Water Tower at Ha Ha Tonka – Vintage Image

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Jul 262016
 

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Tower Ha Ha Tonka, Mo. “8 miles of L.C.” (probably Linn Creek)
By G. A. Moulder, Linn Creek, Mo. Unsent.

Stone Water Tower, 80 feet high, at Robert M. Snyder’s castle retreat above the Osage River.  Water was pumped from the spring far below to a tank at the top of the tower. Besides holding the water tank above the house and grounds to facilitate gravity feed to supply the water system of the castle.

This tower once held living quarters as well as a water tank at the top of the tower. Historical marker at the park says, “The first four floors were living quarters for the caretaker’s family. A large steel tank on the fifth floor held water for the estate. It’s (sic) interior burned by vandals in 1976. It was reroofed and stabilized in 1999.”‘

G. A. Moulder seems to have been a prolific professional photographer in Linn Creek in the pre-Bagnell Dam era.  While we have not identified details of his life, he did come from an established and well-respected family in Camden County. In 1896, J. W. Vincent, editor of the Linn Creek Reveille, published a series of articles based on accounts from early settlers primarily in Camden and Morgan counties.  Of the Moulder family he wrote:

The Moulder family, since the most numerous and prominent in the county, first arrived in 1837. Judge G. W. Moulder, the first of these, came to Lincoln county in 1830, and to Camden (then Pulaski) in the year named, buying a farm on the Niangua, eight miles above Linn Creek, where he lived nearly fifty years, and died in 1886.

He was one of a family of twelve children, and was afterwards joined by three brothers, Valentine, Silas and Rufus, and by two sisters, Rebecca Capps and Elizabeth Doyle, the latter of whom is still living, on Prairie Hollow, the only surviving member of her father’s family. Judge Moulder had six sons, William G., John B., A. F., Joseph C., V. P., and T. H. B., all of whom served their country during the late war.

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Old Linn Creek 1909 – before Bagnell Dam

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May 192016
 

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“Linn Creek, Mo. Looking N. W. 1909” written in red ink. Real photo postcard, published by G. A. Moulder, Linn Creek, Mo. Unsent.

Linn Creek, seat of Camden County, here seen nestled in its valley near the Osage, seems to have been an idyllic place, especially in memory. Years later, Nellie Moulder wrote of the town drowned by Bagnell Dam in her journal:

Perhaps more than the ‘scenes’, it is the people one remembers, John McGowan, commercial fisherman of early Linn Creek, giving away more fish than he sold; E.M. Kirkham, who organized parades, programs, and picnics and became the orator when need arose; the banker’s wife, proud, haughty, often arrogant, but ever aware of children in the creek, warning them of inherent dangers; jovial Fred Moulder, who loved children, chipping and sharing slivers of ice to waiting children as he came to the ice house for needed ice in his meat counter display. D.P. Moore who loved his dog; dressed “Frank” in a little boy suit to bury him and deeded “Frank” and an acre of land as his own cemetery with a headstone for identification.

Damming the Osage, page 106

The Moulder  family was prominent in Camden County. Young (26 years old) Morgan Moore Moulder was the county’s prosecuting attorney and sought an injunction from the courts to stop construction of Bagnell Dam in the late 1920s.

Ha Ha Tonka, Mo. Can you identify this Mystery Image?

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Mar 182016
 

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Real photo postcard, published by G. A. Moulder, Linn Creek, MO. Unsent. “Hahatonka, MO” pencilled on back.

We’ve gone back and forth on whether these are ruins or some natural rock formations. Obviously, the castle didn’t burn until much later than when this card was published, which we estimate to be the 19-teens or ‘20s. Does anybody know what this represents?

The Moulder family was  prominent in Linn Creek. While I haven’t precisely identified G.A. Moulder, his family had been in Camden County for decades before this photo was published. Morgan M. Moulder was the prosecuting attorney for Camden County when the dam on the Osage was under construction. He, with other town leaders, tried to stop the dam that would drown their community. The family also owned a hotel in town that, ironically, hosted corporate representatives who came to oversee construction. I

In Nellie Moulder’s memoirs of the town before the dam, she  recalled: “jovial Fred Moulder, who loved children, chipping and sharing slivers of ice to waiting children as he came to the ice house for needed ice in in his meat counter display.” (page 106, Damming the Osage)