Real photo postcard, circa 1910
Handwritten’ labels’ on the card beside each fish identify three blue catfish and two American eels, the largest of which is 27 pounds. At the end of the card is written: “These are fish from the Osage River. Look kinda small here but were larger.”
Today, only eel of course are found in the 85-plus miles of free flowing river below Bagnell Dam. Lock and Dam #1 probably blocks most of their upriver journey, except in high water.
Real photo postcard, 1915-1925
This came with the identified Lock & Dam #1 photo. It looks like an excursion boat and is named the S. Katherine. Don’t see any smokestacks but it’s also got staple holes, similar to the Lock & Dam #1 postcard. A Google search didn’t find a “Katherine” vessel known to operate on the Osage.
Real photo postcard, circa 1910, by Surtle
Today virtually a ghost town, Jerico Springs has suffered the population loss of many villages in the Osage basin. As well as being a trade center for small prairie farms, there was a small spring whose waters were said to be curative.
Real photo postcard, 1920s
Wah-she-hah was called Bacon Rind, but the real translation of his Osage name was Star-That-Travels. He was born in Kansas a decade before the Osage tribe bought their reservation in northeast Oklahoma. He was a superb politician and recognized early on the value of the enormous oil reserves that lay beneath their rocky reservation. Bacon Rind preferred speaking Osage; he is shown here wearing a Mexican blanket, beaded moccasins and otter skin bandeau – the only item of apparel that, as far as we know, is traditional
Real photo postcard, postmarked May 22, 1951
In the late 1920s, Ozark Utilities Company of Bolivar built a low hydroelectric dam at Osceola. While it did block spawning runs of fish (except during very high water), the reservoir it created, called lake Sac-Osage, flooded very little farmland. Its environmental impact was minimal compared to the high dams that would be built later by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Osceola dam was removed before Truman Reservoir filled.
Real photo postcard, 1910-1920.
Businessmen along the Osage River agitated for generations for engineering improvements that would facilitate steamboat traffic on the river. Finally in the late 1800s, politicians bullied the Army Corps of Engineers into building a disastrous lock and dam about nine miles from the junction of the Osage with the Missouri River. Construction costs ran hugely over budget and it failed miserably to provide the projected economic benefits. Fifty years later, the Army Corps of Engineers continued the tradition of intervening in the hydrology of the Osage River with projects that ran over budget and failed to provide promised benefits. Lock & Dam #1 cost somewhere around $750,000 (we think). The six recent interventions by the Corps cost hundreds of millions.
