Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 40

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1074

USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 40

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- "Water power, more of it twice over than has made the six stony little New England states the richest of the nation. Not only so, but with a far greater variety of uses for it than New England has, or ever had. Water powers so situated, some of them, as to be susceptible of developing without so much as a dam.

"For instance, the Gasconade river in Pulaski county has the 'Moccasin Bend,' where that fine, swift stream winds through the hills for some eight miles, and turns back on . itself until a neck only 780 feet across separates the water in its upper and lower courses. A simple tunnel through the neck would give a fall of almost 25 feet, and fur- nish 5,000 horsepower. Six miles distant, in a straight line, is another great bend sixteen miles around and a mile across, with a fall of 48 feet. There are others of the same sort on the James and White rivers in Stone county, and in a dozen other places.

"Then there are the great springs. The Greer spring in Oregon county flows 435,000,000 gallons every twenty-four hours. The largest spring in the world. It has site after site where that immense flow could be used over and over again. Bennett's spring in the eastern edge of Dallas county is another mammoth nearly half as large as the Greer ; Hahatonka is another, and so on. And these spring powers have this signal advantage over a power formed by damming an ordinary stream, they are constant. The Greer spring does not vary 5 per cent in volume, be the season wet or dry."

John T. Fitzpatrick, while state labor commissioner, pointed out the possi- bilities of water power, using the recently completed plant of the Ozark Power and Water company as an illustration. This plant is on White river. It was completed in September, 1914. It started with a capacity of 17,000 horsepower, having a possible capacity of 28,000. Mr. Fitzpatrick ventured the assertion that the streams with rapid currents in the Ozark region can furnish power for one thousand plants equal to the one mentioned. The dam on White river is fifty feet high and thirteen hundred feet long. It is built of hollow reinforced concrete and has a spillway six hundred feet across over which the water can pass twenty feet deep in time of flood. The White river plant cost $2,000,000, which includes the cost of the transmission lines to Carthage, Webb City, Joplin and Springfield. Mr. Fitzpatrick offered the suggestion that at a point in the northwestern portion of St. Louis county the Missouri river is many feet higher than the Meramec and distant only a few miles. A canal to connect the two rivers, the commissioner said, would furnish power sufficient to run the street car system of St. Louis, light the streets and operate many industries.

One of the engineers who worked on the White river plant volunteered the opinion that there was a power site every twenty-five miles on the White river. The power is carried on lines supported by steel piers. Menard L. Holman, who was consulted in the selection of the site at Branson, said he had traveled all over the United States, east and west and from Canada to the Gulf and that nowhere had he found such possibilities of water power development as exist in the

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Ozarks between the Missouri river and the Arkansas line. "The same invest- ment made in the Keokuk dam project," he said, "if spent in hydro-electric development of the Ozarks would return a much larger profit."

Lyman E. Cooley, the engineer of the Chicago Canal, for years advocated the construction of dams across the Mississippi to create electrical energy. He went even so far as to indicate locations where the topographical conditions favor. Before the Congressional committee on Rivers and Harbors, Professor Cooley said that two dams, one just below St. Louis and the other at Com- - merce. Missouri. could be built to supply in each case 100,000 horsepower.

The Ozark rivers make great circuits of miles-then return upon their courses so nearly that only a mighty mass of rock a few hundred feet thick separates. The water on one side of this narrow partition is a dozen feet or more higher than on the other side, the equivalent of the natural fall in the circuit of miles.

The waters of Meramec spring rise in a basin ninety feet across. This basin is at the foot of a bluff. The flow of water, measured by the United States Geological Survey is 125,000,000 gallons in twenty-four hours. And this flow is of very little variation; neither does the temperature change much with the seasons. The water is clear and free from organic matter. Local rainfall has little effect. From where can such a volume come? That is one of the many mysteries of the Ozarks. Before a treatment to take the silt out of the Missis- sippi was discovered, the City of St. Louis seriously considered the Meramec spring as the source of its water supply by means of an aqueduct.

Twelve years ago surveys were made for a hydro-electric plant on the Meramec, 150 miles southwest of St. Louis. At the place selected the river flows over solid rock and between bluffs. The plans called for a dam thirty feet high. As the river channel falls rapidly below the dam it was possible by leading the water in a canal to add twenty feet more to the fall, making the effective head on the turbine wheels fifty feet. The plant was expected to generate 4,800 horsepower. Surveys were made to locate other similar plants on the Meramec and available sites were found for half a dozen more. The promise of 40,000 horsepower from the Meramec alone was held out by the projectors. Actual construction was postponed until devices to prevent leakage of the current in course of transmission could be perfected. The leakage problem, the electrical engineers say, has held back the development of hydro-electric power in Missouri. The best locations for water power plants are long distances from the market for the current.

In the northeastern corner of Dallas county is one of the mammoth springs of the Ozarks. It flows 60,000 gallons a minute. Springs supplying from thirty to forty horsepower are numerous in Reynolds county. Laclede county spreads over stretches of the Gasconade, the Big Niangua and the Ozark fork of the Gasconade.

But Missouri is at last turning attention to water power. That is the notable new thing in the state's industrial development. Companies are being formed. One was chartered by citizens of Edgerton, Dearborn and Trimble to dam the Platte near the first mentioned place for the generation of electric power to supply several communities in that part of the state.

ONE OF MISSOURI'S COUNTLESS SPRINGS

MISSOURI BETHESDAS

"In the space of a city block are one hundred and two medical springs. No two of them exactly alike in their properties

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The Missouri Bethesda.

The first health resort in Missouri was Loutre Lick, which was referred to by Henry Clay on the floor of Congress as early as 1824 as "the Bethesda mentioned by the honorable senator from Missouri."

Van Bibber tried to make salt but the water was not strong enough in saline quality. Of the medicinal virtue there was no doubt. Daniel Boone came repeatedly to Loutre Lick and remained weeks at a time drinking the waters. He thought that he received great benefit for a kidney trouble. Stomach and bowel ailments were helped. Invalids of several generations visited the spring. The name of the place was changed to Mineola some time after the Civil war.

In the vicinity of Mineola are many artificial mounds in which human bones have been found. Fragments of pottery in numbers have been picked up, indicating that Loutre Lick was visited by aborigines long before the white men came. Pioneers in this neighborhood accumulated collections of stone axes, flint arrows and implements fashioned from bone. Loutre Lick is in a basin among the Loutre Creek hills. Thomas H. Benton, even after he went to Congress, visited Loutre Lick. He tested the waters with such re- sults that he had occasion to mention their medicinal qualities in a speech. Loutre Lick was on a tract of ground, 460 acres altogether, which was granted by the Spanish governor at St. Louis in 1799 to Nathan Boone, the son of Daniel. Boone sold the place to Major Isaac Van Bibber in 1815. Van Bib- ber was an orphan who had been raised by the Boones.

At Lebanon, artesian boring tapped a vein of "magnetic water." Erwin Ellis described the peculiar quality of this medicinal spring: "Go into the engine room, make it perfectly dark and let a little steam out by the stopcock. Then put the end of your finger in the steam. Each little drop, as it forms on your finger from the condensation of steam, will show a spark of electric light. You can stand in the steam, and as the drops form on your whiskers and hair they will give out enough electric light to make the features distinguishable. If you let the steam from the water play on the blade of your knife you will find that it will magnetize so that you can pick up a pin or a nail. I don't pre- tend to understand how the electricity or magnetism is carried in the water, but what I tell you has been demonstrated many times."

Medicinal Waters.

Monegaw springs in St. Clair county took the name of a famous Osage Indian chief who lived and died near by. In the space of about a city block are 102 of these springs and no two of them are exactly alike in their properties. There are black, yellow and white sulphur waters of varying degrees. Some of the springs are saline; others chalybeate. About 1851 the government sent out from Washington scientific men to inspect the Monegaw springs. The ex- amination showed that this sulphur water was without superior in the United States. The medicinal qualities were declared to be of great value. In the pioneer period, many cures of chronic ailments like rheumatism and dyspepsia resulted from visits to Monegaw. Physicians before the Civil war sent pa- tients long distances to these waters. At that time steamboats ascended the

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Osage to Osceola and above. They brought cargoes to replenish the stocks of merchants who supplied goods in job lots to stores, not only in Southwest Mis- souri. but across the border in the Indian Territory and Kansas and Arkansas. There were wholesale houses in Osceola which carried stock valued at $100,- 000. When Lane and his raiders came over from Kansas in 1861 to burn Osceola they carried away a wagon train of plunder which the leader estimated to be worth $1.000.000. St. Clair county is a region of wonderful springs in ad- dition to those of Monegaw. A few miles southwest of Osceola are salt springs. At Taberville are sulphur springs. In many other places are found medicinal waters.

"White Sulphur" on the Osage.

Eight miles above Warsaw on the Osage was the White Sulphur, which be- came a famous resort before the war. A large hotel was built and other im- provements to encourage visitors to the springs were planned but the hotel burned and the war interfered with the plans.

Five miles from Warsaw are the Black Sulphur Springs, six in number, flowing streams of such pressure and volume as to make them phenomenal even in a region of such examples of water power as the Ozarks possess. Evi- dences that the Indians in great numbers came and camped at these Benton county springs abound. Many years ago, scientists came from the East to dig up skeletons of the mastodon in this county. Along the Pomme de Terre these skeletons were especially numerous. One was said to have found a market at $20.000 for a natural history collection in the East. The end of a tusk three feet long and indicating a mastodon tooth nine feet long was for years an ob- ject of curiosity in a Warsaw store.

The medicinal value of the Mooresville Mineral Springs were discovered by letting the hogs use the water. Not a case of cholera occurred among them while the disease was raging in the droves round about. Then a chemical an- alysis showing the constituents was obtained. It justified the establishment of a hotel. The Mooresville waters took their place for curative properties with the most effective of mineral waters.

In the sand rock of Warrensburg are iron, sulphur and magnesia springs, the waters of which have been proven of much value in the treatment of stomach, bowel and kidney troubles.

The Future of Missouri's Mineral Waters.

The day seems not far distant when the mineral springs of Missouri will come into nation-wide recognition for health giving properties. Cooper, Saline, Howard and adjoining counties have salt springs of such volume and strength that salt making was one of the first manufacturing industries of Missouri. Professor Swallow, when state geologist, reported that half of the counties in the state had sulphur springs. Chouteau in Cooper, Monegaw in St. Clair, Elk in Pike, Excelsior in Clay are only a few of the springs which have won past or present repute for their medicinal virtues. Sweet Springs, on Blackwater creek, flow chalybeate waters containing salts of iron. Petroleum or tar springs in Carroll, Ray, Cass, Lafayette, Bates, Vernon and other counties yielding

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quantities of lubricating oil, carry the encouragement of the possible develop- ment of a great oil field somewhere in Missouri.

One of the largest springs, believed for years by geologists to be the largest in Missouri, flows nearly 11,000,000 cubic feet of water a day according to the measurement by state officials. From its head this spring, known as Bryce's, flows a river forty-two yards wide. It is in the Niangua country which includes parts of Dallas, Hickory and Camden counties.

"Row you up Salt river," was a dire warning in Missouri as early as 1830. Salt river, the Riviere au Sel of the French and the Oa-haha of the Indians, heads near the northern boundary of Missouri and runs through Shelby, Mon- roe, Ralls and Pike counties. An old Gazetteer said "the threat to row an an- tagonist up Salt river" was understood to be equivalent to prediction of utter defeat.

Pioneer River Improvement.

River improvement in Missouri had its beginning nearly one hundred years ago. It was successful in that it told future generations how not to do it. An immense sandbar formed in front of St. Louis. It threatened to throw the channel far over to the Illinois side. And that at a time when St. Louis was just commencing to realize the good of river traffic. Wealthy citizens raised a lot of money for that day. General Bernard Pratte headed the list. Thomas ' Fiveash Riddick came forward with a plan. He was the man who had ridden horseback to Washington in the dead of winter to get Congress to give for public schools land not covered by French grants and other private titles. He was a public spirited citizen of much initiative. Riddick's theory was to plow these deposits of Missouri river silt when the water was low. He argued that the next rise would carry away the loosened sand. Public opinion decided that Riddick's theory would work out. John Goodfellow,-mark the name .- . was chosen to take charge. He got oxen and the heaviest plow he could find. Up and down the sandbar, Goodfellow's oxen were gee-ed and haw-ed, dragging the great plow until they had loosened every foot of sand which showed above water. All St. Louis gathered on the river front and watched the job of plow- ing the Mississippi. The people turned out again when the water rose and fell. The bar was still there and growing and the channel was moving east- ward. This went on from bad to worse until Congress took up the problem. A young lieutenant of engineers was sent out from Washington. He remained for months, built dykes which threw the current back and made it carry away the silt it had deposited. The sandbar was washed away and St. Louis was saved from becoming an inland city. The young lieutenant was Robert E. Lee.

In Commodore Garrison's Day.

The fame of Commodore C. K. Garrison rested mainly upon his long identi- fication with water transportation before the Civil war. The Commodore had his day in St. Louis. Captain Joseph Brown remembered this :

The hull of the Convoy was built by Captain Garrison, up the Big Muddy river, largely by his own labor, he handling the broadax. She was a large and fine boat for her day.

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I remember being on her one trip coming up, when there were quite a lot of young, jolly fellows on board. They played a joke on Captain Garrison by getting one of their number to go to the captain just before they reached Memphis and secure the privilege of ringing the bell, as was the custom, before arriving at a town. But the captain, also making a joke of it on his part, told the young fellow that it would cost him five dollars. This the young man, expecting to get even with him, readily paid. When they got within ringing distance of Memphis he commenced to ring the big bell, that weighed over a ton, and kept on until the captain, sitting on the roof of the boat, looked around and said, "All right, that will do." "No," said the the young fellow, "I haven't got the worth of my money yet."

"But," said the captain, "you will alarm the town; they will think the boat is on fire." "I can't help that," was the reply, "I haven't got the worth of my money yet."

"Well," roared the captain, "stop it, and I'll give you back your money."

"No," screamed the youth, "I don't stop until you give me back my money and agree to give the party a champagne supper."

"All right," acquiesced the captain, "I see you have got me."

Commodore Garrison was a brother of Captain Dan and the other Garrisons of St. Louis.

The Artist of the Missouri.

"Morning on the Missouri" is the subject of a canvas which has acquainted eastern folks with the distinctive scenery which the rivers of the state offer to the artistic sense. John Sites Ankeney won fame more than state-wide by devoting his years to picturing the river and cliff scenes of Missouri. He roamed the bluffs of the Missouri river for a hundred miles or more. He wandered through the Ozarks. He made a typical Missouri home with a big fireplace his studio in the old town of Rocheport. There, with the tawny river in front and the gray limestone cliffs all about for atmosphere, he transferred to canvas the sketches made in his wanderings. His paintings hang in the cor- ridors of the university at Columbia, giving inspiration to successive genera- tions of student Missourians. Going to and from their classes the boys and girls stop in groups before the scenes of river and landscape, gaining at once ad- miration for art and increased love for their home state. This Missouri artist studied abroad with the best masters. He was sent by the United States gov- ernment as a delegate and lecturer to the International Art congress at Dres- den in 1912. He was on the advisory committee of the Art Congress in Lon- don in 1908, and a member of the advisory committee for the Central West at the Panama-Pacific exposition. The art world knows Ankeney much better than do his fellow citizens in Missouri. It knows him as preeminently "The Artist of the Missouri."

To a newspaper man some years ago, Mr. Ankeney talked interestingly of his chosen field,-Missouri scenery.

"The painter is just like the reporter. He goes out and makes notes, only he reports in color and the reporter in words. The principle is the same. I must get accurate and complete information to make a picture. I can't use my imagination for that would not fill out the details. Perhaps I am down on the Missouri in March. A cloud effect comes along and I work hard for an hour before it is gone and make a sketch of it. A year later I may be on the river at the same spot, or near by, in June, when the vegetation on the bluffs and the banks is especially striking. I make a sketch of this. Then I take the two and from them get an idea for a third and complete picture. I use the first sketch for the cloud effect for this complete picture and the second for the vegetation along the banks. Of course, I take careful notes as to detail, relative size, shape and number of

CAPTAIN JOHN S. MCCUNE

CAPTAIN JOHN SIMONDS

A MISSOURI RIVER SCENE NEAR LEXINGTON

Vol. 1-24

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bluffs, how they look at the skyline, and countless other things needed when painting the large canvas. When I am down by the river the sight of those great bluffs, whose age far surpasses that of the Sphinx, overpowers me. One hour the joyousness of sunlight bathes all in glory, the next the quiet gray restfulness comes. Some days the air is clear and one can see form and hue, though many a mile away; on others the mist shuts out the far to make the near more interesting. But I can't express in words how the river impresses me. That I try to do in painting."

The most beautiful view in Missouri, Mr. Ankeney considers the bold front of the Ozark Uplift where it faces the Missouri river between New Haven and Hermann. He says the stretch of bluff and plain mingling with the river in this location is beyond expression in words.

Two Ancient Misses.

Many years ago, a third of a century or more, a distinguished lawyer of Mis- souri, who loved his state and occasionally allowed poetic fancy right of way over briefs, wrote these lines on "Two Ancient Misses":

"I know two ancient misses

Who ever onward go, From a cold and rigid northern clime, Through a land of wheat and corn and wine, To the southern sea where the fig and the lime, And the golden orange grow.

"In graceful curves they wind about, Upon their long and lonely route Among the beauteous hills ; They never cease their onward step, Though day and night they're dripping wet,

And oft with sleet and snow beset, And sometimes with the chills.

"The one is a romping, dark brunette, As fickle and gay as any coquette ; She glides along by the western plains, And changes her bed each time it rains; Witching as any dark-eyed houri, This romping, wild brunette, Missouri.

"The other is placid, mild and fair. With a gentle, sylph-like, quiet air, And voice as sweet as soft guitar, She moves along the vales and parks, Where naiads play Aeolian harps- Nor ever go by fits and starts- No fickle coquette of the city, But gentle constant Mississippi.

"I love the wild and dark brunette, Because she is a gay coquette ; Her, too, I love of quiet air, Because she's gentle, true and fair ; Land of my birth! The east and west Embraced by these is doubly blest- 'Tis hard to tell which I love best."

CHAPTER XI

TRAILS AND TRACKS

The Old Wilderness-Ghost Pond-Train Transportation-Tactics of Freighting-A Tem- perance Pledge-The Day's Routine-Recollections of a Veteran Trader-The Fast Mail Stage Line-The Trail's Tragedies-Amateur Surgery-Pony Express-The Old Stage Driver-The First Iron Horse-When Missourians Invaded Illinois-Beginning of the Ohio and Mississippi-Railroad Convention of 1849-A Chapter of Secret His- tory-Benton's Change of Mind on Internal Improvements-Missouri's First Formal Railroad Movement-Promotion of the Missouri Pacific-Ground Broken on the Fourth of July-A Great Day on the Edge of Chouteau's Pond-Railroad Celebrations- Official Openings-Transcontinental Mail by Stage and Rail-A Rapid Change of Gauge-Primitive Construction-The First Train Out of St. Joc-Beginnings of Big Systems-Origin of the Wabash-Paramore's Narrow Gauge-A Missourian Originated Railway Mail Service-An Historical Mistake-State Bonds at Heavy Discount- Missouri the Pioneer in Rate Regulation-Governor Fletcher's Recommendation- Profit Sharing Was Possible-Liens Gave State Control-Railroad Companies Accepted the Regulation Condition-State Operation of the Southwest Branch-Receipts Greater than Operating Expenses-The Bond Burden-Gould's Purchase of the Missouri Pacific-Deals with the Garrisons and Thomas Allen-Missourians and the Transconti- mental Rivalry.

I suggest in any disposition you make of this road there be reserved the right of the state to regulate the charges for carrying freight and passengers and that a penalty be attached for exceeding such rates. * * The present is perhaps the best occasion for requiring (in all cases where it may be legally done) of all railroads a small annual tribute to the state, which could be so insignificant in amount as not to interfere with the profitable operation of the roads, but which would in the aggregate ultimately grow to be a sum sufficient to carry on the state government 'without the levy of any taxes on the people for state purposes .- Governor Thomas C. Fletcher to Misscuri Legislature.

Almost due south from Springfield is the course of the "Old Wilderness Trail," or road as called in later years. It is 120 miles long. It crosses the Ozark range. The southern terminus is Berryville, Arkansas. On the entire route there are only two breaks where hills worthy of the name are encountered. One is at the Finley creek crossing. The other is at the White river crossing. This Old Wilderness road is one of the most novel stretches of mountain travel to be found anywhere. To parallel a range and maintain a ridge level is not so extraordinary. But perhaps nowhere else can a mountain range be crossed at right angles without a succession of hills. This north and south transverse ridge of the Ozarks is a strange freak. It crooks and curves, but it never runs out. In places it broadens until it makes a table land, on which settlers have cleared homesteads and made good farms. In other places it narrows until there is just room for a wagon road. You look one side down a steep slope of 500 feet, with peaks and ridges jumbled together beyond. You look down the other

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Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I, Part 40

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939 Publication date: 1921 Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company Number of Pages: 1074

Author: Stevens, Walter Barlow, 1848-1939
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: St. Louis, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 1074