The Scars of Project 459: The Environmental Story of the Lake of the Ozarks

2. History of the Lake

CHAPTER 2 History of the Lake Before there was a lake, there were the Osage Indians. They traveled along the river which now bears the tribe’s name, and climbed its surrounding bluffs stemming from the area’s roller coaster dips and valleys carved from erosion and land lifting. They wandered and inhabited the region’s cave systems. Many of the area’s names are taken from the Osage, such as Ha Ha Tonka, thought to mean “laughing waters” in the Osage language. Other notorious travelers were Daniel Boone and his son, who hunted the area woods. By the early eighteen hundreds, others came to find their livelihoods and homes near the rivers. The settlers pushed the Osage into Oklahoma before they put down their roots. They cultivated the land surrounding the river, shipping wheat to nearby mills. They navigated their steamboats past river bluffs and landmarks with iconic names—Bloody Island, Bat Cave, Lover’s Leap.1 Their river was used for trade and for powering sawmills or woolen mills that had become part of the region’s infrastructure. By the early nineteen hundreds, a population of more than fifty thousand people2 lived in what is now the four-county (Benton, Camden, Miller, and Morgan) area surrounding the river, which finds its beginning in the Flint Hills as the Marias des Cygnes in eastern Kansas and becomes the Little Osage near Rich Hill, Missouri. The waterway continues east and joins the Missouri River. These people who called this region home would soon find themselves uprooted and without a land when a power company from Saint Louis decided to cash in on a hydroelectricity project. BAGNELL DAM TIMELINE August 6, 1929 Construction begins Nov. 21, 1929 First steel setting on Osage bridge April 9, 1930 First concrete poured July 22, 1930 Diversion channel opened Feb. 2, 1931 Lake begins to fill May 20, 1931 Lake reaches spillway crest elevation May 30, 1931 Lake traffic begins Oct. 16, 1931 First commercial operation of Osage plant Dec. 24, 1931 Lake area electric service begins Source: Miller County Historical Society The damming of the Osage River for hydroelectric power, which would ultimately create the Lake of the Ozarks, began amid financial corruption. Though the idea for Bagnell Dam came from Kansas City attorney Ralph W. Street, it was businessman Walter Cravens of Kansas City who formed the Missouri Hydro-Electric Power Company and offered the financing for damming the Osage in 1924. Cravens was the first president of Kansas City Joint Stock Land Bank. The company began building roads and created facilities so the dam could be built near the town of Bagnell. Then financial difficulties halted construction in 1926.3 Authorities investigated Cravens’s management of the bank’s assets, including questionable relationships with Farmers Fund Inc., the company charged with acquiring lands in the Osage River valley. Bankers started pulling out of the project. A year later, Cravens was indicted for phony loan activities.4, 5 However, others continued to pitch the idea and negotiated a sale to another company. In 1929, Union Electric Light and Power Company in Saint Louis announced it would build the dam for $30 million.6 The company previously had purchased a steam-power plant in the village of Rivermines.7 They started building the Bagnell Dam so they could meet power needs. The development was another addition to the company ’s other hydroelectric ventures along the Mississippi River. Shortly after, the New York Stock Exchange crash spiraled into the Great Depression. 10 HISTORY OF THE LAKE People poured into the area for the work. One estimate is that twenty thousand people slept and ate in makeshift camps during the two years it took to build the dam. Workers labored for as low as thirty-five cents an hour. Cottages, bunkhouses, and even a bakeshop created a temporary town for the workforce. Dam construction jobs were welcome blessings for many looking for work during the Depression, and they signed up, no matter how laborious the work. Alan Sullivan, consulting engineer at Ameren, likes to tell the story of his family’s connection to the lake. “In our little farm town, my uncle and grandfather were at Sunday night church . . . ” he begins. He tells the tale matter-of-factly, as he has many times before. He’s proud to come from a line of descendants from the area. The country was sliding into the Depression...