USA > Missouri > Missouri the center state, 1821-1915 > Part 18
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Many years ago Forsyth was reached by steamboats on White River. The bold navigators pushed their sternwheelers to the foot of the rapids. Then they sent the roustabouts clambering over rocks and through the trees, dragging the towline its full length. The upper end was strongly fastened to stand the strain. The boat end of the hawser was wound around the capstan. With the paddle wheels driven by every pound of pressure available, and with the donkey engine winding in the towline, the boat dragged and pushed itself up foot by foot through the foaming rapids. After the passage was made a long reach of smooth, deep water made easy progress for perhaps twenty, perhaps fifty miles. In this way Forsyth was reached. And when the boat, "loaded to the guards" with lead and cotton and hogs and the various productions of the White River country, turned her head downstream, there was little to do except to trust to Providence and the nerve of the man behind the pilot wheel. The current did the rest.
But the railroads built into South Missouri. The Ozark people took to raising less cotton and more corn, which they fed to live stock that could be driven over-
CROSSING WHITE RIVER
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THE WATERS OF MISSOURI
land to railroad points north. The inducements for river transportation to and from Forsyth became smaller. One day, in a spirit of daring, Capt. Bateman said he was going to take the Mary C. to Forsyth if it was her last trip. He made McBee's and the other landings above Buffalo City, and triumphantly awoke the echoes of the heights of Pine Mountain as the boat came in sight of Forsyth. But pride went before the worst fall that could happen to a steamboatman. In trying to turn the Mary C.'s head downstream, the captain failed to gauge the width of the channel. He "ran her nozzle ag'in the bank" on one side. The stern went around with a sweep and lodged against a gravel bar on the other side. The Mary C. lay for a few moments broadside in the channel, blocking it. There was creaking and groaning. The hog chains parted. The Mary C.'s back was broken. The wreck lay there until the elements wore it to pieces which floated away. That was the end of navigation to Forsyth.
The most important tributary of the White above Forsyth is the James. It joins from the Missouri side, and is wholly within this state. Its character is very like that of the White and the other branches. Two points in Stone County, Galena and Marvel Cave, are joined by a ridge road eighteen miles long. James River also connect these two points, but runs 125 miles in its crooked course to do so. With the James added, the White becomes at Forsyth a river in more than name. When it is "up" the ferry is the only means of crossing. In low stages the stream is fordable at the "riffles." The long reaches of still water are many feet in depth.
Pioneer Water Power.
On a branch of the Femme Osage Creek in St. Charles County, Jonathan Bryan built a water mill. This, according to tradition, was the first use made of water power in Missouri outside of St. Louis. The mill is said to have been built in 1801. It would grind from six to ten bushels of grain in the course of a day and a night. The early settlers at St. Charles on Loutre Island and between depended on the Bryan mill for their flour and meal. Bryan used the same stones to grind the wheat and the corn. He sifted the flour in a box by hand. The creek upon which the mill was located was fed by a spring. Bryan had such confidence in the operation of his plant that he filled the hopper with corn in the morning and went about other work. He gave his attention to the mill only as it was necessary to refill the hopper and to empty the basin. In this way the mill ran continuously through the twenty-four hours. From the stones the meal and flour dropped into a large basin on the floor. About a mile from this mill Daniel Boone was living with his son Nathan. The Boones had a dog they called Cuff. This dog found an opportunity in Bryan's absence from the mill. He went there and licked the meal out of the basin. When Cuff was especially hungry and the meal did not run from the stones fast enough to suit him he would bark. In this way Bryan learned the defect in his system. He discarded the basin and used a large coffee pot, the top of which was too small for the dog's head.
Other water mills were built in the pioneer period, but they were not as numerous as might have been expected from Missouri's unparalleled water power. On the border between Arkansas and Missouri the Mammoth Spring was utilized for milling purposes. Beyond this the power possibilities of the never failing
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streams and springs of the Ozarks were ignored practically until the present generation.
Hydro-Electric Opportunities.
A. M. Haswell of Springfield, who is qualified as an expert in knowledge of the Ozarks, recently wrote: "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 furnish, 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, State Labor Commissioner, has, within the past year pointed out the possibilities 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 and having a possible capacity of 28,000. Mr. Fitzpatrick ventures 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 rein- forced 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 has 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 says, 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 Ozarks
CAPTAIN HENRY D. BACON
The steamboat man who never ran a boat on Sunday
COL. THORNTON GRIMSLEY Inventor of the Dragoon saddle
CAPTAIN WILLIAM W. GREENE
CAPTAIN JOHN N. BOFINGER
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between the Missouri River and the Arkansas line. "The same investment 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, has for years advocated the construction of dams across the Mississippi to create electrical energy. He has even gone 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 Commerce, 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 Mississippi was discovered, the City of St. Louis seriously considered the Meramec Spring as the source of its water supply by means of an aqueduct.
Seven 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 post- poned 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 in September, 1914, 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.
Medicinal Waters.
Loutre Lick in the pioneer days had wide reputation for healing. It is located
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in a basin among the Loutre Creek hills and is better known to this generation by the name of Mineola. Daniel Boone visited Loutre Lick and spread the news that he had been cured by drinking the water. At a later date Thomas H. Benton, even after he went to Congress, visited Loutre Lick. He tested the waters with such results that he had occasion to mention their medicinal qualities in a speech. Afterwards Henry Clay referred to "The Bethesda mentioned by the Senator from Missouri." 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 Bibber was an orphan who had been raised by the Boones. In 1821 he tried to manufacture salt from the lick, but without satisfactory profit.
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 pretend to understand how the electricity or magnetism is carried in the water, but what I tell you has been dem- onstrated many times."
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 Washing- ton scientific men to inspect the Monegaw Springs. The examination 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 patients long distances to these waters. At that time steamboats ascended the 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 Missouri, but across the border in the Indian Terri- tory and Kansas and Arkansas. There were wholesale houses in Osceola which carried stocks 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 besides 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.
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":
...
KANSAS CITY IN 1855
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"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."
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FORT LEAVENWORTH
DENVER
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THE OLD SANTA FÉ TRAIL
SANTA FE
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Compiled for Col. Henry Inman
1896
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MAP OF THE OLD SANTA FE TRAIL
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Cimarron Crossing
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CHAPTER VIII.
TRAILS AND TRACKS.
The Old Wilderness-Ghost Pond-Trail 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-Kenner of Poudingville-Benton's Change of Mind on Internal Im- provements-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. Joe-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 Bronch-Receipts Greater than Operating Expenses-Gould's Purchase of the Missouri Pacific-Deals with the Garrisons and Thomas Allen.
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, hut which would in the aggregate ultimately grow to be a sum sufficient to carry on the state government without the levv of any taxes on the people for state purposes .- Governor Thomas C, Fletcher 10 Missouri 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 Wilder- ness road is one of the most novel stretches of mountain travel to be found any- where. 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 side a like grade and see as far as the vision reaches the bald knobs bobbing up in all directions. On either side lead trails to the stiffest of mountain climbing. But before you extends a level road, somewhat flinty, but with no grades up and down which horses can not trot. and over which a bicycle might not be wheeled with comfort.
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The bald knobs are not the least interesting freaks of this Ozark region. When Farmer Wade went to Congress from the Springfield district his colleague, Major Warner, introduced him to a Massachusetts member one day.
"Farmer Wade is a bald knobber," said Major Warner.
The Massachusetts man looked inquiringly a moment, and as his eyes fell on the polished dome of Farmer Wade's thinker, he responded :
"Ah, yes, I see. Bald knobber is very good."
The Massachusetts man builded better than he knew. If there is anything in nature which can be compared to an entirely bald head, the kind that takes on high polish, it is one of these bald knobs of the Ozarks. You may be in the midst of a heavy growth of white oak and pine. There is forest all around. But through a vista you get a glimpse across the range of a great round knob, without so much as a scrub oak or a rock upon it. Grass, which glistens in the sunlight, grows all over the knob so luxuriantly as to hide any minute unevenness of surface. Right in the midst of other hills and ridges clothed in forest stands the bald knob without a sign of foliage, with nothing but its grassy coating. At first sight it is hard to convince one's self that nature is responsible for the knob's baldness.
Ghost Pond.
A landmark on the Old Wilderness road is Ghost pond. A hundred yards to the east of the road is a depression. It is a kind of natural sink. In the center is an acre of dark-colored water. Grass grows down to the edge of the pond. A few stumps project above the surface. Two or three trees have fallen halfway in the water. The forest is all around. People who travel the Old Wilderness road and know all about it do not often stop to water or to camp at Ghost pond.
A band of bushwhackers came up the Old Wilderness road on a foraging ex- pedition during the war. They camped at the pond and went on the next day to Galena, a dozen miles. Here they killed three old men, among the most promi- nent citizens, Cox, Davis and Baker. They took 150 head of cattle and what plunder they could carry and started back for the Old Wilderness road and Arkansas. The alarm was sounded, and the Stone County Home Guards rallied at Galena as fast as they could travel over the mountain trails. Capt. Baker, a son of one of the victims of the guerrillas, organized the pursuit. The Home Guards overtook the bushwhackers on Bailey's creek. They spread out and climbed along the mountains on both sides of the trail. With their superior knowl- edge of the country the Guards were able to pick off the bushwhackers with little loss to themselves. The bushwhackers at last abandoned the cattle and fled. The Home Guards seemingly gave up the fight. In reality they followed the bush- whackers and prepared a trap. Finding himself as he supposed beyond pursuit, the guerrilla chief went into camp at the pond. The Home Guards crawled up on all sides, and at the crack of dawn opened fire. It was a slaughter. Of the 120 men who came up from Arkansas only twenty crossed White river on the return. Nine bodies were taken from the little pond.
Magnitude of Trail Transportation.
The Missouri firm of Majors, Russell and Waddell took a contract from the Government to convey across the plains as much as 16,000,000 pounds of supplies at a time. This required an investment of $2.500,000. The supplies were taken
SANTAFE TRAILYS
THE SANTA FETRAIL
SANTA FE TRAIL MARKER
A MISSOURI PACK TRAIN TO SANTA FE, 1820
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up the Missouri river and landed at the outfitting points. Such a contract as that indicated called for four thousand wagons, fifty thousand oxen and one thousand mules. This will give some idea of the magnitude which the trail business reached.
The system which these Missourians developed in the business of freighting across the plains was interesting. Before any one was accepted he was required to sign this contract : "While I am in the employ of Majors, Russell and Waddell, I agree not to use profane language, not to get drunk, not to gamble, not to treat animals cruelly, not to do anything else that is incompatible with the conduct of a gentleman and I agree if I violate any of the above conditions, to accept my discharge without collecting any pay for my services."
Perhaps the hardest part of the pledge was that relating to profane language. The duties of the teamster required him to yoke, to herd, to unyoke and to drive twelve oxen from thirteen to fifteen miles a day, drawing a wagon loaded with three tons of freight. The teamster was known in the language of the train as a "bullwhacker." At night the wagons were placed end to end, forming an oval, and within this wagon-bounded corral were driven the oxen before the starting hour. As nearly as practicable the train was made to consist of thirty wagons. Early in the morning the thirty "bullwhackers" took thirty yokes upon their shoulders and lined up around the corral. Then came the command from the wagon master, "Yoke up." The "bullwhackers" plunged into the herd of cattle, each selected a steer for a place on one side of the tongue of his wagon. Whether the steer was wild or tame the "bullwhacker" must slip the bow around the neck and put the yoke in place. Then he began a search among the three hundred or four hundred kicking, bellowing, hooking steers for a nigh or an off ox to complete the tongue yoke. Having secured his wheelers the "bullwhacker" drove them out through the gap of the corral and fastened the ring of the tongue to the yoke. The beginning was thus made. With another yoke on his shoulder the "bullwhacker" entered the corral and picked the "off leader" and the "near leader." He drove this pair to a wheel of his wagon on the inside of the corral and made them fast. Then with a third yoke he went in search of the pair of "swing cattle" who were to follow immediately behind the leaders. Then a fourth pair was yoked and the fifth pair. The leaders and the four yokes following attached to the chain were driven through the gap and placed in front of the wheel pair. In this way the "bullwhacker" completed his motive power for the day. If the train was about starting on the long trail and the cattle were wild it might require two hours to yoke up. After the cattle were broken and the "bullwhackers" had become expert the twelve oxen could be yoked up in fifteen minutes.
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