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:
“One cannot analyze the perfume of a wild rose, nor may one explain wholly the lure of the White River country — the noblest pleasure ground of the Missouri Ozarks.
“After you have fished its streams, floated in a canoe through the blue magic of its moonlight, cantered over its trails in the freshness of early morning, and slept, night after night, beneath its stars, you will understand — a little.”
The cover of this 1920s-era brochure depicts an urban couple in a canoe but describes and pictures “the Famous James-White River Float Trip,” which was made in guided wooden johnboats.
