osage river – Page 5 – Damming the Osage

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.

Junction of Sac and Osage rivers near Osceola

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Jan 062013

Real Photo postcard, circa 1920

People have been taking pictures from the overlook on Highway 82 above the junction of the Sac and Osage rivers for a long time. Though the scenery along the Osage was not celebrated in oil paintings, locals have long appreciated its pastoral aspects and frequently photographed it.

These photos were taken in March 2010

OSAGE RIVER in Flood at the Town of Bagnell

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Dec 192012

8 x 10 press photo from Chicago. 4/21/41

The cutline reads: “BAGNELL, MO. – This bantam rooster, caught in the flood that has inundated several Ozark towns, found himself floating on a log down the Main Street of Bagnell, Mo., a new experience worth crowing about.”

Note that this flood happened ten years after Bagnell Dam closed off the Osage River creating Lake of the Ozarks. Note as well that the town of Bagnell is below the dam in what should have been a protected area. If the promised storage reserves are adequate, dams can help prevent downstream flooding. However, if the reservoirs are full and major rainfall or snowmelt occurs upstream (as happened on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers in 2011), dams can create higher and longer flood crests

KAYSINGER BLUFF, Warsaw, Missouri

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Dec 122012

Real photo postcard by McKinney

A hundred years before the Army Corps of Engineers Visitor Center was built at the overlook, locals came to picnic and gawk. With a distant view of the Pomme de Terre entering the Osage, and easy accessibility from Warsaw, it was a popular day trip for generations of locals.

We have drawn a blank trying to learn the origin of the name of this overlook. We can’t find a Kaysinger family in any record we’ve seen, or even another name that may sound the same but be spelled differently. The word sounds German and there are a number of German families in Benton and surrounding counties. If anyone knows who Kaysinger was, please leave a comment.

LOVERS LEAP, LAKE OF THE OZARKS

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Dec 052012

Real photo postcard, probably 1940s

Lovers Leap was a cliff near Linn Creek, about which J. W. Vincent, editor of the local paper, penned a fanciful tale of a suicidal India maiden. Virtually every declivity more than 25 feet high in the Mississippi River valley had a similar legend attached to it. When Lake of the Ozarks filled in 1931, the name stayed but the jump got shorter and the landing in water became more survivable. The little creature poised on the rocks in disregard of its safety appears to be some species of dog.

FORT OSAGE MOVIE

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Nov 132012

Movie Lobby Card, 1952

Fort Osage, a 72 minute B movie from Monogram Studio,has Red Cameron guiding a wagon train through Indian Territory. The Osages are unhappy with the Anglo-Saxon immigrants because of the treating-violating proclivities of the white men.

Not that Hollywood was known for authenticity in their portrayal of Indian life, but their scripts of Osages are both particularly inauthentic and rare. The Osage tribe had two headline grabbing periods. The first came before they moved out of their homeland on the Osage River. Their military power was a great concern to President Thomas Jefferson. The second came when they became oil-rich in the 1920s. They were frequently covered by the media. Unlike western Plains tribes, they never fought the cavalry and have thus escaped cinematic treatment.

BRIDGING THE OSAGE

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Nov 072012

Hand colored postcard, circa 1910

Marais des Cygnes, variously creatively spelled, is the principal extension of the Osage River. Through Kansas it’s a more bridge-able stream, and was crossed in many places by iron truss bridges beginning in the 1870s.

In the background of the low Ott Dam, which once powered a grist mill, is another iron “wagon bridge” as they were called. These bridges were a huge improvement to rural life as the mud bottomed and banked Marais des Cygnes was difficult to ford even in dry weather. Pictures of the construction of these bridges are almost unknown. Once built, there were popular subjects for commercial photographers. As they disappear, replaced by sturdier but singularly unattractive beam bridges, there is usually a round of nostalgia-fueled protest in the local newspaper.

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