Lens & Pen Blog

Rethinking the Osage River book

2011-12-03T10:31:00.000-06:00

We are interested in things, the common denominator of which is the Osage River – for 35 + years exploring prairies, small towns, the Ozark-prairie border, doing some snake hunting in the middle part. Leland has fished the lower Osage since he was a child.

That the river and its denizens had literary potential was not initially obvious. Leland’s father was an engineer for the state of Missouri, inspecting the water systems of small towns. Some days, young Leland would join him on his visits. He’d let the boy out to explore while he made his rounds. At Osceola one day, Leland got a Coke at the café by the low dam on the Osage and wandered down to the river. He found the carcass of a huge catfish, 5 feet long, floating belly up at the base of the dam.

The next year he read Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea when Life magazine ran it as a series. In the end scene tourists look at the carcass of the great marlin and misunderstand the explanation of a local who says ‘sharks’ – meaning that’s what killed the marlin. They take his words to mean that the carcass is a shark. Flashback to the big, dead catfish. The Osage River became a literary river then – associated with words and stories. It was more literary than the clearer, scenic, Ozark rivers, which are art rivers, visual places, with smaller literary components. The Osage River is murky, with a more Shakespearian history, a more robust historical aspect. Clear rivers are rightly called scenic. Nature is more dominant there. Nothing like paddlefish or big blue catfish there. More artistic.

We started on The Osage River: paddlefish, prairies, farms & villages, dams & reservoirs, imperial Indians, explorers, slickers, sportsmen, tourists & various violent, litigious & noteworthy events in the history of the Osage River Valley and at about the 500^th page realized it had gone beyond affordable as we wanted an all color book to sell for less than $100. It was our own form of cultural geography, an exploration of life along the river through generations, with a vaguely Carl Sandburg-1920’s-1930’s-Americana feel to it. We knew we didn’t want it to resemble William Least Heat Moon’s mooney stuff.

We also realized that the real untold story is the machinations behind the building of Lake of the Ozarks and Bagnell Dam and Truman Dam and Reservoir. These are water resource crimes and misdemeanors on the order of Polanski’s Chinatown. Lots of bitter court battles; two of three of the most important developers of Lake of the Ozarks went to federal prison; Environmental Defense Fund’s 1972 lawsuit against Truman Dam took years, was very contentious and has mysteriously disappeared from public record.

Mug shot of Walter Cravens, President of the Land Bank of Kansas City. Cravens was the prime mover behind the development of Bagnell Dam and Lake of the Ozarks in the mid-1920s. He served time in Leavenworth for financial shenanigans that included his efforts to swap Osage Valley farms for bankrupt, dusty Kansas farms (on which his bank held the paper).

No mug shot available for Louis Egan, high-flying president of Union Electric during the construction of Bagnell Dam, who would up in a federal facility in Florida.

We’ve left in a considerable amount on the imperial Osage Indians whose military power, some think, altered the development history of the central United States. And we’ve kept iconic crumbling small towns that pepper the prairie watershed of western Missouri and eastern Kansas.

Previous to the dam-building era (the serious, high dams) of the 1920s, numerous efforts were made to improve steamboat travel by planning a series of locks and dams (only one of which was built).

Lock and Dam #1 about 20 miles up the Osage from its confluence with the Missouri River in Gasconade County.

More than 150 years of efforts to develop the river industrially that were unrealistic, sometimes criminally motivated, with lots of corruption and sloppy engineering have rarely produced the utopian benefits promised in whatever era. Dammed as it is, resilient American culture on the lakes, tributaries, and watershed of the Osage is still interesting and Twainian in its vigor, variety.

We’re ending up with 304 pages, 600 color illustrations (maps, old and new photographs). Hope to send it to the printer in late spring; hope to send it to bookstores in fall, 2012; $35 retail – a huge bargain for such a book.

Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir

Schell City Truss Bridge on the Osage River

2011-11-17T20:46:00.000-06:00

Rivers both provide and obstruct transportation routes. A book about a river requires attention to and consideration of the ways the river has been spanned.

In Vernon County, northwest of Schell City, down a gravel, then a dirt road (aka Rockville Road/Old River Road) is the Schell City iron bridge over the Osage. This once well-traveled road is treacherous now, even when dry. Spring rains make deep mud of the river’s bottomlands; tractor ruts made in spring harden to ragged ridges that threaten to snag our rented KIA. We hike the last half-mile with cameras and tripod.

Since our last trek, the approach from the south end has collapsed. Stone support pillars, the main span and the north approach are still straight and (apparently) sturdy. The stone pillar on the north side is almost completely swallowed up by sedimentation on that bank. Not far upstream the ill-conceived and appropriately name Bates County Ditch joins the Osage. Dug in the early 1900s, the Ditch probably destabilized the hydrology of the Osage, swinging the sediment load to the north bank, slowly building it up and burying the pillar.

You can find more information on this and other historic bridges at http://bridgehunter.com/mo/vernon/schell-city/

We’ve been roaming and photographing the upper Osage for more than 30 years. Old buildings and old bridges – if you want to see them, make haste,

The Osage River: Research trip to Heritage Days in Warsaw, Missouri.

2011-02-24T19:52:00.000-06:00

Research, for this writer, is almost the best part of a book project. For in our case that often means – road trip! Many trips to the Ozarks tracking Father Hogan’s horseback reconnaissance for a settlement for Famine immigrants were de rigueur for Mystery of the Irish Wilderness. Last fall, The Osage River book (now in the works) dictated a photo safari to Heritage Days at Truman Dam and Reservoir.

As with most American ‘pioneer/forefathers’ celebrations, Heritage Days in Warsaw, Missouri provides a venue for demonstrations of atavistic skills and arcane crafts with, of course, opportunities to purchase many handmade or locally crafted articles. Heritage Days is no exception. Lining the shady pathways one could find lye soap making, candles, sorghum, wood carving, dying and weaving, and candle making. From the stage of Trailside Theater the sound of old-time music emanated.

The wooded hilltop surrounding the government-moderne, concrete Visitors Center was populated with buckskin- or calico-clad frontiersmen and women; the cleared lawn overlooking the mammoth dam on the Osage hosted Civil War and mountain-man reenactors. They brought displays of long rifles and cannon, tanned hides and bows, powder horns and and Bowie knives.

"Irony" is an overused concept but it was not lost on me in the firing of a Civil War cannon over the fought-over Corps of Engineers project. Colorful subject matter and near-perfect October weather called for many snapshots.

“Harry Truman” himself (Dr. Carter Kinkead of the Benton County Historical Society) strolled the grounds, chatting with visitors and giving out bits of history of the eponymous project. Originally named Kaysinger Bluff Dam and Reservoir after the high bluff over the Osage to which the dam is anchored, the name was changed in 1970 to honor Missouri’s own favorite son – and to reinforce its worthiness as a major infrastructure project. There were questions (and a lawsuit) over its cost/benefit – both economically and environmentally. More – much more - on that in The Osage River book.

Congressionally authorized, and Corps of Engineers-built, Truman is an interesting contrast to the first major dam/lake project on the Osage River. Bagnell, a privately funded and operated dam/reservoir was slow to develop, but its shoreline is now crammed with marinas, condo developments and recurrent water-quality concerns. Shenanigans in its 1920s funding landed one developer in Leavenworth Penitentiary (of course, his major problems had to do with Land Banks, foreclosed Kansas farmland and his effort to make Osage Valley farmland cover the shortfalls).

Truman (a.k.a. Kaysinger Bluff) on the other hand was slow to take off. Authorized in 1954, construction didn't begin until 1964. Funding was frequently slowed by the costs of the Vietnam War. When Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in 1968, the door was opened to challenge the project for the inadequacy of its environmental impact statement. NEPA went into effect in 1969; early in 1972 the lawsuit was filed. Interestingly enough .... there seems to be no mention of that lawsuit in official public accounts of the project's history.

But I digress.You'll just have to read the book!

Let us know your thoughts ...

Kudos to John Margolies and ROADSIDE AMERICA

2010-12-04T14:17:00.009-06:00

Art book publishing house, Taschen has produced a great new volume: John Margolies: Roadside America. Available now, everywhere, and doing well on amazon.com, Roadside America has 400 of John’s iconic photographs and a very readable text by Phil Patton, C. Ford Peatross, edited by Jim Heimann. You can read Leland Payton's review on amazon.

We’ve been fans of John’s work since discovering one of his earliest books (The End of the Road: Vanishing Highway Architecture in America) and we’ve been friends since we waylaid him as he carried a truly great pig sign through a NYC Pier antique show in 1985. Our common lust for that sign turned into conversation and discovery of many more shared interests. We’ve acknowledged his work in our own books.

John Margolies, Crystal Payton and some clown named Ronald McDonald!

In the days of two-lane highways with unrestricted access to individual entrepreneurs, there was an explosion of roadside expressionism. John recognized the remarkable landscape created by the individualistic structures in the brief flowering of Mom-and-Pop commercial design before roadsides and downtown business districts were gobbled up by corporations.

John has a consistent, disciplined approach to his Kodachrome-only photography that expresses his understanding of the subject without becoming sentimental or nostalgic. He gives enough context – but not too much. Patience was key – waiting for the sun to shed the right light. This big city photog didn’t mind asking Wyoming cowboys to move their pick-up trucks so he could get the right straight-on shot of a neon-encrusted bar. His memory for these icons is phenomenal – considering they are scattered across the country and across decades of photo safaris. Driving through Arkansas, we spotted an out of the way taxidermy business with bas relief rabbit in concrete over its door. We thought sure we’d discovered it. But – alas for us - when we called him with the news not only had he already photographed it, but he described the road it was on, the angle it faced and other points essential to taking a Margolies shot of the place. See Brown’s Taxidermy Studio of Camden Arkansas on page 73 of Roadside America.

Go to John's Web site to explore his remarkable vision and bibliography. Lucky for all of us, the Library of Congress has begun to acquire John's photographs with the intention of preserving them and making them available to future generations – priceless!

Osage River and a chance encounter

2010-11-29T10:40:00.010-06:00

Recently, I was settled in a dark corner of the State Historical Society of Missouri (Columbia, Missouri) focused intently on the screen of a microfilm reader, trying to decipher badly focused text of a yellowed 1933 newspaper, when a voice penetrated my fog – “Crystal Payton?” The voice belonged to Sean McLachlan, pelagic and prolific, self-designated “Midlist Writer” who actually resides in Madrid Spain. My mental jump from 1933 to 2010 took a couple of minutes, but the brain finally locked in. Pretty remarkable crossing of paths … Sean is in Columbia for a couple of weeks to research a new Missouri book – this one on Gen. Joe Shelby’s 1863 raid into Missouri from Arkansas; his other work in progress is on Ethiopia. His interests are global (travel) and local (he's got a new series on Missouri's own Jesse James) – and we meet on the playing field of Missouri regional history!

My date with microfilm was to advance our research into the background and politics of the building of Harry S. Truman Dam and Reservoir on the Osage River. Between the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 and the closing of Bagnell Dam on the Osage in 1931, the Corps of Engineers overcame their resistance to the concept of dam/reservoir projects for flood control. They were looking for dam sites in the early ‘30s and haven’t changed that mindset since. So the reels of “The Clinton Eye” a weekly paper in the county seat of Henry County we felt might hold early gems. Worth a look-see, anyway ….

FYI – the new book is The Osage River: paddlefish, prairies, farms & villages, dams & reservoirs, imperial Indians, explorers, slickers, sportsmen, tourists & various violent, litigious & noteworthy events in the history of the Osage River Valley.

Right now we're looking at 300+ well laid out, color illustrated pages.

(above) Leland looks over the Osage River valley from a bluff off Highway 17, east of Tuscumbia. The view is toward the abandoned Henley railroad bridge.

Catching up included sending Sean a copy of On the Mission in Missouri and Fifty Years Ago: A Memoir, which we published after Mystery of the Irish Wilderness. Father Hogan’s account of life on the rapidly settling Missouri frontier and through the Civil War in northern Missouri is a lively read by itself. His recollection of growing up in County Limerick, Ireland in the 1830s and ‘40s is a real snapshot of the times leading up to and the beginning of the Potato Famine. We couldn’t just leave them on the shelf … so this volume contains both memoirs and the biographical information I gleaned from diocesan archives.

New review

2010-03-12T22:16:00.002-06:00

We're excited by this new review of our second 'Hogan book" - On the Mission & Fifty Years Ago ...

HOGAN THE HORSEMAN: Equestrian adventures in his Irish childhood

2010-01-02T15:49:00.005-06:00

As in childhood the world over, play can teach useful skills for later, grown-up lives. In John Hogan’s case, his roustabout schoolboy days found him learning to ride quadrupeds (in this account, donkeys in the field) in a rough field in County Limerick – a skill that proved invaluable later in life as he traversed often rough terrain in sparsely settled Missouri, north and south, on horseback. True to the Irish love of horses, Hogan remembers many of his mounts, their sturdy service and his care of them, feeding and rubbing them down after a long day’s journey.

From Fifty Years Ago: A Memoir -

Riding was one of our favorite sports in those days. We usually indulged in it on school holidays, or when the master was sick, which meant we were scott-free until he had got over the measles. Our riding-course comprised two large adjoining fields, called Barnhill and Feahmoor, which were traversed by lines of hillocks with sharp ascents and declivities and by steep earthen dikes or ramparts curtained by water. This was the topography of Feahmoor, where the riding exploits took place. The Barnhill was rather more rocky, and therefore more suggestive of cracked skulls and broken bones of inexpert young jockies. These fields, to the great delight of us youngsters, had a never-failing supply of lively, well-fed donkeys, young and old. Old donkeys were not boys' first choice, on account of their vicious habits, of biting their riders legs and rushing their riders against thorny hedges and stone walls. Young donkeys were more choice, as more inexperienced in warfare with bad boys, who usually wished to enjoy a ride without being put hors de combat.

To ride a fast young donkey and to hold on his back trotting and galloping and in spite of hoisting, kicking, and rearing, constituted a boy an undergraduate in assmanship. But the honor of a diploma was reserved for the final test, to be made with the rider's face towards the donkey's tail. At this tournament, it was against the rules, and was inconvenient besides, to use a bridle; but the rider might hold on to the wool as best he could. Success achieved under these circumstances was proclaimed by the whole field with vociferous rejoicing. Discomfiture, on the other hand, never failed to be followed by roars of side-splitting laughter, especially if the young knight-errant should happen to land heels up in a mud-puddle or in a ditch of water. Not every boy, after a defeat or two of that kind, would be willing to try it again; and boys with soiled jackets and pants and muddied shirt-tuckers were usually not gallant enough to face their mammas at home, for full well they knew what strong faith these mammas had in the virtue of the tough birch twig that was kept ready for use and that was well seasoned.

Schoolboy John Hogan played hooky with friends

2009-12-20T19:47:00.004-06:00

Our new book, On the Mission in Missouri & Fifty Years Ago: A Memoir, contains both of Bishop Hogan's personal memoirs.

In Fifty Years Ago, this “engaging Irish storyteller,” recounts a lively and entertaining childhood in County Limerick, Ireland in the 1830s and ‘40s. He recalls every school he attended, his teachers, many of his childhood friends, quite a few adventures and occasional encounters with authority. In the following selection, young John, playing hooky from school, recounts how he and his comrades–in-truancy passed their stolen hours, before being unceremoniously caught and returned to face the music:

Ah, how much pleasanter it was to a gang of truant boys to be in hiding under bushes than to be too conveniently near the tip end of the master's cat-o’-nine-tails! The covert in which we hid was thickly set with tall pine trees, to which the furze was an undergrowth. There we climbed trees, looked for birds’ nests, ran races, played hide and seek, masqueraded grand Turk and Indian chief, our heads turbaned with pine plumes and rushes. Our biggest boy, the most stalwart fellow amongst us, we threw down on the ground on his face and hands, then we stretched him lengthwise across a steep water-drain, and on his long back enjoyed ourselves, chasing each other over and hither, as in the picture in our books we saw squirrels running on a log.

But our hey-day was soon to come to an end. We had been missed from school. Search was made for us. Ah, the mean scouts that betrayed us! Like snakes, they crawled on the grass and hid behind bushes until they spied us. Then they went and told the master. A posse comitatus of big boys from the school was sent to gather us in. We were surrounded, trapped, captured, and marched ignominiously into the master's presence. Without formalities, we were sentenced to die the death. I began to make a speech from the dock. Before a word was out of my mouth, I was grasped, as in a vise, by the rough hands of the biggest boy in school. That fellow’s back was the common gallows, on which truant boys paid the penalty for their misdeeds, and when the execution was over, it was considerable time before the felon that died the death showed himself anyway lively again

Irish Wilderness - companion volume now available

2009-12-09T21:37:00.002-06:00

Just in time for the holidays … the companion volume to Mystery of the Irish Wilderness has arrived from the printer. ON THE MISSION IN MISSOURI & FIFTY YEARS AGO: Two Irish-American Classics includes both John Joseph Hogan’s personal memoirs. The young priest-become-bishop cherished his days on the Missouri frontier, recounting Civil War adventures, near-death experiences, a rousing childhood in County Limerick, Ireland in the 1830s and '40s, Daniel O'Connell rallies, and his clipper ship voyage to America.

Yellowing newspaper articles, handwritten accounts of historical events, and personal letters found in files cabinets revealed a very appealing personality – so we’ve added chapters on his life, family history and his later career in Kansas City in the booming years of the late 19^th century.

As Jo Schaper said in her review in River Hills Traveler:

... why would a non-Catholic want to read this book? For the same reason a non-geologist reads Henry Rowe Schoolcraft's journal: as a primary source for nineteenth century life, told by a reliable witness. And besides - who can resist an engaging Irish storyteller?

On the Mission in Missouri and Fifty Years Ago

Lens & Pen Press’s Newest Title Wins Gold Medal

2009-08-20T11:50:00.008-05:00

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness Wins Gold Medal in Regional Non-Fiction

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Mystery of the Irish Wilderness: Land and Legend of Father John Joseph Hogan’s Lost Irish Colony in the Ozark Wilderness by Leland and Crystal Payton has received a gold medal. Lens & Pen Press’s newest title received the competitive award in Regional Non-Fiction at the 13th Annual Independent Publishers Book Awards (IPPY). Winners were recently announced at a ceremony held during BookExpo America weekend in New York City.

More than 4,000 books were entered; only 110 gold medals were selected in all categories. The competition is open to independent book producers, university presses, and divisions of major publishers that release 50 or fewer books a year. Yale University Press led the medal count with five, followed by Indiana University Press with four.

“This award is especially gratifying as it confirms our mission to tell stories with a regional focus in books with the highest level of design, layout and production,” said Crystal Payton.

The Paytons delved into rare primary historical sources including diocesan archives, Bureau of Land Management records, antique maps pinpointing the brief colony. Their research sheds light on a little known episode in Irish American history, the Trans-Mississippi Civil War, the boom-and-bust timber business of the nineteenth century, and environmental policies of the twentieth century.

The settlers disappeared after the Civil War but their sojourn on the Ozark frontier is forever enshrined in the name “Irish Wilderness.” Today that name denotes part of the area in the Ozarks where they briefly settled, which is now a 16,500-acre unit of the National Wilderness System.

The book has received favorable reviews from national experts on Irish American history as well as regional and Civil War historians.

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness, a 128-page, all-color book, retails for $18.95. Available at many bookstores or through www.amazon.com Copies can also be ordered from the publisher, postage paid.

For more information on this and other Lens & Pen books visit www.beautifulozarks.com.
$18.95 paper
7x10 inches 128 pages
80 color plates
ISBN: 978-0-9673925-4-7

Book Signing at Barnes & Noble -

2009-01-24T11:55:00.009-06:00

The Saturday before Thanksgiving was a beautiful day, and a busy one on Kansas City's Country Club Plaza. We had a good time, saw friends, met new folks and sold some books. A good time was had by all.

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness - THE VIDEO!

2008-11-29T12:02:00.000-06:00

Leland's script combined with Ross's editing expertise created this video .... enjoy!

Book Signing in Kansas City, Missouri November 22

2008-11-15T11:10:00.002-06:00

Leland and I will be signing books at Barnes & Noble on the Country Club Plaza next Saturday - November 22 - from 1 - 3 p.m. The store is at 420 W. 47th St. Kansas City, Missouri

This is our first book signing event and we're curious to see who might come and what aspects of our books generate the most interest. The new book, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness (which by the way is non-fiction), begins in the pre-Civil War era, with Irish Famine immigrants, and follows 150 years of land use policies and personalities as they affect the area the Irish settled. It also follows the life of the intrepid young priest who led the colony: John Joseph Hogan. He became the first bishop of Kansas City and much of our research was done here in the archives of the Diocese.

Of course, See the Ozarks and Beautiful and Enduring Ozarks will be available as well!

Picking up where I left off

2008-11-04T21:46:00.001-06:00

A lot has happened since Ross and I were redesigning the Lens & Pen website. Nearly a year after that first experimental post, the website has taken shape and our newest book has arrived from the printer in Singapore. In that year, we finalized the book's design, proofed and re-proofed the text, burned the DVDs, wrote the check and sent it off. A few months later, a couple of hundred cartons of books passed through customs in St. Louis and were trucked to Springfield. (Note to anyone considering printing a book overseas - shipping costs from St. Louis to Springfield were higher than the charges for the slow boat from Singapore to St. Louis. But I digress...)

Mystery of the Irish Wilderness: Land and Legend of Father John Joseph Hogan's Lost Irish Colony in the Ozark Wilderness was itself a long time in coming. In the late '70s, when environmentalists in Missouri pushed to have 16,500 acres between the Eleven Point and Current rivers included in the national wilderness system, Leland wrote a letter of support. That was my first brush with the legend that still lingered in the hills of southern Missouri.

It wasn't until we found John Hogan's two memoirs in the rare books section of the Springfield Library that we really were captured by the story itself and the personality of the adventurous young priest who led the settlement. On the Mission in Missouri: 1857-1868 tells of his missionary years before and during the Civil War, most of his time spent in north Missouri. His writing made real what frontier Missouri was like, who the people were that ventured west and how they lived. And the territory was so familiar. Our years of photographing all parts of the state, scouting for antiques in the most out of the way shops - we and he covered the same landscape, crossed the same streams and railroads.

We were intrigued, but the story - as it was known then - had such a downer ending ... hopeful settlers driven from their wilderness farms by a war they were not a part of. So it lingered as a publishing project until my day job (FEMA Public Affairs) brought me to Kansas City where the adventurous young priest later became the first bishop. With the permission of the diocese archivist, I spent many a Saturday going through the Bishop's files. There the story of the man and his mission began to take shape.

2007-11-26T12:51:00.000-06:00

Leland Payton scans for photo ops below the dam at Pomme de Terre Lake. We're starting a new project on the Osage River; the Pomme de Terre is a tributary.

Starting Up

2007-11-26T12:16:00.000-06:00

Hi there -

Today we're launching the official blog for Lens & Pen Press ... adventures in publishing in and near the Ozarks. We're a small publishing firm with big ideas and high standards. Cameras provide the 'lens' and a keyboard is the 'Pen' - our tools for imaging and understanding a region and its people, history and culture.