Vintage Image of the Week – Page 5

PADDLEFISH OF THE MISSISSIPPI

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Apr 252013

Drawing from Scientific American (19^th century)

Living paddlefish are somewhat hard to draw and preserved paddlefish are even harder. Their physical representation has been poorly illustrated. They’re not only hard to draw, they are near impossible to mount. Their habits are even harder to observe. A large fish in muddy water is a difficult subject for accurate scientific description. Their spawning was first observed and described in the section of the Osage now under Truman Reservoir.

“It wasn’t until 1961 that anyone actually observed paddlefish spawning when Charles Purkett, a fisheries biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation, saw them release eggs and milk over flood gravel bars on the upper Osage. “

(page 204, Damming the Osage)

(Above) A tract from an anti-evolutionary organization, Does God Exist? September /October, 2002. In this issue, they discuss the impossibility of the paddlefish being a product of Darwinian adaptation. Cover art does not bear out their conclusion that “God shows us His wisdom and engineering ability in such beautiful creatures as this one.”

THE VILLAGE OF BAGNELL, MISSOURI

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Apr 222013

Photograph, 1920s

The village of Bagnell, Missouri, was a little railhead along the river used mostly for unloading railroad ties that had been rafted down the Osage. There were plans for the railroad to cross the river at Bagnell, but they didn’t materialize. When construction of the Osage River dam began in the mid 1920s, a spur line was built to transport materials to the construction site, in addition to the barges and steamboats that hauled materials

The few years of heavy construction were a boom time for Bagnell. When incorporated in 1926, the town had a bank, a post office, telephone system, stores, a café, gas stations and even a movie theater. But when the dam closed, work and workers disappeared. The highway was routed over the dam, killing the ferry operation across the Osage. Three fires in 1931 nearly spelled doom for the town. Then a huge flood in 1934 destroyed many of the rebuilt businesses. (see “Bagnell in Flood” post on this blog – http://www.dammingtheosage.com/osage-river-in-flood-at-the-town-of-bagnell/).

Today a campground is the main attraction in old Bagnell.

THE SHOVEL FISH RAG

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Mar 062013

Sheet Music , 1908

Most often known as the paddlefish, Polydon Spathula, this cartoonish looking fish also been called Spoonbill cat, Shovelbuild cat, Duck-Bill cat, and Spadefish. It’s an image that evokes mirth.

Hernando de Soto was the first European to describe this prehistoric fish. When he encountered one netted by Indians on the banks of the Mississippi River in 1541, he was near the end of his long quest for gold and silver in the New World. After observing a 150-pound catfish he notes that “there was another fish called the pexe palla [‘spade fish’ in Portuguese]. Its snout was a cubit in length and the tip of its upper lip was shaped like a shovel.”

HA HA TONKA LAKE AND DAM

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Feb 272013

2 Real Photo postcards by Strathman Photo

Both postcards have been sent, postmarked Linn Creek, but the dates are obscure – probably 1930s.

The exact origin of the low dam that created Ha Ha Tonka Lake is not clear. It’s possible that Colonel R. G. Scott, railroad promoter and real estate hustler, built it. He came from Iowa about 1890 and with a friend bought or optioned what was then known as Gunter Spring with a large parcel of land. In 1904, Scott sold the land and spring – now fancifully renamed Ha Ha Tonka with a suitable Indian legend to fit the name – to businessman Robert McClure Snyder of Kansas City.

The destruction of this little lake by the construction of Bagnell Dam caused a five year series of lawsuits and appeals. We devoted a significant part of the book (pages 92-97) to the lawsuit and subsequent appeals.

The lawsuit pitted well-to-do people with big egos against a well-to-do corporation with an equally big ego. The first round began in 1930 when UE filed an exception to the award of $902/acre to the Snyder family for the acreage included with the trout lake. The Snyders sued and the lines were drawn. The plaintiffs claimed the new lake had degraded their estate more than a million dollars. High dollar lawyers and a high profile tale brought journalists to cover the lawsuit over ‘scenic beauty versus progress’. Witnesses during the ten-week trial included Gutzon Borglum, sculptor of Mount Rushmore, and W. H. Wurepel, who painted the mural of Ha Ha Tonka in the Missouri State Capitol. In 1932, the jury awarded the Snyder family $350,000.

Naturally UE appealed. Round Two began in 1935. A new verdict awarding $200,000 to the Snyders caused them to appeal, but Judge Otis denied the motion for a third trial in 1936 allowing the $200,000 judgment to stand.

Today the lake laps up against the old mill dam, but the trout dam is under water.

Steamboats Remembered

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Feb 202013

Steamboats ran up the Osage as far as Osceola when the river was high. Tuscumbia, county seat of Miller County, was a regular stop – a fact commemorated today in this plaque on the new county courthouse.

OSAGE RIVER BLUFFS NEAR OSCEOLA

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Feb 132013

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.

Mansion South Side of Linn Creek

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Feb 062013

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.

Spring and Park, Jerico Springs, MO by Suttle

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Jan 302013

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.

Foster, Missouri Railroad Station and Handcar

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Jan 232013

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.

SOUVENIR DECAL OF BAGNELL DAM

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Jan 162013

Water-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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