Lake of the Ozarks: The Early Years

By H. Dwight Weaver

Seventy years ago in the Ozarks of southern Missouri, Bagnell Dam was built across the Osage River, creating the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks. Using over 200 images and in- depth captions, author H. Dwight Weaver takes readers back to the origins of this man-made treasure and the towns that surround it. Construction on Bagnell Dam began in 1929, employing thousands of men during the Great Depression. Inundation of the Osage River valley destroyed the area's most fertile farmlands, covered numerous historic sites, and even destroyed Linn Creek, the county seat. But the development also created new towns and a new economy. The images in this new book follow the growth of towns along U.S. Highway 54, including Eldon, Tuscumbia, Bagnell, Osage Beach, and Linn Creek, through the Depression, World War Two, and finally the booming 1950s.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Nov 9, 2000
• ISBN: 9781439610978

H. Dwight Weaver

H. Dwight Weaver takes readers back as well, offering this companion to his previous work, Lake of the Ozarks: The Early Years. A resident of the Lake of the Ozarks for nearly 40 years, Mr.Weaver is a past president of the Camden County Historical Society. His travelogue of words and images gives readers a glimpse into America's early days of leisure and travel, showing how the push for progress turned this Midwestern corner into a lakeside paradise.

Book preview

time.

INTRODUCTION

Men of vision began dreaming of harnessing the power of the Osage River more than a century ago. The first were millers who constructed dams across spring branches and the smaller tributaries of the Osage in the 1800s to operate grist mills, woolen mills, and sawmills.

In 1912, a great scheme was conceived by industrialists to dam the Niangua River near Arnhold’s Mill a few miles above the Niangua’s confluence with the Osage River near Old Linn Creek. The proposed dam was to be 130 feet high.

When this scheme did not materialize, the men of vision moved their dreams downstream near the small river town of Bagnell. In 1924, Walter Cravens of Kansas City brought forth a plan to erect a dam here, but it was not until 1929 that plans by others made the dream a reality. The Union Electric Light and Power Company of St. Louis announced they would build a dam across the Osage just above Bagnell at a cost of approximately $30 million. The announcement followed completion of extensive transactions involving the St. Joseph Lead Company and the Missouri Pacific Railroad. The Mississippi River and Bonne Terre Railroad was sold to the Missouri–Illinois Railroad, both owned by the St. Joseph Lead Company. Then the Missouri Pacific acquired a majority stock in the combined railroads. The Union Electric Company purchased a giant steam-power plant from the Land Company at Rivermines, Missouri, and contracted to furnish the company its power needs. To meet this demand for power, the electric company undertook construction of Bagnell Dam, and so it was that Lake of the Ozarks was born on the northern flanks of the Ozarks in south central Missouri in 1931.

The forested landscape of the Osage River basin is hilly, and its bedrock is riddled with caves and springs. Osage Indians were the original inhabitants. Daniel Boone and his son Nathan hunted the land before 1803, and Lieutenant James Wilkerson of the Zebulon Pike expedition explored the territory in 1805. Settlement by people from east of the Mississippi River began in the 1830s.

By 1904 the four counties most impacted by the Lake of the Ozarks had a combined population of more than 57,000, and their lifestyle was based on agriculture, mining, and river commerce.

The creation of Lake of the Ozarks changed both the economy and the culture of the region, thrusting its people into the seasonal environment of a vacation area. The character and friendly nature of the local people is best illustrated by what occurred on May 30, 1931, when the dam was officially opened to traffic. On the following Saturday, 2,914 cars passed over the dam.

By Saturday night of that Memorial weekend, a newspaper account related, "visitors had flocked to Eldon on their way to the dam and took residents by surprise. By 8 p.m., hotels were full in the city, and 126 people had called for rooms at the James House...[which was] more than could be accommodated.

Hotel managers and personnel of service stations, cafes and other business places called citizens of the city and many took the tourists into their homes overnight, providing breakfast the next morning."

Within just a few years, such efforts to accommodate people were unnecessary as the demand for accommodations and attractions gave the region the inducement for growth and development.

By the early 1940s, it was obvious that a change had taken place. A 1941 account describing the route from Old Bagnell to the dam said, Between the junction and the Lake of the Ozarks, an increasing number of filling stations, roadside eating places, tourist camps, novelty stands, and brightly painted signs with arrows pointing along winding dirt and graveled roads indicate a widely publicized recreational area.

The 1930s were the years of the Great Depression, followed immediately by the tourist-depleting years of World War II in the 1940s. Despite the hard times, the area grew, and by the end of the 1950s there were more than 260 resorts at the lake.

The pioneer years for the business community at the Lake of the Ozarks were 1932 to 1960, with the most dramatic growth occurring in the 1950s. These are the years largely commemorated in this book, although a peek at even earlier days is also given where appropriate.

It was not easy to chose what areas to feature in this book, because the Lake of the Ozarks region covers such a large geographical area, extending 129 river miles upstream on the Osage with historic old towns on both sides. So a more narrow focus had to be found.

As well, it was not easy to choose the images for the chapters in this book, because so many businesses and attractions seemed worthy of attention and so little space was available. And for many sites, no photographs were available. In the end, those that do appear provide at least a glimpse of what the pioneer years were like at the Lake of the Ozarks and what some of the landmarks were.

Because the construction of Bagnell Dam formed Lake of the Ozarks and made it all possible, the book begins with the dam’s construction. Then, beginning with Eldon, the images follow U.S. Highway 54, going west and south through the communities of Bagnell, Lakeside, Lake Ozark, Osage Beach, Linn Creek, and Camdenton to State Highway 5, then north through the Hurricane Deck area to Gravois Mills and Versailles.

There is a side trip to the old town of Tuscumbia on State Highway 52, and to historic Ha Ha Tonka State Park, just west of Camdenton. The book also pays tribute to the area’s most famous town—old Linn Creek. It is a lost land that generates curiosity and gives birth to legends. Hopefully, the images and text of this book will satisfy some of that curiosity and preserve the visions of the businessmen and women who first came to the Bagnell Dam area in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s with seemingly impossible dreams.

One

BAGNELL DAM

"Out in the blue hills of the beautiful Ozark country, rich in