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.
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.
