What do you think?
Rate this book
Damming the Osage
Rising in Kansas’s Flint Hills, after gathering tributaries through prairie country, the Marais des Cygnes River enters Missouri and soon after becomes the Osage River. It cuts a meandering course through the northern Ozarks, before dumping into the Missouri River. It’s a big, turbid river with a turbulent history. Changes caused by massive water resource development have rarely been examined with a sharper focus and never better illustrated.
Two-thirds of the Osage River lies buried under the waters of two massive reservoirs. Forty feet beneath Lake of the Ozarks is (was) the town of Linn Creek. Truman Dam, just above that impoundment, inundated a 10,000 year record of Indian occupation and mastodon and megafauna bone beds scientists likened in importance to the La Brea Tar Pits. Harry S. Truman’s big pond also covered the only known spawning beds of a living fossil, the paddlefish. That Army Corps of Engineers project, which had a troubled history from its inception, was sued in federal court in 1972 by the Environmental Defense Fund, the Missouri chapter of the Wildlife Society, several area farmers and a nature photographer. Thirty five years later, that last plaintiff would co-author this 304 page book relating the inside story of that lawsuit and other battles over the resources of the Osage valley.
Before the America era, the Wah-Zha-Zhe, the Indians whose name Europeans pronounced “Osage”, not only controlled the river, they projected military power over a huge area of the Midwest and upper South. French and later Spanish efforts to colonize the region were thwarted by this warrior nation. Known today for their oil riches, their astounding geopolitical importance when they lived along the river of their name, the authors contend, should be accurately recalled and not distorted by fables.
Damming The Osage presents scientific objections to multipurpose dams. The book also protests the lack of realism in popular history, journalism and advertising. This critique, the Paytons acknowledge, is derived from Mark Twain, the arch enemy of Romanticism. The region’s history certainly abounds in the kind of characters and action Twain loved. Bushwhackers and Jayhawkers burned each others’ towns throughout the Osage valley during the Civil War. The Younger brothers and Pinkerton detectives had a deadly shootout at Roscoe. Merchants and farmers became bitter adversaries over dams. The mania local businessmen had for dam building evolved from their great grandfathers’ enthusiasm for improving the river for steamboats—which failed. The Paytons agree with Twain that American history, raw and contentious as it may be, demands truthful literary treatment.
Leland and Crystal Payton have published a dozen books on popular culture and regional history. All are extensively illustrated with contemporary and vintage photographs, maps, art and artifacts. Like other Lens & Pen titles, Damming the Osage is a quality, all color volume produced by a fine art-book printer.
More information is available at http://www.dammingtheosage.com/
Two-thirds of the Osage River lies buried under the waters of two massive reservoirs. Forty feet beneath Lake of the Ozarks is (was) the town of Linn Creek. Truman Dam, just above that impoundment, inundated a 10,000 year record of Indian occupation and mastodon and megafauna bone beds scientists likened in importance to the La Brea Tar Pits. Harry S. Truman’s big pond also covered the only known spawning beds of a living fossil, the paddlefish. That Army Corps of Engineers project, which had a troubled history from its inception, was sued in federal court in 1972 by the Environmental Defense Fund, the Missouri chapter of the Wildlife Society, several area farmers and a nature photographer. Thirty five years later, that last plaintiff would co-author this 304 page book relating the inside story of that lawsuit and other battles over the resources of the Osage valley.
Before the America era, the Wah-Zha-Zhe, the Indians whose name Europeans pronounced “Osage”, not only controlled the river, they projected military power over a huge area of the Midwest and upper South. French and later Spanish efforts to colonize the region were thwarted by this warrior nation. Known today for their oil riches, their astounding geopolitical importance when they lived along the river of their name, the authors contend, should be accurately recalled and not distorted by fables.
Damming The Osage presents scientific objections to multipurpose dams. The book also protests the lack of realism in popular history, journalism and advertising. This critique, the Paytons acknowledge, is derived from Mark Twain, the arch enemy of Romanticism. The region’s history certainly abounds in the kind of characters and action Twain loved. Bushwhackers and Jayhawkers burned each others’ towns throughout the Osage valley during the Civil War. The Younger brothers and Pinkerton detectives had a deadly shootout at Roscoe. Merchants and farmers became bitter adversaries over dams. The mania local businessmen had for dam building evolved from their great grandfathers’ enthusiasm for improving the river for steamboats—which failed. The Paytons agree with Twain that American history, raw and contentious as it may be, demands truthful literary treatment.
Leland and Crystal Payton have published a dozen books on popular culture and regional history. All are extensively illustrated with contemporary and vintage photographs, maps, art and artifacts. Like other Lens & Pen titles, Damming the Osage is a quality, all color volume produced by a fine art-book printer.
More information is available at http://www.dammingtheosage.com/
- GenresHistory
304 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 2012
1 person is currently reading
14 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 11, 2013
I bought my copy of Damming the Osage almost as soon as I heard it was available, and I’ve been reading at it ever since. It’s not the sort of book that compels you to finish it in a single sitting. In fact, I almost feel that each of the chapters is better read in isolation, because it’s a big book that tries to manage a total picture of the Osage River valley, from prehistory to the present day, with a focus on the two massive dam projects (Bagnell and Truman) that have permanently altered the natural and human environment of that part of the Ozarks.
I learned an immense amount from this book. There are vignettes in it about unique geographical features that made me want immediately to jump in the car and drive to see. The history of the sordid financial machinations that led to the building of Bagnell Dam, and the political machinations that led to the building of Truman Dam, should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who steps into the swirling waters of development politics. I will be pulling this book from my shelf to look up a fact or a photo for years to come.
That being said, I didn’t find it completely satisfying. It opts for more photos rather than fewer (both historical images and Payton’s own work), and as a result a lot of them are fairly small. I would have preferred larger editing of the photos for display at the cost of leaving out some of the redundant ones. Some of the photos take up a whole page, and the impact of those big ones is rewarding. I have the same complaint about the text. This is an ambitious book, and in its ambition sometimes feels as though it’s trying to cram in every last detail and insight at the expense of narrative flow. The typeface looks like Helvetica medium to me (didn’t look it up to be certain, sorry), and more than 300 pages of that typeface is an invitation to eyestrain.
All in all, though, it’s a wonderful addition to my Ozarkiana shelf. The Paytons have amassed a remarkable collection of historical images such as advertising posters, postcards, and the like, and they put them to excellent use here.
By odd coincidence, a copy of another classic Ozarks river book–Oliver Schuchard and Steve Kohler’s Two Ozark Rivers–showed up on my doorstep last night, and I’ll give some thoughts about it in a later post. In fact, I think I’ll start a new series of posts here and on my blog (stevewiegenstein.wordpress.com) to go along with my “Favorite Ozarks People – Places – Images” series, of reflections on Ozarks books. Consider this No. 1 in that series.
I learned an immense amount from this book. There are vignettes in it about unique geographical features that made me want immediately to jump in the car and drive to see. The history of the sordid financial machinations that led to the building of Bagnell Dam, and the political machinations that led to the building of Truman Dam, should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who steps into the swirling waters of development politics. I will be pulling this book from my shelf to look up a fact or a photo for years to come.
That being said, I didn’t find it completely satisfying. It opts for more photos rather than fewer (both historical images and Payton’s own work), and as a result a lot of them are fairly small. I would have preferred larger editing of the photos for display at the cost of leaving out some of the redundant ones. Some of the photos take up a whole page, and the impact of those big ones is rewarding. I have the same complaint about the text. This is an ambitious book, and in its ambition sometimes feels as though it’s trying to cram in every last detail and insight at the expense of narrative flow. The typeface looks like Helvetica medium to me (didn’t look it up to be certain, sorry), and more than 300 pages of that typeface is an invitation to eyestrain.
All in all, though, it’s a wonderful addition to my Ozarkiana shelf. The Paytons have amassed a remarkable collection of historical images such as advertising posters, postcards, and the like, and they put them to excellent use here.
By odd coincidence, a copy of another classic Ozarks river book–Oliver Schuchard and Steve Kohler’s Two Ozark Rivers–showed up on my doorstep last night, and I’ll give some thoughts about it in a later post. In fact, I think I’ll start a new series of posts here and on my blog (stevewiegenstein.wordpress.com) to go along with my “Favorite Ozarks People – Places – Images” series, of reflections on Ozarks books. Consider this No. 1 in that series.
Displaying 1 of 1 review