Artesian White Sulphur Spring Well Park, Clinton, Missouri

Cabinet card, circa 1890

Established in 1887, in the era when spring water was associated with health, the Artesian Spring Well on the western edge of Clinton was a lively place. The Artesian Hotel catered to visiting spa enthusiasts. A race track was built and for several years the county fair was  held here. Excursion trains, public buggies, carriages, and trolleys brought visitors to sample the curative, but malodorous, waters with their purgative effect on those who drank it.  Besides the spring, which shot a fountain of water nearly 12 feet high, and lake, entertainments included a dance hall, county fairgrounds and horse racing.

The Encyclopedia of Missouri – Towns and Counties (1901) described the park:

One and one-half miles southwest of Clinton, at the terminus of a horse-car line, are the beautiful grounds of the Artesian Park, containing a spacious lake, with hotel of three stories, basement, and attic, equipped with all modern conveniences, including dancing hall, billiard rooms and bowling alley, a pavilion, and boat and bath houses. The artesian well on the grounds discharges a palatable water, possessing known medicinal qualities, containing the chlorides of potassium, sodium, magnesium, and calcium,, the carbonates of magnesium and calcium,, sulphate of calcium, and sulhydric gas. The park is a favorite resort, and attracts visitors from considerable distances.

The fountain spray subsided. Rumors circulated that a couple of local wags had dropped bowling balls into it, but more likely that the spring just lost pressure and thus its artesian effect.

The original site comprised 40 acres. The bottomland area of the park became part of the Harry S. Truman Dam project.  Today the site of the former artesian spring is overgrown. Elsewhere on the remaining grounds are playgrounds, tennis courts, and the Artesian Amphitheater, built in 2002 by Hilton Hotels Random Acts of Service.


Artesian White Sulphur Spring Well Park, Clinton, Missouri

Mystery Priest on Missouri Highway 19

The story of a "mystery priest" who prayed with an accident victim on Missouri Highway 19 hit the wires Friday (8/9). CNN, USA Today and myriad news outlets carried the account of a priest who appeared at the scene of a terrible accident, prayed with and anointed the accident victim, assured the first responders that their equipment would now be able to cut her free and then disappeared.  He didn't show up in the 70 or so photographs of the accident scene. Most likely it was a case of being in the right place at the right time, and then going on his way.  On the other hand - they say he had an Irish accent and north Missouri was the main missionary territory of Father John Hogan 150 years ago ... before he founded the settlement in the area now called Irish Wilderness......hmmmmm....

DAMMING THE OSAGE wins in two categories of ForeWord Reviews’ 15th annual Book of the Year Awards

ForeWord Reviews’ 15th annual Book of the Year Awards, judged by a select group of librarians and booksellers from around the country, were announced at the American Libraries Association Annual conference.

Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir received two awards: silver in Regional Non-Fiction and bronze in the Ecology and the Environment category.

With 1,300 entries from more than 600 publishers, 248 winners were selected in 62 categories.

Damming the Osage also won a silver medal in the Independent Publishers Books Awards (IPPY), Best Regional Non Fiction category.   Lens & Pen’s Crystal Payton received the award in New York City. The title continues to pull in positive reviews and comments on blogs and Web sites.

ForeWord Reviews, a quarterly print journal dedicated to reviewing independently published books, was established in 1998 to provide booksellers, librarians, agents, and publishing professionals with reviews of the best titles from small, alternative, and academic presses.


DAMMING THE OSAGE wins in two categories of ForeWord Reviews’ 15th annual Book of the Year Awards

Review of Damming the Osage in St. Louis Post Dispatch

 

This weekend the St. Louis Post Dispatch published a review of Damming the Osage. Written by Steve Weigenstein, author of Slant of Light, a historical novel set in the Civil War,  “Tangled History of Osage River” (find it here) is a concise, but encompassing, description.  When the reviewer really ‘gets’ what we are trying to do and the way we did it – it is rewarding!  I especially liked his final paragraph:

Like the Osage itself, this book meanders. Those desiring a more compact, straightforward narrative — a channelized book, so to speak — will be disappointed. But those willing to follow its twists and turns will find, like a river floater, surprises and pleasures around every bend.

After the review was published orders came in to amazon.com and they sold out of stock.  We’re hoping they reorder soon.  Of course, it’s still available through our Web site!

 

Review of Damming the Osage in St. Louis Post Dispatch

DAMMING THE OSAGE receives medal at 17th IPPY awards in New York

It was a warm, humid late spring evening in New York City for the 17th annual Independent Publisher Book Awards. A festive crowd gathered for the ceremony, emceed by Jim Barnes. Crystal Payton, co-author of Damming the Osage represented Lens & Pen Press, picking up the silver medal for regional non-fiction, Mid-West.

Crystal Payton with IPPY spokesperson Trey Gerrald

Award winning books covered a broad range of topics from the Royal Cavalry of Oman to poetry and pop-up books to – of course – the story of a prairie stream and the people who live on and with it. University presses, independent publishers, e-book producers and photographers brought a rich assortment of interests and entertainments to the event. Entries came from every U. S. state and several countries. This year the IPB received more than 5,300 entries, of which 382 received medals.

While not all medalists were able to attend the ceremony, all three winners in the non-fiction, Midwest region were there.

Crystal Payton/Damming the Osage; Noppadol Paothong, photographer/Save the Last Dance (written by Joel Vance);

and Glen Ediger/Leave No Threshing Stone Unturned

DAMMING THE OSAGE receives medal at 17th IPPY awards in New York

DAMMING THE OSAGE AWARDED SILVER MEDAL IN NATIONAL COMPETITION

Lens & Pen Press’s newest title is their third book to receive IPPY recognition

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir, by Leland and Crystal Payton, has won a silver medal in Best Regional Non-Fiction Mid-West (which includes eight states) in the 2013 Independent Publishers Book Awards. Lens & Pen Press’s newest title is their third book to receive such recognition. Mystery of the Irish Wilderness in 2009 received a gold medal; See the Ozarks: The Touristic Image was an IPPY award finalist in 2004.

This respected competition is open to independent book producers, university presses, and divisions of major publishers that release 50 or fewer books a year. Chosen from a total of 5,300 entries, the 382 medalists represent 44 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia, five Canadian provinces, and eight countries overseas. Co-author Crystal Payton will receive the award at a ceremony on May 29th, in New York City.

Damming the Osage chronicles the untold story of crime, duplicity and deception in the conversion of a free flowing prairie stream into reservoirs.  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.

Reviews have focused on the exhaustive research (“stupendous” one reviewer called it and “impressive”) and remarkable capturing of the history of a river and the people who live with and on it. Outdoor writer Joel Vance called Damming the Osage a “first-class recital of the river’s history and the story of the two dams that swallowed most of it…a triumph of research and reporting.”

Damming The Osage (ISBN: 978-0-9673925-8-5) retails for $35. Available at many Barnes & Noble bookstores or through www.amazon.com Copies can also be ordered from the publisher, postage paid, at www.dammingtheosage.com

Downloadable images of the book cover and author photos are available at http://www.dammingtheosage.com/for-the-media/

For more information on this and other Lens & Pen books visit www.beautifulozarks.com or email lensandpen@yahoo.com .

Information on the 2013 IPPY awards can be found at: http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1653


DAMMING THE OSAGE AWARDED SILVER MEDAL IN NATIONAL COMPETITION

BRIDGE AT HOECKER / HENLEY (UNDER CONSTRUCTION) 1903

Although long out of service,  the Henley railroad bridge is still an imposing iron bridge across the Osage in Miller County, not far from St. Elizabeth. It is hard to get to as the right of way is grown up and interested bridge hunters have to walk in. Tangled, grown up brush makes the walk difficult – easier in winter than summer.

It was built in 1903 for the Chicago, Rock Island, & Pacific Railroad to span the Osage River. The main span is a pin-connected, 14-panel Pennsylvania through truss. With the bankruptcy of the railroad in 1980, ownership of the line was transferred through many hands until the Union Pacific Railroad sold it to Ameren Corp, a St. Louis-based utility.  The majority of the line (including the Henley Bridge) has not been used since 1979.

Bridgehunter.com is a valuable resource for those fascinated by old bridges.

Bridgehunter.com’s inventory of bridges and bridges lost on the Osage River:

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