The Missouri Pacific poetic promotion of Ozark float tripping

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…

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Still no dam

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…

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Folks dancing

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,…

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