OSAGE RIVER WATER: Original music video of Capps family history along the Osage River

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Feb 152017
 

Jimmy Capps posted on Facebook this lyrical music video account of generations of  his family and their life along the Osage River  since the early 1800s. Acoustic guitar and a haunting harmonica provide a simple but appropriate accompaniment to his original composition. (This is my own transcription from the video. My apologies if there are mistakes!)

Osage River Water

My people came from Tennessee in 1821,
Capps Landing on the Osage is where they made their home.
Great granddad moved to Proctor
When a ferry crossed the stream.
The sons worked the freight boats
burning wood for steam.
Floating ties down the Osage,
Trapping furs and running lines,
Fought the flu and smallpox,
The flood of ‘29

That Osage River water’s flowing in my veins
From the great Wah-Zha-Zhe and everyone between

Granddad lived in a houseboat.
Depression’s scrounged the land.
Moonshine boats, midnight floats, the lawman close at hand
My daddy fished the big lake that stops at Bagnell Dam.
Sold his fish in the town from the trunk of his sedan.
My brothers and I followed suit ‘til we all left the …
Our sons all fish in bass boats and throw away their catch.

That Osage River water’s flowing in our veins
From the mighty Wah-Zha-Zhe and everyone between

Now 30-foot go-fast boats, they scream across the lake
They leave the boats of the country folks a-rockin’ in their wake

That Osage River water’s flowing in my veins
From the mighty Wah-Zha-Zhe and everyone between

Fishing Camp – ARNHOLD’S MILL on Niangua River

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Jul 212016
 

sc427Fishing Camp, Arnolds (sic) Mill, Mo. No. 1176

Arnhold’s Mill was a commercial mill site certainly, but also an early fishing camp/resort on the Niangua River in Camden County not far from Ha Ha Tonka’s springs. In 1896, J. W. (Joshua Williams) Vincent, editor of the Linn Creek Reveille, published a history of Camden County  he had compiled by interviewing early settlers. In it he stated: “The Arnhold Mill, probably the most noted in the county, was founded in 1833 by a man named Kieth.” George and Dorotha Arnhold bought  what by then was called Cleman Mill in 1878. Its scenic location, abundant game, good fishing and congenial owners attracted sportsmen from across the state. Eventually, cabins were built on the nearby hills to accommodate visitors who showed up in season. It was a family-friendly resort as evidenced by the women and child in this photo.

The camping families in this photograph are not identified, but on newspapers.com we found several accounts of visits to Arnhold’s Mill. One story in the May 27, 1915, Index of Hermitage, Mo. could be the caption for this photo:

A party consisting of Dr. A. H. Brookshire and wife, W. D. Harryman and wife, J. W. Powell and Henry Emmett of Wheatland, W. C. Farmer of Collins, J. H. Morgan and family, J. K. Moore and family, J. W. Robertson, Chas. Manuel, C. M. Bentley, S. S. Anderson and Ray Creed of Hermitage, left here Monday for Arnholt’s mill, Camden County, where they will spend a week fishing, hunting, camping out, and having a good time generally.

A couple of other stories came to light as well. The Index, Hermitage, Mo, May 6, 1897, remarked on the weekend fishing trip of Squire E. R. Calkins to Arnhold’s mill where he gained some weight. “He claims fish is the greatest brain food a man can eat.” The Morgan County Republican (July 18, 1907) noted that  Perry L. Gold and Joe Gold of Pittsburgh, Pa., and Loyd and Clarence Lumpe and Charles Moser of Versailles, Mo., spent a week at the mill returning with a 31-pound catfish.

See our earlier post for more about the tribute sportsmen erected for the Arnholds. The site of Arnhold’s Mill is now under the waters of Lake of the Ozarks.

Little record remains of early sporting activities on the Osage River, but that doesn’t mean the area wasn’t utilized. These real photo postcards provide scarce evidence of those days. No identification on the card of the photographer or where it was published.

 

Webster Bluff – HA HA TONKA

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Jul 172016
 

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Webster bluff – Hahatonka
Jas. Bruin. Linn Creek. Mo. Unsent.

The caption on this vintage image seems to indicate that at one time Webster Bluff may have been part of  large holdings of the Snyder family, known as Ha Ha Tonka. A Karst masterpiece of the Ozarks, Ha Ha Tonka – a more dramatic complex of collapsed cave, sinkholes, cliffs than any similar area – fascinated not only wealthy Kansas Citians like the Snyders, whose estate encompassed 5,400 acres but local people as well. And it still does. Ha Ha Tonka is an extremely well-attended state park today, southwest of Camdenton.

This idyllic scene could be recreated today. Google “Webster Bluff”  and you’ll find it’s located in northeast Dallas County in the Lead Mine Conservation Area, which lies about halfway between Camdenton and Buffalo.  You can fish, float, hike and commune with nature at Webster Bluff still.  More than two miles of the Niangua River flow through the almost 8,000 acres of Lead Mine as well as 3.5 miles of Jakes Creek. The Missouri Department of Conservation identifies its highlights:

This forested area contains savanna, glades, and old fields. Facilities and features include boat ramps, an unmanned firearms range, fishable ponds, several intermittent streams, and two permanent streams (Niangua River, Jakes Creek). . . . Lead Mine Conservation Area contains many excellent examples of dolomite glade communities, oak-hickory uplands, and clear running springs.

One of those springs is named Webster as well.

Arnhold Mill Dam – NIANGUA RIVER

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Jul 092016
 

sc432Arnhold Mill Dam
Real photo postcard
Note the folks in the canoe upstream from this icy dam.

George and Dorotha Arnhold bought Cleman Mill on the Niangua River in Camden County in 1878. Its scenic location, abundant game, good fishing and congenial owners attracted sportsmen from across the state. Arnhold’s Mill became an early sportsmen’s resort. Such was his popularity when George Arnhold died in 1896, sportsmen commissioned a monument, which was carved in Scotland and delivered to Versailles in 1899. More than 500 people attended the dedication ceremony. The inscription says: “Erected in the memory of Dorotha Arnhold and George Arnhold by many fishermen friends as a tribute to their unlimited generosity.” For more details about Arnhold’s Mill see Dwight Weaver’s book, History and Geography of Lake of the Ozarks, Vol. 1.

Located on the Big Niangua two miles upstream from today’s Niangua bridge, Arnhold’s Mill and the adjacent outbuildings and houses were covered by the waters of Lake of the Ozarks when Bagnell Dam closed.

Hotel Ha Ha Tonka

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May 312016
 

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Real photo postcard. Written in red ink, “Hotel Ha Ha tonk a MO”. Published by Jas. Bruin Linn Creek, MO. Unsent.

There’s a long and largely unsuccessful history of trying to develop Ha Ha Tonka as a tourist attraction. We’re not sure exactly where this frame hotel was located or who operated it. After Robert Snyder Sr. was killed in a 1906 automobile accident in Kansas City, his sons struggled to justify finishing the castle, which burned in 1942. Look closely at the car … this is an early one! Does anyone have more information on this hostelry? We’d love to hear it.

 

Trout Glen at Ha Ha Tonka

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May 132016
 

Entitled “Trout Glen” and written in red ink “Ha ha ton ka,”  this real photo postcard was published by Jas. Bruin, Linn Creek, MO. Unsent.

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Before Bagnell Dam, this spring outlet fed into the Niangua River. Springs throughout the Ozarks were stocked with several varieties of trout beginning in the late 1800s. Trout and even salmon were also dumped into streams that were too warm for their survival. Rainbows from the McCloud River in California proved to be the hardiest. In very few of these environments will they reproduce.

Robert McClure Snyder put in a small dam and a mill on this spring branch, creating a cool pool for trout. The pond was swamped by the warm muddy waters of the Osage as it backed up and spread out when Bagnell Dam closed. The loss of the trout pond was one justification for the Snyder family’s lawsuit against Union Electric.

The millstone is embedded in the concrete today as a decorative element along the path.

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Old Linn Creek – flooded by the Osage River

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Mar 152016
 

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View of Linn Creek, Mo., written in white ink. Published by G. A. Moulder, Linn Creek, Mo. This appears to show high water on the Osage River and shows Linn Creek flooded to varying degrees.

Linn Creek was built at the junction of the Niangua and the Osage and was subject to flooding. Its hardy citizens preferred occasional floods to being fifty feet under water. The town resisted the Bagnell Dam project and fought Union Electric tooth and claw. The little county seat of Camden County would go under forty feet of water twenty years after this photo was taken when Lake of the Ozarks pooled behind Bagnell Dam. Many of the houses would be moved, some were torn down, some burned – mostly foundations were left.

Cliff over Counterfeiters’ Cave at Ha Ha Tonka

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Mar 042016
 

sc416The wild scenery at Ha Ha Tonka was appreciated by our ancestors. The walls of the collapsed cavern defied development so they look pretty much today like they did a hundred years ago. The story is (and it’s on most websites about Ha Ha Tonka) that a ring of counterfeiters operated out of this region in the 1830s. We don’t know if they used the cave or not but the name has been affixed to this cave, which is currently off limits at Ha Ha Tonka State Park.

A Chicago Sunday Tribune, April 22, 1956, article about Ha Ha Tonka, “Rainbow Trout Brought a Castle to the Ozark Hills,” describes a driving getaway for Chicago readers at the then-relatively-new Lake of the Ozarks. About Counterfeiters’ Cave, writer Marge Lyon gives a few more details: “There a band of men had turned out excellent half dollars, quarters, and dimes until tracked down by one Augustus Jones, deputy sheriff, in 1834.”

In 1956, it cost a dollar to drive to the ruins and “see stones put together as neatly as books in a case, age-old wonders of nature that have remained unchanged despite dams, castles, hard roads, and all other human innovations that have been brought to this area.”

This is a real photo postcard, by Jas. Bruin, Linn Creek, Mo., postmarked Linn Creek, 1910. It was mailed to Georgia Heaton, Joplin, MO. The penciled writing on the correspondence side of the card is too light to read.

BTW – before the name Ha Ha Tonka, this area was called Gunter Spring, for John Gunter, an earlier landowner from Alabama. More on that later!

FLOODING ON THE OSAGE – July 2015

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Jul 092015
 

Flooding along the Osage River has made news this week. #LakeoftheOzarks filled to over capacity with flood gates roaring.

The swinging bridge in this video spans Greatglaize Creek near Brumley, in Miller County. Designed by Joe Dice in the first quarter of the 1900s, this is one of a number of ‘swingers’ the self-taught engineer built. It’s almost 100 years old and still used by local traffic (when the creek’s not high!). Driving across is a noisy and exhilarating experience as the narrow planks rattle and the bridge sways. Cars roll slowly.

Frightened cattle or overloaded trucks broke the deck of some and tornadoes wrecked others, but no Dice bridge ever structurally failed.

Damming the Osage, page 74

Read more about Dice in our book.

Thanks to Shawn Kober and his Big Planet Media for permission to post this very cool aerial footage of flooding on Greatglaize Creek, a tributary of Lake of the Ozarks.

KANSAS CITY STAR – 53 years ago today – CORPS RECOMMENDS ADDING POWER GENERATION TO KAYSINGER BLUFF DAM

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Mar 162015
 

Twelve years after authorization of what was then called Kaysinger Dam, and a little more than two years before the actual groundbreaking commencement of construction, Army Corps of Engineers Lt. Gen. W. K. Wilson, Jr. recommended to the Secretary of the Army the addition of power generators and a larger conservation pool to the already massive project. Senator Stuart Symington was also informed of the recommendation.The Star notes this will make the reservoir larger than Lake of the Ozarks.

Not surprising – the cost was creeping up. Read all about it!  KCStar_03.16.62

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