – hubristic exertion of will and technology have contrived to constrain and compel the Mississippi River into a tame chute …. Apparently to no avail. For the river still breaks these arbitrarily imposed confines (as recently as 2011) – and still we call these prison escapes “natural disasters.”

Some might think that a book on water resource law, its evolution over generations and its effects on landscape and human culture would be dry, obscure and hard to read. Very much to the contrary! Authors and attorneys Christine Klein and Sandra Zellmer (self described “Mississippi River children”) spin a highly readable account from the mistakes, blunders, miscalculations, misunderstandings and sheer stupidity or ignorance that have been imposed on the mightiest river of our continent and the people who have tried to control it and those who live along it, with it.

Klein and Zellmer follow policy evolution from the Corps of Engineers “levees only” management of rivers for navigation to the wholesale fortification of the mighty stream with locks and dams creating a ”Stairway of Water” from the river’s headwaters to its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois. Dams with mammoth reservoirs were built on the main stem of the Missouri River, primary tributary of the Mississippi, to hold back (in theory) or slow down run off from excessive rain or snow melt. Relief valves, called floodways, another ‘tool in the flood-control toolbox’ were conceived following the floods of 1937. Their function was dramatically illustrated in 2011 when the Corps dynamited Bird’s Point levee in southeast Missouri to lower a flooding Mississippi, thus ‘protecting’ the more valuable town of Cairo, Illinois. Residents of tiny Pinhook, Missouri on the other hand were flooded out, along with 130,000 acres of productive farmland.

After setting the stage of how the Mississippi became an “unnatural river,” the authors recount decade by decade the ‘natural’ disasters that led to legislation aimed at controlling the power of an immense watershed, and the expanding authorities of the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency charged with engaging in battle with the river monster. With the new authorities, Congress provided the Corps legal immunity from liability if floodwaters caused damages in spite of their engineering efforts.

Congress attacked the problem from non-engineering angles as well, expanding disaster assistance programs and establishing and funding the National Flood Insurance Program despite private sector assessment that the risks of insuring flood-prone properties outweighed the benefits (profit potential). These programs combined to allow, even encourage continued development in areas the river once claimed as its natural floodplain.

The authors illustrate legal concepts through case studies and court proceedings bringing into sharp focus how the workings of government and the judiciary impact the daily lives and fortunes of citizens. Immense ‘natural’ disasters from river risings (the 1927 Mississippi River flood and those of 1937, the early 1950s and the Great Midwest Floods of 1993) to hurricanes Betsy and Katrina, are eye-opening tales of legislative reaction, engineering blunders and mismanagement, the evolution of judicial interpretation of laws and policy, and lessons not learned or not implemented.

Their historical perspective on ‘how we got here’ leads to conclusions that are almost stunning in their simplicity but born of painful lessons learned in the aftermath of these ‘unnatural disasters.’ For example, settlement increases in at-risk areas because of the false security offered by levees and dams. And the simple solution? Discourage development – residential and commercial – in floodplains, even if “protected” by a levee. A recommendation that has been made before, over the decades and not heeded (as an example, read their account of “Chesterfield, Missouri: Building and Rebuilding in a Floodplain.”)

Other recommendations include changing the National Flood Insurance Program or turning it over the private sector to write actuarially sound policies; eliminating immunity for federal agencies – i.e. the Corps – for negligent acts causing flood damage; reforming the metrics used in justifying flood control project – i.e. the easily manipulated cost-benefit analysis used to justify major projects; give nature (rivers) some space to expand and contract in response to seasonal or weather condition.

Theirs is a reasoned and researched account of official policy, legislation, and judicial decisions that have led to the myriad unintended consequences we read about in headlines nearly every spring.

Klein and Zellmer pull back the curtain on Mississippi River “management,” but behind that curtain they don’t find a genial wizard of water resource development. Rather, they uncover a complex story of political, judicial, bureaucratic and scientific confrontation that continues in the courts today. It’s a fascinating account of the river we thought we knew and how it got that way.

It is good to see another book – like John Barry’s Rising Tide – that acknowledges that river management is a confluence of hydrology and politics and culture.

The book is available at www.amazon.com

Postscript:

In 2012 Congress passed a law to reform the National Flood Insurance Program and return it to solvency. Biggert-Waters put in place actuarially sound insurance rates that would reflect the real risks of living in flood prone areas. Following Hurricane Sandy, politicians scrambled to respond to the ire of voters whose insurance rates were about to go up significantly. On March 21, 2014, President Obama signed the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014 – repealing many of the reforms contained in Biggert-Waters.

Ironically, the dam-building juggernaut that is the Corps of Engineers has recently shifted focus and begun to include other strategies in their zeal to control moving water. The term “ecosystem services” now describes the role played by wetlands and floodplains in water management. How such enlightened green measures will interface with their earlier structural methods – which are still very much in place and require ongoing maintenance – remains to be seen

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

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May 282014

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 Engineers” which was published in the St. Clair County Courier in 1997. Written by Lawrence B. Lewis, a retired Episcopal priest, it’s an extended appraisal of the effect of Truman Dam and Reservoir on the residents of St. Clair County. Mr. Lewis’s family immigrated to the upper Osage River in the 1830s.

Mr. Lewis was kind enough to supply this photograph, which shows his father, Bernard Reynolds Lewis (second from right), dangling his feet over the bow of a barge being pushed by a small steamboat called Rambler. B. R. Lewis served in the U.S. Navy in both World Wars I and II.

Photo by Becraft, “Osage Navy, 1906, Flag Ship Rambler”

We’re assuming that this was an excursion about to get under way from Osceola to Monegaw Springs as we have a photograph (page 68, Damming the Osage) of an almost identical barge pushed by steamboat, captioned “Excursion – Osceola to Monegaw, June 20, ’09”. Becraft was an excellent photographer in Osceola in the early 1900s. We have a number of his sharp focus, technically excellent photographs in the book.

We always assumed that there were people suspicious of the benefits of Truman Dam in Osceola, but during the lawsuit promoters of the project drowned out their objections. Today, the situation is reversed and it’s hard to find a supporter. Truman Dam is widely recognized to have been a disaster for the town.

With his permission, we republish Mr. Lewis’s letter in its entirety below:

An open letter to the Operations Project Manager,
U. S. Army Corps of Engineers,
Rt. 2, Box 29A,
Warsaw MO 65355.

Dear Diane Parks:

In the September 11, 1997, issue of the St. Clair County Courier, you were quoted as inviting public comment about Truman Dam, after visiting here with our Mayor about the “delta” forming from silt accumulating in Truman Lake at Osceola, and attempting to put the best face on the situation that you could. As someone who has recently moved back home to Osceola because it’s where my wife and I want to live out the years of my retirement, Truman Lake mud flats and all, I’m writing to offer background and also proposals for action concerning the dam and lake.

As Catherine D. Johnson stated in her letter in the September 25 Courier, plans for a new flood control dam date from the 1930s. Then shortly after the close of World War II a proposal was made to construct a flood control dam just upstream from Osceola. Eventually, after it was seen that much of the reservoir would be very shallow, a location was determined on at Kaysinger Bluff near Warsaw.

My father, Bernard R. Lewis, who was born in Osceola in 1896 and died here in 1968, had both historical perspective and a keen interest in the Kaysinger Bluff dam proposal. B. R. Lewis had grown up on the Osage River. When in his teens, along with his brother Lawrence, he ran a passenger boat service between Osceola and the popular rustic summer resort of Monegaw Springs.

B. R. Lewis told me that although the Osage had always flooded, really destructive floods began to occur only after water projects upstream in Bates and Vernon count1es turned meandering streams into straight ditches, and wetlands into crop land, shortly before World War I. The channelization enriched farmers there, but sent floodwater slamming down into St. Clair County and locations farther downstream in amounts not experienced before.

My father’s take on it was that if it had not been for the upstream water projects, then runoff due to poor soil conservation practices especially during the Great Depression, Congress and the Corps of Engineers might not have thought about a large flood control dam in our region.

There was considerable enthusiasm in Osceola for the Kaysinger Dam project in the 1960s. People will tell you now that it was because the Corps of Engineers deceived our civic leaders about the kind of lake the dam would make. I don’t buy that. My father, who was himself an Osceola civic leader, knew the elevation above sea level of the dam at Warsaw, looked at a contour map of Osceola, and figured out that, obviously, we would have mud flats. My guess is that if he said that to other civic leaders, they didn’t want to hear it. In their minds they saw a lake like the one at Warsaw now, because that’s what they wanted to see. Visions of tourism dollars danced in their heads, clouding their vision; but I really don’t think the Corps thrust “delta” predictions in front of their faces to bring them back to reality.

Bernard Lewis was not the only one who did not catch the lake fever. A farmer downstream on the Osage filed suit with assistance from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to stop the Corps from obtaining two farms which had been in the family for generations. The EDF was in 1ts early days, still headquartered in a little town on the north shore of Long Island. They wished to stop construction of Kaysinger Dam 1n order to preserve what was left of the free-flowing Osage River downstream from the old Osceola Dam and above the headwaters of the Lake of the Ozarks. The cover of one their newsletters featured a black and white photo of the Osage from a bluff top.

The farmer and other family members were denounced in the pages of the county paper for bringing in “outsiders” to interfere with a worthwhile project, getting in the way of “progress.” My response was to join the Environmental Defense Fund. Now a quarter of a century later I still send yearly dues to thank them for defending a river that was important in the lives of my father, grandfather and the great-grandfather (Dr. Lawrence Lewis) who moved to Osceola in 1839.

EDF, the farmer and his family and other litigants from the region lost in court. I’m not sure if their suit was related to the requirement that the Corps make a study of the cost-benefit ratio of the project. The hydro-electric power generators may have been added to the project to bring the benefits over the costs. Electricity would be sold to power companies in the heartland of America and the project would pay its way.

The generators were added at great expense and soon proved to be partially unusable because of the massive fish kills caused by their pump-back feature. When he learned of this, I recall that Senator John Danforth termed Truman Dam “an environmental “disaster.” I was glad to hear a respected public servant to say what I’d been thinking.

Why was Kaysinger/Truman Dam built? I turn to another honest, bright government official who spoke his conscience. President Dwight Eisenhower warned citizens about the power of the “military-industrial complex” in a speech he gave in the late 1950s. Army Corps of Engineers dams were the source of juicy contracts for the construction industry. I think of Truman Dam as almost a classic “pork barrel” project. I think of those expensive, fish-killing generators getting added onto the project. Oink

But there is more to it. In the 1960s my father wrote to at least one U.S. Senator to tell him (prophetically, I believe) that the purpose of Kaysinger Dam was to create “a settling basin for the Lake of the Ozarks” – at the expense of the loss to St. Clair County of its best bottomland.

Yes, our flood control reservoir does protect the water level of the Lake of the Ozarks and its bi1lions of dollars of lakeshore investment; and we catch the silt. For those reasons I believe that Truman Dam will never be decomissioned, though I enjoy imagining it.

In all fairness, I believe the Corps has changed since the 1960s. Someone pointed out to me that Truman Dam was one of the last they built. From what 1ittle I’ve heard, it sounds as if the Corps is beginning to have more respect for natura1 processes in the management of waters, more willingness to cooperate with nature rather than fight it. Also, I think they realize how upland conservation has begun to help prevent floods.

You can, though, still expect to find an image problem among people in and around Osceola on the subject of Truman Lake. I respectfully offer two suggestions of things the Corps might do to help. Both of them have several sub-parts.

The Corps needs publicly and officially to offer a sincere apology to the people of Osceola and St. Clair County, and to do it from the national, not the local or regional level. If you think I mean apologizing for building Truman Dam, that’s too simple. Here is my list of what the Corps should humbly ask pardon for doing:

–Flooding good bottom land on which farmers grew food to feed a hungry world. Tourist dollars at Warsaw mask the loss of America’s real wealth which was the land.

— Forcing people from their homes and farms. I refer you to the works of Wendell Berry, Kentucky farmer and author, on the value of place; and again to Catherine Johnson’s letter in which she cites the pressure and sometimes deceptive methods by which citizens were displaced. Also, one sometimes hears comments on arbitrary and irregular “take” lines.

–Flooding riparian forest that moderated our climate and served as habitat for an incredible community of biologically diverse animals and plants. Just go to the Sac-Osage roadside park on Highway 82 and look out over miles of country that used to be green and alive. The devastation pierces the heart.

–Using the flood plain here to protect downstream investments after we had already been used by upstream farmers to receive the excess water they caused by destroying the wetlands which had stored water, then released it slowly.

— Flooding springs.

— Disrupting the life cycles of fish and other aquat1c creatures of the rivers and creeks of the many watersheds involved.

— Destroying, in the town of Osceola, whole neighborhoods with tree-shaded streets and interesting late 19th century houses, many businesses and at least one church.

Reducing Osceola’s populat1on by more than a third by destroying those neighborhoods.

–Destroying Osceola’s unique stone train depot that could have been a worthy nomination to the National Register of Historic Places

–Taking away the rai1road the depot served, thereby necessitating a few more pavement-destroying, life-threatening giant transport trucks on Highway 13. We don’t even have a rails-to-trails project to compensate for the loss of the railroad.

–Using explosives violently to obliterate Osceola Dam, the key symbol in the identity of the Best Town by a Damsite.”

Those are some of the things the Corps needs to apologize for.

Others could doubtless add to the list. A good spokesperson would be Vice President Al Gore. As the author of Earth in the Balance, he would need only minimal coaching as to why an apology is needed. Let the Corps bring him to Osceola to deliver its apology on behalf of the United States of America. Be sure to put the apology in writing as well, and see that it is published widely. For that matter, Mr. Gore’s boss has proved himself teachable, and the office of President of the United States deserves respect, whether or not one likes the person currently holding it. There are two or three Cabinet members who could speak knowledgeably. If you can’t get anyone of Cabinet rank or above, bring whatever Army general heads the Corps of Engineers. Persons of lower rank won’t cut it. (End of Suggestion # 1)

2) Help us do the best with what we have left. That’s what you were trying to do when you explained to Mayor Booker about the “delta” (or “fen” as Vincent Foley proposes in his letter in the 0ctober 2 Courier. However, I agree with Jim Dill in his September 25 letter when he says weeds are what will grow there. Developing real bio-diversity takes a long time. It could be a lifetime before Osceola’s “delta” would be comparable to the Schell-Osage Wildlife Area, which is already well established.

Be both smart and gentle in dealings with the City of Osceola. For example, we’ve been stuck with “park” land so abundant we’ll never have the resources to maintain it. Maybe some administrators could tithe a day a month to come work on beautification, for example, mowing.

In spite of the loss of Osceola Dam, a fishing mecca, people still come here to fish. Use tax money to bankroll maintenance of Osceola Cove so both the RV Park put-in and the munic1pal boat ramp will remain usable. Do ongoing dredging to allow boats to get out into the channels of what in better times were the Osage River and its tributaries. The “delta” area will silt up but there will always be a channel.

Be responsible, be accountable, use common sense and kindness in dealing with institutions here which will, it seems, forever be under some measure of Corps supervision. Figure that local people may know more about what’s good for them than people in offices somewhere else, though local support for building the dam shows that we’re capable of error.

Bankroll a civic consultation with Amory Lovins’s Rocky Mountain Institute and a public school consult with down-to-earth-teach’em-how-it-works David W. Orr, to decrease the likelihood that we locals will again be suckered by Corps experts. Make the non-fiction prose works of Wendell Berry required reading in the Corps, to decrease the temptation to sucker locals in the first place. (End of Suggestion #2)

You don’t have to wait for Suggestion #1 to be accomplished before putting Suggestion #2 into action, though “Cooperative Community Discussion and Planning Meetings” will be better received after the Corps has brought someone from Washington to say it’s sorry for doing violence here, taking away so many things that can never be restored. By the way, if you bring water remediation expert John Todd to instruct me, I’ll be first in line to get in, before or after the apology.

I trust I have provided background for understanding, food for thought and goals for action on the part of the Corps.

Faithfully,

Lawrence B. (“Larry”) Lewis

Priest of the Episcopal Church, Diocese of West Missouri,
Osceola, Missouri, October 4, 1997 (St. Francis Day)

PADDLEFISH SNAGGING SEASON – 2014

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Apr 052014

Big treble hooks and heavy line are splashing into lakes and rivers of the Osage and Missouri river systems as fisherman hope to haul in some of the hatchery-raised descendants of Osage River paddlefish. The 2014 spring snagging season runs from March 15 to April 30. (find regulations at the Missouri Department of Conservation website.)

Bank fishing for paddlefish was once the norm, but today most fishermen head out in boats to troll the channels and holes. Sport fishing with treble hooks (trolling or snagging) probably doesn’t pre-date the 1950s. Several of our vintage images show a prized catch of spoonbill http://www.dammingtheosage.com/paddlefish-trophy-fish-3-snapshots-circa-1940/ from that era.

Once an abundant denizen of the Osage River, the current population is sustained by the Missouri Department of Conservation’s artificial breeding program at Blind Pony Hatchery In an interesting use of the word, each year’s ‘dump’ of fingerlings is now characterized as a ‘class’ – “the 2007 class year” of paddlefish should be large enough for legal taking this year. (just a thought … suppose the MDC does a yearbook for each class?)

In the category of “facts being lost to history,” this article from the Nevada Daily Mail, (http://www.nevadadailymail.com/story/2060915.html ) notes that “Missouri doesn’t have the long river system spoonbills need to have successful spawning …“ but fails to mention that the reason those long river systems no longer support “successful spawning” is that Truman Reservoir covered much of the Osage River, drowning prime spawning beds under flat water.

As far as we can determine, little or no research is being done to ascertain if, once released into lakes and rivers, these artificially propagated fish are reproducing in the upper or lower reaches of the Osage. Some are concerned that hatchery-spawned fish come from a few genetic lines, “leading to genetic introgression, reduced diversity and fish that have inferior responses to a wild environment.” (page 235, Damming the Osage)

Missouri Department of Conservation staff and sportswriters seem blissfully unaware that this put-and-take fishery is not a complete or long-term solution to the continued to existence of this ancient beast. Describing hatchery propagation of a species in simple minded phrases like “win-win” willfully ignores the ultimate price that will be paid genetically for the artificial generations.

Wife and Daughter of Osage Chief Red Eagle in Washington 1924

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Feb 212014

Press Photo by Wide World Photos, 1924

Caption reads: Mother clings to Indian Custom, but Daughter … much American: The wife and daughter of Red Eagle, Principal Chief of the Osage Tribe, in Washington to adjust some finances with the Interior Department. The daughter, Mary, prefers the American fashion while mother clings faithfully to the Osage tribal robes.

Possibly Chief Red Eagle is Paul Red Eagle who was Chief from 1923-24, following Chief Ne-Kah-Wah-She-Tun-Kah’ who died while in office.

Since the 1890s the Osage tribe had had substantial income derived from the sale of drilling rights to oil discovered on their lands. “With extraordinary foresight, the tribe had reserved subsurface mineral rights even though the land had been allocated among the 2,229 enrolled Osages.” (page 280, Damming the Osage).

Money generated by the sales of drilling rights made enrolled Osages “probably the wealthiest people on earth” (New York Times November 18, 1898). Having had great wealth and the advantages of wealth – many Osages traveled the world and pursued higher education, modern houses, fashion, and automobiles; others maintained their Osage cultural lifestyle, language and traditions. One who maintained the cultural lifestyle was Paul Red Eagle.

Six years after this photo was taken, Chief Red Eagle died. John Joseph Mathews, author of many books and articles on the Osages, attended his funeral and wrote a moving and graphic account of the final rites for the venerable warrior/chief. In “Passing of Red Eagle” (Sooner Magazine, Feb. 1930), Mathews remembers:

For ninety years Red Eagle had lived among his people. For that many years of constant changes, contacts and shifting scenes, he remained an Indian; thinking Indian thoughts and dreaming his own dreams. In his later years he seemed to be waiting for something. He lived quietly on this ranch preferring his horse to a car until his eightieth year. He had oil royalties but desired to live in simplicity. He had seen many things and had taken part in the wars in the southern part of the state; he talked of these wars with members of the tribe. He saw brick buildings rise up among the jack-oaks and his nation spanned with roads, some of them sinuous black ribbons winding over sandstone ridges and limestone prairie. He watched with passivity, shiny oil derricks spring up like phantasmal fungi from valleys, wooded hills and prairie. Yet, with him remained the spirit of his fathers. To the end he remained an Indian. Frenzied wealth seeking and confused material progress did not disturb the soul of Red Eagle.

A Catholic priest presided at the funeral, but after the sermon and prayers, the son of Red Eagle and his wife came forward “and began the heart tearing wail of the race. No suffering European could so touch the deepest chords of one’s heart as does the long, quavering cry of a mourning Osage.”

Junction of Sac and Osage rivers near Osceola

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Feb 112014

Real Photo Postcard, circa 1920

People have been taking pictures of the junction of the Sac and Osage rivers in St. Clair County, Missouri for a long time. Though the scenery along the Osage was not celebrated in oil paintings, locals have always appreciated its pastoral aspects and frequently photographed it.

These photographs were taken in March, 2010, from the lookout area on Highway 82, west of Osceola.

Wah Tze Moh In (Star that Travels), Chief of the Osage – a.k.a. Bacon Rind

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Feb 042014

Chief Bacon Rind Photogravure, 1925

In his classic book, Wah’kon-tah: The Osage and the White Man’s Road, John Joseph Mathews describes Wah Tze Moh In (Star that Travels), as a ‘tall (and handsome) aristocrat’ of the Osage tribe, and a gifted orator “who adjusted himself to the conditions that the white man had brought upon his people.”

He still wore the leggings, shirt and blanket, and was seldom seen without the gorget made from the fresh water mussel, which was the symbol of the sun at noon, the god of day.”

His handsome face has been moulded in bronze and his picture painted by great artists. His face appears on programs, on brochures and as letterheads. His name, an unimaginative interpretation, is known everywhere, and is invariably associated with the word, Osage.

This image of Wah Tze Moh In clearly illustrates Mathews’ description. The photograph was taken during one of three photo expeditions sponsored by department store magnate, Lewis Rodman Wanamaker. Wanamaker was a man of many interests, supporting the arts, education, golf and athletics, and Native American scholarship. Between 1908 and 1913 he funded expeditions with photographer Joseph K. Dixon, to document “The Vanishing Race” – the American Indians.

This is a third edition photogravure, dated 1925.

TRUMAN DAM SOUVENIRS – hard to find

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Jan 282014

Before Truman’s dam waters rose, there was promise of new entrepreneurial opportunities to be had with the coming of a mammoth lake. We found these roadside offerings during paddlefish snagging season in the mid 1970s.

Since the dam closed, we have been amazed at the scarcity of tourist related imagery for Truman Dam and reservoir compared to the wealth of tchotchkes for Bagnell Dam and Lake of the Ozarks. There are hundreds of times more decals, spoon holders, compacts, plates, salt-and-pepper-shakers, tablecloths, pocket knives, matchbooks, postcards, brochures, etc. for the 1931 project

To some extent this can be explained by the fact that we are, alas, no longer in the era of the souvenir spoon. It’s a well known fact that contemporary Americans are far more refined and sophisticated than their kitsch collecting grandparents – Right?

The sad truth is that Truman Dam and Lake have failed to develop into the promised and anticipated tourist mecca. Even the dam itself is architecturally bland compared to the structure that creates Lake of the Ozarks. It lacks a singular identity, an iconic image, which are important components of success in the tourism industry.

We were sure at the time of the lawsuit, that the environmental damages would be unavoidable. Predictions of economic benefits to the area from tourism we suspected were exaggerated. As things have turned out, the promised profitable tourist industry has been a disappointment (putting it mildly). A recent PhD thesis – “The Changing Landscape of a Rural Region: The Effect of the Harry S. Truman Dam and Reservoir in the Osage River basin of Missouri ” – by Melvin R. Johnson bears out our pessimistic appraisal and personal observations as we travel the area.

New Review in February issue of Rural Missouri magazine http://www.ruralmissouri.org/digitalrm/index.php

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Jan 272014

February’s issue of Rural Missouri offers ” A Mid Winter Read: New books from five Missouri writers” – including Damming the Osage. We especially appreciated these comments: “”While others have dipped their pens into the river, no one before has taken such a close look at the river’s past, present and future. … The Paytons leave you with a sense of wonder at a region chocked full of cultural history and natural beauty.”

The digital magazine is posted online at http://www.ruralmissouri.org/digitalrm/index.php (see page 12).

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