After the publication of James Fork of the White, we acquired this brochure with the photo of Jim Owen holding up a stringer of bass. It is not dated but it refers to Bull Shoals as “one of the best fishing lakes in the United States.” It also states that Owen can arrange five- or…
Before Jim Owen and later John Morris pitched fishing the Ozarks, the Missouri Pacific railroad lured visitors to “the White River Country in the Missouri Ozarks” with romantic descriptions: A 1922 Missouri Pacific booklet, 31 pages, photographically illustrated. This gem rhapsodically describes recreational assets of the upper White River. The artist-illustrated cover depicts the target…
A small mailing piece drawn by Steve Miller for “White River” Jim M. Owen proclaimed, “THE BIG BASS ARE ON THE MOVE and the months of October and November are the two greatest months of the year to take an Ozark Float trip.” Branson artist Miller’s cartoons of the native fish are silly. Oddly he…
Jim Owen leans jauntily on the truck (front row, right), with artist Steve Miller and Owen’s float-fishing guides in front of his Hillbilly Theater, 1940. At the height of the float trip era, Jim Owen and his team gathered for a photo on Owen Company truck, in front of the Owen Hillbilly Theater, venue for…
Photograph by Townsend Godsey. Congressman Dewey Short and unidentified colleagues look at the White River. On the back is written, “Table Rock dam site 9-14-41.” Dewey Short appears to be pointing out the location where the long-delayed dam would be built. Only a month earlier the President had signed the Flood Control Act of 1941,…
A 1940s view from Table Rock. (From James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River) Into the 1940s, visitors continued to visit and pose for photographs on the flat rock above the White River valley – where there was still no sign of earthmoving equipment, much less a towering blockage to the…
Real photo postcard, 1920s, by Payne Johnson, Branson Mo. (Photo courtesy of Lens & Pen Press) “Table Rock Dam will be built across the big sand bar.” Most bluffs along Ozark rivers are named. Table Rock Bluff had a relatively flat top (hence the name). The spot was accessible by road and afforded an impressive…
Dancing at an Ozark picnic, 1920s. Real photo postcard by George Hall. (Photo courtesy of Lens & Pen Press. From James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River) Unlike the posed hillbilly family real photo postcard last month, this is a straightforward document of the surviving folk culture on the upper White River,…
