This winter now approaching spring seems to have been a very wet one, not just here but across the nation. For those Miller Countians through the years who have lived along the streams and the Osage River, the wet weather of sustained nature always raises the worry of the spring floods. Floods of the Osage River are common and have to be expected. It seems we have some kind of flood about every five years, and a flood can occur any time of the year, not just in the spring. Having been raised in Tuscumbia I witnessed several of the floods of the Osage River and heard the stories of floods of the past many times. Oral tradition suggests that Osage River floods were even part of the lore of the Native Americans who first lived here. The following anecdotes are from Clyde Lee Jenkins’ book Judge Jenkins’ History of Miller County:
Year of the Great Waters
Clyde Lee Jenkins
Judge Jenkins’ History of Miller County 1971; p. 21
The early settlers along the Dog Creek in Miller County were informed by the Indians that once upon a time the back waters of the Osage River filled the creek to the upper spring on the Zelly branch. In elm bark canoes they had traveled from the river to the spring. The settlers believed this impossible since the spring was located too high in the valley and far from the river. In 1943, the waters of the Osage River flooded the Dog creek and the Zelly branch filled to the upper spring. The high waters referred to by the Indians probably occurred in 1785, noted as the Year of the Great Waters on the Mississippi…….
An Indian trading post was at present day Tuscumbia. A village of Indians occupied the bank of the Osage River at the foot of the bluff and by the spring. A white man was told by an Indian that if ever a cabin was placed at this point it should be raised above a certain mark on the bluff side to be safe from floods.
I have been told by several people that the “mark on the bluff side” was where the old post office building now is located in downtown Tuscumbia (photo 01).
01 Old Post Office
The biggest flood recorded early on witnessed by the earliest white settlers was that of 1844. The next flood of significant size was recorded in 1895. This flood also is important historically because it is the first one for which we have photographs. Tuscumbia was where most of the Osage River flood photographs were taken because the hills where it is located offer excellent views of the river. Also, because so much commerce depended on the river steamboats, most of the buildings of commerce and many homes were built near the river banks, which when photographed during a flood were quite dramatic. Many of these structures through the years were destroyed by the floods. However, for those photos without a date taking note of which structures were present helps to determine the time frame of the flood.
Here is an account of the flood of 1895 written by Gerard Schultz:
The Osage River Flood of 1895
A History of Miller County 1933
Gerald Schultz
The Flood of 1895 p. 125
The rains which began on December 17, 1895, caused the Osage River to reach its highest stage since 1844. The following excerpt from an account which appeared in the Autogram on December 26, 1895, was written before the river reached its highest stage:
“All the dwellings in the flat across Shut-in Branch are covered with water up to the second stories, and nearly all outbuildings have been washed away or are floating about in the yards. Nearly all the fencing has been raised and is also floating about on the water. The river was full of corn, fodder, ties, rails, and drift wood from Wednesday morning until Saturday evening and the amount of loss to the farmers of the Osage Valley would be impossible to estimate. Suffice us to say that every river bottom farmer has lost a part or all of his corn and hat to say nothing about the cattle and other stock that has been drowned. Nor is this all. On the Glaze, south of here, and on the Saline north of town the loss to farmers is in the same proportion. These streams were higher than ever before known, and swept everything in their course in their mad rush to unload their burden into the Osage River.”
Accounts of the flood which appeared in the Jefferson City Daily Tribune on December 27 and 30, 1895, estimated the damage done in the Osage River valley to be two million dollars.
The following collection of photographs is of the Tuscumbia 1895 flood. Some which did not have their dates recorded were dated by the buildings observed in the photos (photos 02 - 07):
02 1895 Flood looking up to Brick Courthouse
03 1895 Flood overlooking Goosebottom Click image for larger view
04 1895 Flood overlooking Mill from Crackerneck Hill
05 1895 Flood Crackerneck Street looking Northwest
06 1895 Flood Shut In Branch with Bridge Sign Click image for larger view
07 1895 Goosebottom Flood
The 1895 flood also is recorded in Bagnell history as follows:
Miller County Autogram
19 October 1967
One of the many floods hitting Bagnell and one of the worst was during Christmas week, 1895. On December 26, 1895, the Miller County Autogram reported:
“The river is over a mile wide at Tuscumbia. R.S. Harvey and J.S. Franklin came down from Eldon last Wednesday evening to pay their taxes and left nearly a thousand dollars with collector Cotton. They were hurried home by the rising river and proceeded to Bagnell, where it is said they had nearly 100,000 ties piled up in the yard. We understand they telegraphed to Jefferson City for a train load of laborers, but were unable to get them. Their loss will undoubtedly be considerable.”
Later accounts, however, indicated that Harvey and Franklin’s loss was not too large. The men filled boxcars with railroad ties and used the cars to form a dike to prevent the stacked ties from floating into the river.
The Autogram, in that 1895 flood issue, also reported that “The Anchor Mill Company has 40 or 50 cords of good dry wood somewhere between Tuscumbia and the Gulf of Mexico.”
I haven’t found any photos of the Bagnell 1895 flood.
The next floods of the Osage River of note were in 1905, 1912, 1916 and 1922. These were large enough floods to have caused concern and damage but not as large as the 1895 flood. Here is a series of photographs of each of these four floods taken in Tuscumbia (photos 08 - 28):
Just click on any of the photo thumbnails to view a larger image. Before clicking on the thumbnail photo leave the cursor motionless for a few seconds and you will see the caption for each photo.
Note: Once you click on an image below, a new window will open. It would be best to maximize this new window by clicking on the middle box in the upper right-hand corner of the window. When you move your cursor over the image in this new window, the cursor may change to a magnifying glass depending on your screen resolution. If you see the magnifying glass, click on the image and it will show in a larger format for easier viewing.
One flood in 1916 in Tuscumbia occurred during the winter freezing the water so that ice skating could be enjoyed, about the only thing that could be with a flood. This was described by Joe Kallenbach in his autobiography:
Once in a while, the river would even become "blocked" at some of its quieter stretches; that is, frozen solid from bank to bank. Usually only a fringe area of relatively still water would have ice form on it slick enough for skating. One such stretch of still water that would freeze was adjacent to the old steamboat landing place near the center of the business section of town. At such times many of the younger people would have a chance to try out their skates. One winter in January, 1916, there was an unusual winter flood on the Osage. The flood was so great that it over flowed the land along side the river's banks practically from hill to hill. At the very height of the flood a very cold snap ensued, freezing a layer of ice several inches thick on the flooded areas. When the water receded soon afterward, a coating of ice about four or five inches thick was left lying on the more or less level ground where the over-flow water had stood. This created an unusual opportunity for skaters. They found they could skate on wide stretches of level land that was normally simply pasture land for horses and cattle (photo 29).
29 Ice Skating on Osage
I have one photo of the flood of 1912 taken in Bagnell (photo 30).
30 1912 Flood in early Bagnell Click image for larger view
Another flood in Bagnell in 1915 was described by Nelta Pope in her history of the town of Bagnell:
The year of 1915 was very unusual weather wise. There were heavy snowfalls during the winter months followed by heavy rainfalls, causing the Osage River to flood. Backwater came up, covering the entire town of Bagnell. The water receded, leaving a thin coating of ice on which the children enjoyed slipping and sliding. May of that year had a total rainfall of eleven inches, causing more flooding. The Pope home, built on higher ground, was surrounded by the muddy, swirling waters. Boats were the mode of transportation during the time of high water. Sometimes John and the boys had to walk the railroad tracks to get to town when the water covered the road alongside the elevated tracks. Another record was set in August of 1915. It was the coolest month on record, with a high of only ninety degrees. On August 30th, the thermometer dropped to forty seven degrees, the coldest day recorded for that date.
A smaller flood which caused some damage in Bagnell was the one of 1941 (photos 31, 32 and 33).
31 Badwell Church - 1941
32 Bagnell Depot - 1941
33 Depot and Popes Lumber Yard - 1941
Morgan Pope had this to say about photo 33 of the Pope lumber yard:
Yes, this photo shows my Grandfather Arthur Monroe Pope's name on the lumberyard building which by 1941 my father, Walter Pope, owned. And yes, there was a big flood in 1941. Our home, which was on the banks of Blue Springs Creek (Little Gravois) had water around the foundation in 1941, but none in the house. But this flood was nothing like the one of 1943!
The largest and most damaging flood in Osage River history by far was the flood of 1943. Here is the Autogram’s article about the flood which was written just a few days before the flood reached 49 feet as recorded at the Anchor Mill marker in Tuscumbia on May 23 of 1943:
Miller County Autogram
May 20, 1943
Tuscumbia Washed Away!
Osage Sets All Time Record
47 Feet At Tuscumbia Wednesday Morning
Several Buildings Washed Away At Tuscumbia;
Water Out of control At Bagnell Dam;
Power Disrupted; Highways Closed
The Osage River has reached the highest stage ever recorded or ever remembered by old timers here and is still rising. On Wednesday morning of this week the water had reached the forty seven foot stage and it was not known just how much more was coming.
The strong current was washing many of the buildings down town away. Already, the post office, the house in which Bill Wright lived, Hauenstein’s chicken house and machinery shed, the garage of Richard Wright have gone and the barber shop is now below Sweaney’s Café. The lumber shed at the Anchor Milling Company is buckling badly and will not last long. A house from somewhere is nestling along the fill to the highway leading to the bridge. It is looked for the pavilion and other buildings at the park to go.
An idea of just how high the river is might be gained from the following: it is up to the second story of Hauenstein’s Store and in Sweaney’s Café: lacks about two feet of being in the second story of the mill and one foot before being in the second story of the mill office building. Homes it had entered for the first time are William Hix, R. M. Fendorf, John Klug, and Edgar Hicks.
It is in the basement of the R. L. Wright, Mrs. G.T. Hauenstein, and R. M. Marshall homes and up to the porch of the Frank Dickerson home.
Below town the water came up so fast Monday night, the Dave June family had to vacate their home without getting anything out. The water entered the Omer Hickey home near Gum Creek Tuesday. Communications now are poor and we do not know of any other homes entered in this vicinity.
Creeks from the torrential rains of Sunday and Monday night are the highest ever recorded. Traffic south is stopped as the water is over the highway leading to the bridge and the Eugene road to and below Saline Creek is under several feet under water. The town of Bagnell is inundated by many feet of water and the highway to the dam is closed to the Mead filling station.
The highest the Osage had ever been prior to this was in 1941 when a stage of 39.1 feet was recorded. It is more than 8 feet above that stage now.
The Lake at Bagnell Dam is the highest since the dam was built. The water there reached a stage of nearly five feet above flood stage and was several inches above the basin. The gates are open and the water is pouring down the Osage. Another heavy rain is reported in the lake area Tuesday night.
Electric current was cut off at Tuscumbia Tuesday afternoon as the line is under water and there is little telephone service.
John Brockman, who owns a river bottom farm at Brockman Ford told the Autogram Monday that his father told him that in 1844 the Osage backed up to a spring on high ground on his farm, had reached the spring in 1895, and again it was there in 1941. We doubt if they could find the spring now.
Wilson Vaughan, who has been on the river for eighty years, reports that he has never seen anything like it nor has anyone else either living or dead.
The stage of the river here Sunday was only about thirty feet and the water fell a few inches during the day. Sunday was warm and the skies were clear but that night one of the heaviest rains ever to fall here added to the flooded waters and the down pour continued through most of Monday and increased in volume Monday night. It is not known how much water fell here during those two days as the gauge at the mill is surrounded by the flood waters.
Monday afternoon word was received that the river would reach about a thirty three foot stage and by night, with the rain continuing, the stage was set at between 35 and 37 feet. By midnight Monday during the downpour officials at the dam admitted that it would reach a stage of 42 feet.
The water entered the street downtown early Monday night and by Tuesday morning had reached the 39 foot stage. The mill began moving Monday afternoon and during the night moved what lumber it has to the upstairs of the lumber yard, but that was not high enough. Hauenstein’s moved during the night but most everything there is under water now and the second story has been entered, flooding the merchandise stored there. The post office was moved to the school house. Arthur Bear got out part of his stock of merchandise from the old farmers exchange building which he recently purchased. His other building was destroyed by fire not so long ago but it would have been gone down the river had it remained standing now. During the night Monday Frank Thompson had to vacate his garage. The old Sam Johnson house in Goose Bottom is just about under water.
The AAA offices located in the Spearman building down on the bluff were forced to move to the school house Wednesday morning. The water was in the upper part of that building.
The waters were over the Rock Island track between Henley and Meta.
Two years ago, following the record flood then, C.O. Brockman had his home raised to the 39 feet, 8 inch stage, seven inches higher than the water had ever been. Tuesday morning early he called for help to raise his furniture off the floor over two feet. That was not enough. Tuesday night he had to move his furniture out of the second story. His piano and that of Madison Bear who thought it would be safe in the Brockman home, are in the water. Madison moved his furniture out of his second story to his other house above the central office Tuesday afternoon in boats. His refrigerator floated, so he towed it across.
Ernie Kallenbach has had to move his garage and Wiley Berry his filling station equipment. The water must be close to ten feet deep in the Wells home below town.
Every acre of bottom land, and some that could hardly be called bottom land, is of course inundated. Corn had been planted and was up on many farms. Every crop seeded is destroyed and the damage in seed and labor is terribly high. The damage to business houses and home along the Osage Valley is far beyond what it was thought it could ever be.
Mrs. Bill Lupardus, who five days ago became the mother of a child at the H.M. Swanson home, became afraid of the water and asked to be moved to higher ground. She and her baby were carried up the hill and taken out in an ambulance.
The stage of the river is incredible to everyone who has spent their entire life along the Osage River bottom. There are, of course, many rumors not many of which have proved true.
It is not known how high the water will get. We can only wait and see.
Disrupted power, no communications, in addition to the aid that our printers gave to stricken towns people as well as to themselves, has forced us this week to publish only four pages, and we are lucky to get that many out. We ask you please to understand the situation, which we know we shall be able to overcome soon.
The most dramatic account of the 1943 flood is what was going on at the Bagnell Dam itself. While everyone below the dam was working furiously to save their property and perhaps themselves as well, no group of people exerted such a sustained effort as those employees of Union Electric and all the volunteers who came in to help them save the dam itself and its massive electrical generating machines.
The story is best told by Dwight Weaver in his book:
History and Geography of Lake of the Ozarks VI
Flood of 1943 p. 68
Dwight Weaver
Early floods on the Osage River, in the days before Bagnell Dam, were always measured by how high the water rose at Tuscumbia, the county seat of Miller County. The flood of 1844 reached 42.2 feet above flood stage at Tuscumbia. The flood of 1895 was recorded at 39.0 feet. The flood in the spring of 1922 reached 37.7 feet. No one expected the flood in the spring of 1943 to reach 48.5 feet.
This record flood was occasioned by a very wet spring and record rainfalls upon the Osage River watershed. It became the most serious flood to date in Bagnell Dam’s history. It was so serious, in fact, that a force of more than 500 men, many of them soldiers and army engineers from Fort Leonard Wood in Pulaski County, were needed to keep the water from inundating the machinery in the dam’s powerhouse section. World War II was raging and the electricity being generated by the dam was needed for the war industry factories in St. Louis.
By May 1943, the water in the Lake stood at 4.5 feet above the 660 full reservoir level. The water had reached within four feet of the top of the dam on the Lake side. Downstream from Bagnell Dam, at Bagnell, houses and businesses were inundated. In Bagnell Flats north of the dam, water stood eight feet deep over Highway 54.
On May 20, soldiers arrived from Fort Leonard Wood to help place sandbags to protect the dam from the back flow of water. With all the floodgates wide open, the water rushed into the river below the dam faster than it could be carried away and this caused a back flow that threatened to inundate the power plant. Some of the electricity being generated by the power plant was going through transmission lines that were actually submerged a short distance down river from the dam. The power to those lines was shut down.
A significant problem faced by the men stacking sandbags and trying to protect the powerhouse was the huge amount of driftwood and other organic debris in the water. With all 12 spillway gates wide open, there was no way to prevent huge masses of debris from making the plunge and then resurfacing in the mad boil and torrents of water below the dam. Giant logs shot to the surface of the boiling water as if fired from cannon, and acted like monstrous battering rams against the sandbag walls. They terrorized the sandbag workers.
At its peak, more than 240,000 cubic feet of water per second was passing through the gates, including entangled masses of debris and entire trees. The dam itself was not in any danger but the rise in the water below the dam caused the water to lap at the power generating equipment. The roof over the machines was awash for days and the 52 ventilating windows just below the roof had to be bulkheaded. A dike 500 feet long, 5 feet high, and 11 feet thick had to be built of sandbags.
Although U.S. Army Engineers were assisting in the work, a call was sent out for carpenters employed at Fort Leonard Wood and at the Army Air Force Base at Knob Noster. Civilian carpenters in Lebanon, Waynesville and Springfield also responded to the call, working with water streaming at them through the outside bulkheads. Fifty seven carpenters placed inside supports for the bulkheads in 15 hours. They were soaked to the skin all of that time but they stemmed the flow of water so the pumps could carry it away. Calls were constantly going out for additional help because the work had to go on around the clock with no break. About 200 additional men responded including students from the Rolla School of Mines. More than 1,000 tons of sand was started to the dam, some of it from as far away as St. Louis. Other sand came from dumps of the Missouri State Highway Commission and the recreational area at Kaiser. Constant vigilance had to be maintained to keep the heavy driftwood from battering in the window bulkheads and from washing away the sandbags. Dikes had to be rebuilt again and again.
The great number of men involved in this effort were fed and sustained by the people of the Lake community, especially those of Lake Ozark.
Most of the cabin camps and hotels were filled with workers and the problem of feeding the men was solved when the women of the community went to work in nearby restaurants that were unable to get help quickly enough. The women made an average of 1,500 sandwiches and gallons of coffee each night in addition to the regular meals served. The problem of obtaining supplies was a material one because war rationing was still in effect. The Missouri State Highway Patrol at one point radioed Lebanon for bread and sandwich meats to tide over an emergency and the sheriff of Lebanon routed merchants out of bed in the early morning hours to accommodate the workers at the dam.
The great flood of 1943 was a full week of hell but the powerhouse machinery was saved and did not have to be shut down. It was a flood to remember.
Thanks Dwight. Here are a couple of photos from Dwight’s book of some of the sandbaggers (photos 34 and 35):
34 Sandbagging at the Dam
35 Sandbagging the Dam
The flood of ’43 is remembered by everyone old enough to have been around Miller County during that spring. Many anecdotes are told by those who experienced it. Because my mother’s family had a home in Goosebottom, which is the lowest place in town, they were affected first by the flood. I will place here my mother (Susie Bear Pryor) and her brother’s memories (Arthur Bear) of the flood of ’43:
When talking about the floods, many memories come back to me. During one of the floods a group of strong men were trying to raise the piano and hang it with ropes to the ceiling. One end fell down and Harold saw a great big snake crawling around in the water and he took out running from it and got out of there. When I was a kid and really young everyone was talking about the building of the dam and how it would be able to control the floods; that it would be the end of the constant floods we had to put up with. We always had lots of floods but usually the only homes the water got in were the ones in Goosebottom.
After every flood Mom had to clean out the mud left on the floor and as the water went down several people would help her. The mud covered every room down stairs, six large rooms besides three big porches. Even if the flood was smaller and didn't get into the house we always had to go down to the garden and pull up all the foodstuffs, move all the cans of canned foods out of the cellar, and after the water receded I had to wash all the muddy fruit jars in wash tubs at the well. I hated that never ending job of getting all the mud out of them, then take them back down to the cellar and wait for the next flood. Of course, we all had to go back and forth in a boat from the house to get to the general store we had in town. When I was a child I had fun for I got to row the boat since the flood water was always still and not swift like over in the river. Only a few of the business places would flood but the water often covered all the street going down through town and nobody was able to get to them.
The Anchor Mill had a water gauge which would report daily how high the water had raised. My folks knew exactly how high it had to be to flood Goosebottom and knew exactly at each stage what would reach a certain part of the bottom. I sort of remember that my folks said 27 or 29 feet would put it in our house and then they would move all the stuff upstairs and of course that is why the piano was strung up to the ceiling.
But in l943 when the big flood came it reached upstairs. Harold and I were living in two rooms upstairs in my parents’ Goosebottom home so of course we had to get out. We stayed over at George and Rosy Nichol's house. She gave us a room upstairs and we stayed there until we could go back home. The big ’43 flood was sad for many reasons. My grandfather, David Christian Bear, had several furniture pieces upstairs in his room and they all were ruined. His father, George Bear, had been a wonderful builder of furniture put together with wooden pegs. But with water covering over the furniture a good while the pegs could not hold the pieces together so they all fell apart. My Dad figured they were ruined so he burned them to get rid of them We kids later wished that he would have taken them to someone and have them put back together for they were solid walnut and were really antique. I was fascinated with a desk grandfather David had in his room. (He came to live with us after my grandmother died). This desk had a lot of built-in drawers and secret hiding drawers.
People would pay a lot of money for that nowadays.
My parents had a rather new refrigerator which they couldn't get up the stairs so it got covered by the flood waters. But when the water receded enough somebody tied ropes around it and dragged it floating in the flood water to dry land; and when they hooked it up it started running! That was a surprise. Several years before the ’43 flood, Oliver and Ila Brockman, who lived in the home behind ours, hadn’t wanted another flood to damage their house so they raised their house up on stones to outwit the floods. They had measured the highest flood we ever had and put the house a little higher but when the flood of ‘43 came, the highest flood we ever had, their house was flooded once again.
A couple of brothers named John and Jim Sweaney and their wives had come to town just a few years before the flood. I suppose nobody told them about our little town flooding so often because they started buying up buildings. John Sweeny bought a small cabin camp consisting of four little cabins which were pretty nice for a town like Tuscumbia. He bought them from Arthur Bear, my brother. Then came the big flood of '43 and John, not being used to such things, became really upset. For one thing, a couple of his cabins that he owned close to the river floated away. He left town taking nothing at all with him. Just before he left I went over and asked him if I could buy his new Maytag washing machine; he told me I could pay ten dollars and away he went. Jim Sweaney, who was John's brother, managed to stay in Tuscumbia and had a successful Beer and Restaurant place in the old Woodman Hall building where my folks once had run a general store several years before the flood. But as for John he left the country and nobody has heard from him since.
Here are a series of photos of the Bear home showing the gradual rising of the water into the second story (photos 37 - 40).
37 Bear Home - Beginnng of Flood
38 Bear Home - A little later that Evening
39 Still Rising!
40 In the Upper Story
Next is Arthur Bear’s story of his experience with the ’43 flood (photo 41):
41 Arthur Bear
In 1938 I bought the old store building next to Hauenstein’s Store which at that time was owned by Jim Sweaney before he had moved down to the three story stone Woodman building. I operated there until 1943. Then I burned out. So I moved everything into the old Farmers Exchange building. I was only there about three months until the record-breaking flood of 1943 got into the building, even into the upper story. This was the biggest flood in history on the Osage River (photo 42).
42 Exchange Store on Left - Woodman Hall Building on Rright
The river stage was 49 feet. This was a lot higher than it had ever been. It about ruined us because we lost a lot of merchandise. We had moved the merchandise upstairs in the building, and it really surprised us when the water got three feet deep up there. We hurriedly got some stuff out by loading into boats through an upstairs window, but much of it was lost. I didn't go back in business in that location. Toliver Lawson wanted to sell his store and restaurant that was located on top of the hill across from the school. That was in June of '43 and I stayed until February of '45 when I moved to Eldon and had a store on Maple Street. Eldon had a fire department and no river anywhere close. With my luck those were two requirements I was going to have to have if I wanted to stay in the store business.
Here is a photo of David Bear’s and his father Madison Bear’s cars stranded in the flood waters near their Goosebottom home (photo 43).
43 Flooded Cars of Madison Bear and son David Bear - 1943
The flood waters had come up so fast during the night before while they were sleeping that they didn’t get to them in time to start them up and remove them. They spent the rest of the morning trying to rescue their belonging in the house.
Another photo of interest is of Mrs. Ida Hauenstein’s toilet floating away (photo 44).
44 Mrs. Ida Hauenstein's Outside Toilet
In 1943 few had indoor plumbing in Tuscumbia, and even though she had a huge brick home she still had an outdoor toilet.
The flood waters almost reached the store of George Nichols, which was close to the bank and the Presbyterian church (photo 45).
45 George Nichols Store
Here is another photo of Goosebottom from the Shut In Bridge (photo 46):
46 Goosebottom from Shut In Branch Bridge
The flood in Tuscumbia had such force that once something started to float away no number of boats or men could retrieve it once it got caught in the current. One example of this was remembered by Louie Lawson in one of her articles for the Autogram:
Glen Wyrick and his son, Bob, bought the barber shop in 1936 and had the shop when the flood of 1943 occurred. The water was so high and swift that the entire post office building, which was next to the barber shop, floated away down to the bridge where it hung up. The barber shop floated down to the corner of the three story stone building which at that time was owned by Jim Sweeney.
Note: This was the old Woodman’s Hall.
It hung up there and with great effort, was pulled by several boats back to a location slightly more west along the bluff than before, next to the Spearman building which later became the next post office. The old post office never was seen again.
Here is an old photo of the barber shop after it was pulled back from the corner of the old Woodman Hall building (at the time owned by Jim Sweaney) (photo 47):
47 Barber Shop - Tuscumbia Click image for larger view
The flood also caused significant damage in Bagnell. Here is an article from the Autogram remembering the Bagnell ’43 flood:
Miller County Autogram
19 October 1967
The disastrous fire of 1931 was followed by another disaster…the flood of 1943. The Osage, reaching the highest stage on record, sent water into the second story of the house Mrs. Boots lived…the house in which she had lived 42 years. She recalls that the river went up 16 feet from the evening meal to noon the next day. The flood, which followed an 11 inch rain, left only two houses above water at Bagnell, the homes of Rena Cotton and Leona Huddleson.
As the river hit a record stage of 48.5 feet (at Tuscumbia) soldiers from Fort Leonard Wood sandbagged Bagnell Dam as water neared the top of the structure. The floodwaters closed Highway 54 from the Gier Cotton bait shop to above the Homer Quinn Grocery store.
Mrs. Joe Woolley, Bagnell correspondent for The Advertiser reported in the June 10, 1943 edition:
“The piano and some of the old seats of the Bagnell Baptist Church were ruined by the high water. Most everybody’s furniture was completely ruined by the flood in Bagnell. Carl Adam’s house floated into Ernest Boot’s garden and his garage and car went down the river.”
Two weeks later, Mrs. Woolley reported that church at Bagnell was held on Saturday night, for the first time for two months on account of high water.
As the floodwaters left Bagnell, so did many of her residents. The Missouri Pacific’s line was soon shortened to end at Highway 54, and the depot was moved to near Quinn’s store. The Bagnell Baptist Church congregation decided to build a new church on the highway.
The flood at Bagnell reached all the way to Highway 54 and Mead’s Flat. Here are a couple of photos of the flood waters there (photos 48 and 49):
48 1943 Flood Across from Third Station
49 1943 Meads Flat in Flood
Another ’43 flood photo of Bagnell is this one (photo 50), but I don’t have any history to relate about it otherwise:
50 1943 Bagnell Cafe and Grocer in Flood
One of the many Miller County residents who suffered financial loss from the flood of ’43 was Bear Creek community farmer, Jack Wickham (photo 51).
51 Jack and Ruby Wickham at Home
Jack’s entire crop from the river bottom farm he owned was wiped out, just as happened to all the other farmers along the Osage.
Here is their story copied from the 50th Anniversary of Bagnell Dam book:
Jack Wickham Family
Jack and Ruby Wickham have lived a life filled with hopes and dreams finally realized through hard work and persistence. Born February 12, 1907, Jack had hopes of someday owning a 360 acre farm on Bear Creek, now known as the Wickham Farm. On December 30, 1928, Jack married Ruby Snellings of Ulman. She was born February 19, 1909. Together they raised nine children. They are Donald, Dallas, Jimmie and Danny Wickham, Lola Franklin, Coleen Graham, Mary Esther Collins and Elaine Crowell.
In 1943 Jack “a sharecropper” moved his wife and family to the farm on Bear Creek. Four of the children took a horse and buggy through the cold winter months back to a country school called Dog Creek School. They completed that school year before transferring to School of the Osage in the fall of 1943. With spring that year came the largest flood in history along the Osage River and Jack’s entire farm was flooded. Jack also started working for Union Electric as a laborer in 1943.
Work at Union Electric took many daylight hours away from Jack, sometimes forcing him to work his farm by night. Jack would work the fields by light from a lantern tied to his work team.
While Jack worked the farm and at Union Electric, Ruby worked in the home canning vegetables, fruits and berries. She cold packed much of their meat and sewed the children’s clothing. Kirkwood Lodge bought most of their fresh cured hams during the 1940’s.
In 1947 Jack was able to pay off the farm, but tragedy struck a year later when their 17 year old son Dallas died on July 8, 1948. The School of the Osage Year Book was dedicated to his memory.
Through hard work and management, by 1955, Jack and Ruby had saved enough money to build a new home.
While employed at Union Electric, Jack was never passed up for promotion. He had advanced through the positions to turbine operator before he retired in January, 1968. Jack and Ruby celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary at their daughter’s home, December, 1978.
Jack and Ruby are both members of the Riverview Baptist Church. Ruby passed away on June 11, 1980. Jack now makes his home with his daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Chester Franklin, and family.
Submitted by Lola Franklin
What makes Jack and Ruby’s story even more interesting is that soon after the flood of ’43 they were visited by U.S. Representative Max Schwabe who was accompanied by a reporter from Life Magazine. Here is that story:
The Home Folks
A Congressman From Missouri Goes Out To Hear What They Are Saying
Life Magazine September 13, 1943
Like most members of the 78th Congress, Max Schwabe of Missouri’s Second District went home this summer to find out what his constituents were saying. Next week he and the rest of the Congress should be back in Washington with plenty of advice, complaints and good down to earth political talk ringing in their ears. A LIFE photographer and correspondent heard some of this talk while traveling around Max Schwabe’s district with him last month. Schwabe is a big (6 ft. 3 ½ in, 245 lb.) dark haired, soft spoken Republican who sold life insurance in Columbia, Missouri and never did anything very political until he ran for Congress in 1942 and was elected by a narrow squeak (566 votes). Some of the voters he met had never even heard of him; many had never seen him before. Others greeted him with breezy gusto, referring to his towering build: “Weel, Max I see bein’ in Washington ain’t cost ye no flesh!”
One constituent who made no serious complaint was Jack Wickham, a share cropper in the Republican belt along the northern edge of the Ozark hills. He lost 45 acres of freshly planted corn in the spring floods, but made up for it by replanting and working as a laborer at Bagnell Dam. But bitterness and baffled fury greeted Schwabe wherever he went in the rich and normally Democratic counties along the Missouri River. Lack of farm labor (which the farmers blame on “Washington” and its draft policies), lack of feed (which they blame on the OPA), alleged “pampering” of city workers by the Administration….all these complaints brought forth the most picturesque Missouri epithets, many of them unprintable. Republican Schwabe agreed with some of this, and listened patiently to all of it, for that is a Congressman’s job. Doubtless, he will continue to think of it often when he comes to cast his votes this winter.
Jack and my wife Judy’s grandfather, Willard Boyd, were first cousins. Willard’s mother, Dell Wickham Boyd, was a sister to Jack’s father, Will Wickham.
The flood of 1943 certainly caused economic hardship to Miller County people, especially as in Jack Wickhams situation, those along the river itself. Just as in the town of Bagnell mentioned above, many of the businesses in Tuscumbia decided to move up on the hill, the largest one being the Anchor Milling Company. When you look at some of the old flood photos of Tuscumbia posted above you can observe just how many structures originally were located in the valley and riverside; very few of those remain now. However, Beverly Pendleton has done an amazing job of beautifying and restoring some of the buildings across from the river access in downtown Tuscumbia. I covered that story some time ago.
I really recommend that you click on the link above because it fills in a lot of detail and adds a lot of photos of Tuscumbia past and present, but especially you will appreciate what Beverly has done to improve that area of town.
We could continue to discuss Osage River flooding in the years after 1943 but none yet has surpassed it in height or relative cost. One photo of the 1952 flood is impressive taken from an airplane on the south side of the river looking north over the saddle club arena (photo 55a).
55a 1952 Flood Click image for larger view
You can see in the photo that the river road street in town is not covered with water. All the really severe floods covered the road along the river in town.
The C.B. Wright diary entry this week is from October and November of 1912 (photos 56 and 57):
56 C.B. Wright Diary - Oct and Nov 1912 Click image for larger view
57 Clarence Wright
This week C.B. mentions the boat stopped at “Bloody Island.” The story goes that it got its name from something that happened a long time ago when two fishermen got in an argument on the island and killed each other. Other history indicates that Spanish conquistadores are rumored to have buried golden treasure there and Indian burial cairns date back as much as 1,500 years.
The island is located in the Osage River near Folk, Missouri in Osage County (photo 58).
58 Bloody Island Map
Here is a photo of the island taken from within the Painted Rock Conservation area (photo 59):
59 Bloody Island
More about the island can be read in this book:
Weber, Frank: “Place Names of Six South Central Counties of Missouri.” M.A. thesis: University of Missouri-Columbia, 1938.
And the following website offer more information as well as many photos of the area:
C.B. also mentions the names of Dr. William S. Allee of Olean and Lawrence Wright of Tuscumbia in his diary entry for this week. The elections for national, state and county officers were being held that week. The interesting thing that year was that although Miller County was a Republican County, some Democrats were elected. Dr. Allee and Lawrence Wright, both Democrats, were very prominent citizens of Miller County.
One of the early papers of Olean, the "Miller County News" on December 14, 1899, had this to say about Dr. Allee early on in his career:
Dr. Allee has lived in Olean longer than any other person now living here and has watched the town grow from a single farm house to a thriving village of more than three hundred inhabitants. It was in 1882, when the Bagnell Branch was in the course of construction, that Doctor Allee moved here from High Point, where he was then practicing, and built the first residence in the town. To no other one man is there due the credit for the good schools, churches, and business buildings we have here today as there is to Dr. Allee.
The above paper described itself as "A Republican Paper Dedicated To The Up building Of Olean And Miller County." However, Dr. Allee was a strong Democrat and was elected to the State Senate as a Democrat. So, the compliments paid to Dr. Allee by this Republican paper are all the more impressive. This lithographic image of Dr. Allee accompanied the story (photo 60):
The following short biography of Lawrence Wright is from Gerard Schultz’s History of Miller County:
Gerard Schultz 1933
Lawrence A. Wright, business manager and one of the publishers and editors of the MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM, was born at Tuscumbia, February 9, 1886, son of James Pinkney and Carrie Minnie (Fendorf) Wright, and grandson of James Lawrence Wright. The latter served as a lieutenant in the Union Army during the Civil War. The Wright family settled in Miller County about 1856.
Mr. Wright grew up in Tuscumbia, attended the public schools there, and has expressed his talents and industry in county affairs. He has done a great deal toward making the MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM the fine county-town newspaper that it is. During the World War, while both the cashier and assistant cashier were in service, he took their places in the Bank of Tuscumbia. He was director of banks and treasurer of the United War Work funds for Miller County and did such excellent work that he was given an honor medal by the Government. He is a member of the Editorial Association, and the Missouri Press Association and is on the Board of Deacons of the Christian Church. He is a Democrat in politics and was twice drafted by his party as a candidate for office. While the county is substantially Republican, he was defeated in 1912 by only 17 votes for county treasurer and by only one vote for county assessor in 1914.
In April 1909, he was married to Carmen Ercell Bassman, and they have four children---Dorothy Hope, Doris Nadine, Gerald Vance, and Lloyd Alfred.
You will note that in the election of 1912 mentioned by Gerard Schultz above Lawrence only lost by 17 votes. I do not have a photo of Lawrence. He must have been camera shy because I have been looking for one for quite a while.
Connie Prather last week took these photos of the bridge construction project last week. Not much is being done now which I imagine is due to the weather (photos 61 - 64).
61 Bridge
62 Bridge
63 Bridge
64 Bridge
Click here to take a fast drive across the old bridge:
At our last board meeting we set up our schedule for this year:
1. April 25 Sunday, Members Meeting Potluck 1:00p.m
2. May 15, Saturday, Spring Open House 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
3. July 10, Saturday Ice Cream Social 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
4. October 9, Saturday Car Show and Chili 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Carolyn Patterson Pryor for many years was a reporter for the Vernon Publishing Company. Because of that opportunity she collected many photographs and is a really excellent source of history. Recently, I visited her and my cousin Max (who really prepares corn bread, ham and beans, and grilled pork chops as well as anyone I know) to scan some photos and articles she has collected over the years. Max took this photo of me (photo 65) and I took this photo of Carloyn and Max (photo 66):
65 Putting it all Together
66 Carolyn and Max Pryor
You can see on the table all the historical photos and materials she had ready for me. It was quite a busy day!
That’s all for this week!
Joe Pryor
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Joe Pryor
