#Powersite Dam

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THE JAMES: TRANSFORMATION OF AN OZARK RIVER

Printed postcard, 1907. The genesis of the square-ended (and, as above, sometimes pointed), flat bottomed boats specifically for commercial floating on the James and White rivers is poorly documented. Many theories have been advanced as to how they were developed and how they came to be called “johnboats.” We chose to profile the James River in a 352-page all color book because its watershed…

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“Missouri is Beautiful”

“Autumn colors add to the splendor of always beautiful Missouri scenes. Here is a long-time favorite lookout point, overlooking Lake Taneycomo near Powersite Dam in Taney county. This area is gaining favor as a tourist attraction."

Photographer: Ralph Walker, 1959

Collection: Missouri Ruralist Photographs

Courtesy of the State Historical Society of Missouri.

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Powersite Dam On The White River

Powersite Dam On The White River

Finished in 1913, Powersite was Missouri’s first venture into hydropower. A consortium of St. Louis investors engaged the Ambursen Hydro-Electric Construction Company of Boston to build one of their patented hollow, reinforced concrete structures. As would be the case eighteen years later on the Osage River, the original investors were replaced by a more substantial concern. New York capitalist…

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Arcadian Tourism

Two girls from Iowa on vacation at Lake Taneycomo, 1920s. Lake Taneycomo is a 22-mile riverine lake stringing upstream on the White River through Taney County from Powersite Dam to Branson and, today, to Table Rock Dam. Powersite Dam, near Forsyth, closed in 1913. At that time, it was the largest dam/reservoir in the country and provided power and light to this remote corner of Missouri. We used…

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Henry Doherty, Powersite Dam and the Empire District Electric Company

Harnessing the power of moving water for profit and community betterment has been an impulse for many an entrepreneur. On the White River, the first dam to close the flow was #Powersite, a small, almost run-of-the-river, dam that held back enough water to ‘fatten up’ the river without drastically affecting the flow or habitat. Financial overruns caused the initial backers to withdraw their…

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TABLE ROCK BLUFF 1940S BEFORE THE DAM  Photo from Table Rock Bluff, 1940s.  Still no dam. Soon after the completion of Powersite Dam (1913) creating Lake Taneycomo, Empire District Electric announced that they would build a larger dam more than twenty miles upstream at Table Rock.

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Lens & Press Blog Moving to Word Press

Lens & Press Blog Moving to Word Press

We’re moving our Lens & Pen Press blog from Blogger to Word Press and will consolidate the two current blogs into one for our books–the Beautiful and Enduring Ozarks, the James Fork of the White (coming 2017), Damming the Osage, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness and See the Ozarks–and many other favorite topics of discussion. The archive of L&P posts is still available at…

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Increased tourism justified mass-produced postcards

Powersite Dam, 1920s postcard. White River Art Station.

Real photo postcards were produced one at a time, usually by the photographer himself, which made them ideal for small regional markets; it also means they are less common today on the collector’s market. As Ozark tourism grew, entrepreneurs turned to producing printed postcards, which could be printed in large runs. After A.K. Bishop, an…

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Progress comes to the Ozarks with the building of Powersite Dam

Progress comes to the Ozarks with the building of Powersite Dam

Printed on back: “Views of White River Dam, Camp Ozark, by A. K. Bishop, Forsyth, Mo.” Written in pencil, “Taneycomo Dam, Ozarks, June–1912.” Real photo postcard.

Powersite Dam, originally called White River Dam, was built by the Ambursen Hydraulic Construction Company of Boston. It is a hollow cement-slab and buttress structure. As we wrote in James Fork of the White, “Powersite Dam was not…

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Early View of White River Dam, aka Powersite Dam

Early View of White River Dam, aka Powersite Dam

White River Dam, real photo postcard, Hall Photo Co., circa 1916

The first hydroelectric dam in the Ozarks was simply called the “White River Dam.” Soon after, the name was changed to Powersite Dam. A March 12, 1913 article in the Springfield Republican reported the Branson Club, a local business organization decided the name “Taneycomo” (derived from its location in Taney County Missouri) would…

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POWERSITE DAM and Lake Taneycomo

POWERSITE DAM and Lake Taneycomo

Powersite Dam went into service in 1913 on the White River near Forsyth, Missouri, the first hydroelectric dam in Missouri. Designed in 1911 by Nils F. Ambursen as the largest concrete buttress dam of its kind, the dam is still privately owned by the Empire District Electric Company. Powersite was hardly a visual embodiment of modernism like the later high dams out West. It more resembled a big…