Alley to Eminence

Below McCormack Bay the Jacks Fork turns north and runs about five miles to the head of the Eminence riverfront. It passes Effie Smith Hollow, Low Gap Hollow and Horse Hollow on the left, swings east past the mouths of Pistol Barrel and Possum Trot hollows, bends northeast under Cane Bluff and back south past Stair Steps Hole, takes in Mahans Creek from the right, and turns northeast again past the mouth of Storys Creek1 toward Eminence. Through this reach the river falls about 6 feet a mile3. Highway 106 runs back from the right bank2 the whole way. A Mountain View floater asked which trip to send a first-timer on chose Alley Spring to Eminence, and with the spring’s water in it the river can be floated here in every month4 (Chapter 20).

The valley opens a little below Alley, with terraces at the bends and creek mouths5 (Chapter 3). A mile or two below Horse Hollow the river cuts down through the Gasconade into the older Eminence Dolomite6, the one formation on the river named for a place on it7, and a fault named for Possum Trot Hollow crosses the valley a short way above Eminence8 (Chapter 1). Much of the wooded country around this stretch lies in the state’s Angeline Conservation Area, which carries the name of the old logging camp9 up Horse Hollow. The area covers about 39,600 acres. The state first bought land here in the 1940s, to keep it from grazing and fire, and put the area together from its Clow, Alley Spring and Flat Rock conservation areas and a purchase of 1995 from the Kerr-McGee company, which had acquired much of the land from the Moss Tie Company. The mill at West Eminence had taken most of its shortleaf pine10 (Chapter 7).

Most of the side water here comes from one creek. In the dry week of August 2006 Mahans Creek was adding a little less than six cubic feet of water a second to the river, and Low Gap Hollow was dry11 (Chapter 12). The gauge at Eminence, a mile and a half below the mouth of Mahans Creek, has kept a daily record of the river since 192112 (Chapter 14).

The miles in the headings are counted from the junction of the prongs along the surveyed channel. Effie Smith Hollow comes in at about mile 33.3, Horse Hollow at 33.8, Possum Trot and Pistol Barrel hollows at about 35.7, Mahans Creek at 37.1 and Storys Creek at 37.6, and the Highway 19 bridge at Eminence is at 38.5513. Left and right are as you face downstream. The river runs mostly east here, so the left bank is usually the north bank, but between Cane Bluff and Mahans Creek it runs south for half a mile14.

Bend by bend

Effie Smith Hollow and Hole

Hollow, ford and pool · left bank (hollow) · about miles 33.1 to 33.4 · Plate A11

Effie Smith lived near the mouth of the hollow that carries her name, and the short, unnamed hollow of a little less than a square mile that comes in on the left at about mile 33.3 is probably it16. Effie Smith Ford crossed the river near the mouth, and Effie Smith Hole lies beside it. By one account Bill King drowned at the hole. The river was in flood when he tried to cross, he was swept downriver, and he was found in a field downstream eleven days later15.

Across the river lies the Gregory Place17. By 1980 Ralph Branson, and after him Jim and Jane Smith, hosted the Eminence Trail Rides there, a large ride each June and another each August that brought several hundred riders from Missouri and the states around it (Chapter 11). By the same account, two elderly women, Bethie and Lillie Gregory, lived on the place in the 1930s. Two men, Shedd and Tripp, came to rob them wearing Halloween masks. When one of the women pulled the mask off one of them, the men struck the women on the head and burned the house, and Sheriff Freeman Powell caught them three days later.

Low Gap Hollow and Mac Ellerman Hole

Hollow and pool · left bank · about mile 33.6 · Plate A11

Low Gap Hollow is a short valley of a little over a square mile that comes in on the left a few hundred yards above the mouth of Horse Hollow18, so that two side valleys reach the river close together. Mack Ellerman lived near its mouth19, and the pool beside it is Mac Ellerman Hole20. He was probably the Mac Ellerman who ran Alley for the Kansas City company and became the first superintendent21 of the state park there (Reach H).

Horse Hollow and Water Branch

Hollow, creek and ford · left bank · about mile 33.8 · Plate A11

Horse Hollow is the largest side valley on this stretch. Its creek, Water Branch on the federal maps, comes down Angeline Hollow and Horse Hollow from the north and drains about eleven square miles. Sinking Branch joins it out of Keeling Hollow, and Hines Hollow22 comes in from the side. The hollow is said to take its name from John Alley’s horses, which he kept there and which raiders came to steal during the Civil War23 (Chapter 6). Horse Hollow Ford24 crossed the river near the mouth.

The Strains, Bells and Russells25 were among the families who lived in the hollow, and by one account the big flood of 1928 washed most of their farms away. In 1895, by the same account, a flood on Horse Hollow got the creek “so big it cut the river off” and washed away Sue Plowman’s house above the Culpepper Place. By 1980 the creek ran only in wet weather. In the dry months water stood in places along it without running, and it is said to have run all the time once.

The logging railroad climbed the hollow from the river26 (Chapter 7). By one account a track also ran on up the river into Alley Hollow in 1907 and was later torn out, and the main line climbed Horse Hollow past Angeline and over the Flat Woods toward Spring Valley27. By the same account a crew was laying track in the upper hollow when a car loaded with steel broke loose on the grade and hit Engine Number Two head-on. The boiler burst and scalded Bud Suesbury to death, and the place became Suesbury Curve. John Taylor was killed in the hollow trying to stop a string of runaway cars loaded with logs, when the cars left the track and the logs buried28 him.

Angeline

Logging camp, site · up Horse Hollow · Plate A11

Angeline was the Missouri Lumber and Mining Company’s big logging camp up Horse Hollow (Chapter 7). Its post office opened in 1909 or 1910 and closed in 1929, when the mail went to Alley30, and two stories explain its name29 (Chapter 5). The Angeline school ran for many years after the logging days31. A woman who retired after forty-two years of teaching in Shannon County schools remembered going to the Storys Creek school as a child and teaching the Angeline school while she was a high-school sophomore32.

The camp stood in Horse Hollow33. Above the mouths of Sinking Branch and Hines Hollow, a little more than a mile up, the federal maps call the valley Angeline Hollow, and the camp may have stood there35. An Eminence resident who has done park work placed it lower, not far above the river; of two others who know the river, one did not know the name and one had heard it but could not place it34.

The Blue Hole and Shingle Mill Hole

Pools · about miles 33.8 to 34.1 · Plate A11

The Blue Hole is the bluff hole below the mouth of Horse Hollow, one of several pools of that name36 on the river (Chapter 18). A shingle mill37 stood at the mouth of Shingle Mill Hollow, a short hollow on the left a little below, and the hole at its mouth carries the mill’s name.

Boiler Hole and the Culpepper Cemetery

Pool, cemetery and hollow · cemetery back from the right bank · about mile 34.5 · Plate A11

The next hole down, Boiler Hole38, is said to be named for a steam-engine boiler thrown into a gully by the river to stop the bank from washing. On December 15, 190439, by one account, Mose Jones caught an otter in the Boiler Hole. The Funsten Fur Company bought the fur from David L. Bales, and the otter measured eleven feet from the tip of its tail to its nose. How the otters later all but vanished from Missouri and were brought back is told in Chapter 16.

Back from the right bank, across from Shingle Mill and Boiler holes42, lies the Culpepper Cemetery, on what was the John Alley farm40 near the mouth of Buzzard Hollow41. John Alley, whose post office on the farm is told in Reach H, ran a small gristmill in the hollow, and Buzzard Hollow was once a favorite roost for black and turkey buzzards. By one account the first43 burial was John Alley’s wife, Grace, in 1877. She was Grace Mahan Alley, born October 17, 1837, probably of the Mahan family45 of Mahans Creek, and John W. Alley lived from October 22, 1832, to February 189844. The ground was called the Alley Cemetery, then the Morton Cemetery, and later the Culpepper Cemetery. By 1980 it held about a hundred graves and was no longer used, and the names on the stones include Alley, Branson, Culpepper, Morton, Plowman, Russell and Strain. Some of the early McCormacks are probably buried there (Reach H).

Joe and Sarah Culpepper46 came from Tennessee in 1889. Joe owned sawmills at Angeline and other places, and by the same account he was a dentist who made false teeth. He died in 1925, killed by a dynamite blast on his farm while he was blowing out a stump and killing groundhogs.

Culpepper Chute

Chute · about mile 34.9 · Plate A11

Culpepper Chute still gave floaters a thrill at times in 1980. Gum Hollow, a short way below on the right, has a couple of small springs and normally runs no water.

Pistol Barrel Hollow, Possum Trot Hollow and Adam Kidd Hole

Hollows and pool · left bank (hollows) · about miles 35.7 to 36.0 · Plate A11

Pistol Barrel Hollow comes down from the north and runs along the left side of the valley floor to reach the river with Possum Trot Hollow48 at about mile 35.747. There are springs in Pistol Barrel and below it. Adam Kidd Hole lies a little below the two hollows. Adam Kidd lived at the mouth of Possum Trot, and the hole is also called the Barnes Bluff Hole. The Barnes were an early family on the south side of the river, and Barnes Bluff stands on that side.

Cane Bluff and the Barnes fords

Bluff, fords and spring · left bank (bluff) · about miles 36.1 to 36.5 · Plate A11

Cane Bluff stands on the left at the outside of the bend where the river swings from northeast to south49, and rises about 120 feet50. The Upper Barnes Ford crossed between Barnes Bluff and Cane Bluff, and the Lower Barnes Ford crossed below Cane Bluff. Barnes Spring comes in below the Cane Bluff Hole. By one account it used to flow into a bay that was an excellent fishing spot51.

The logging railroad ran along the foot of Cane Bluff, and an old photograph52 shows the track there. A photograph of the river at Cane Bluff taken about 191053, set beside one taken from the same place in 1992, shows less gravel and steadier, more wooded banks in the later picture (Chapter 15).

Cane Bluff is probably the bluff also called King’s Bluff54. A Mountain View resident who grew up near Arroll had heard the name without placing it, and an Eminence resident who has done park work placed King’s Bluff about a mile lower, on the left a little below the mouth of Mahans Creek55.

Flat Hole, Stair Steps Hole and Jones Mountain

Pools and hill · about miles 36.5 to 36.9 · Plate A11

Below the Lower Barnes Ford come the Flat Hole, small, flat and rock-bottomed, and the Stair Steps Hole, a bluff hole also called the Rock Hole, about 5 feet deep at low water57. This Flat Hole is a different pool from the Flat Hole above Bay Creek, where ties are said to have gone into the river down a chute (Reach F). Jones Mountain, also called Bald Hill, rises on the south side, where Bud Jones homesteaded56.

Mink Trap, Counts Ford and the railroad crossing

Fords, spring and crossing site · about miles 36.9 to 37.1 · Plate A11

Mink Trap, a little above the old railroad crossing, had three good places to set steel traps. The Counts Spring, also called the Lee Ellerman Spring, runs in near it. On May 20, 1885, John W. Counts homesteaded 160 acres at the mouth of Mahans Creek. He married Rebecca Chilton, a daughter of Joshua and Elizabeth Chilton, and by one account Counts Ford got its name when he nearly drowned there riding an untamed horse58.

The logging railroad came north down the Mahans valley in 1907, crossed the Jacks Fork on a trestle60 a little above the mouth of the creek, and ran west along the north bank to the mouth of Horse Hollow and up the hollow to the camp at Angeline59 (Chapter 7). A party of Carthage fishermen floating the river on May 24, 1907, saw the first engine61 cross. The rails came up in 192962, and in 1980 the pilings could still be seen in the river a little below63 Mink Trap.

Mahans Creek

Creek · right bank · mile 37.1 · Plates A11 and A16

Mahans Creek is the largest creek on the Jacks Fork. It drains about fifty-four square miles64, more than two and a half times65 as much as any other, and runs about thirteen miles66 north to the river. It is the only creek below the prongs built from four generations of smaller streams joining, a fifth-order67 stream in the hydrologists’ count. It falls about twenty-nine feet to the mile68 and runs all year in about its lower nine miles69. Thirty-five kinds of fish have been counted in the creek’s country, among them smallmouth bass, shadow bass, black redhorse, the Arkansas saddled darter and the Ozark shiner, with the Ozark pigtoe and the Ozark brokenray among its mussels and yellow lady’s slipper, ginseng and river cane71 among its plants. By one account Mrs. Jeston Bolin70 drowned at its mouth; she is buried in the Culpepper Cemetery.

By one account the Mahans were one of the first72 families in what became Shannon County, if not the first. A William Mahan is said to have come into the country in 1779 with a hunting party of Shawnee and Delaware, and his son to have settled on the creek in 1808. By the same account the creek is named for a later William Mahan, son of James and Jane Mahan, whose family came from Pennsylvania by way of Ohio and Indiana in 1826 and who settled by the spring below Bohannon, or Pummill, Hollow (Chapter 18). By one account he applied for a post office on April 13, 186073, and it went on the books as Mahon’s Creek (Chapter 5). About 185574, by the same account, he built a small mill near the mouth of Bohannon Hollow, with stone burrs fastened to a wooden shaft and an overshot wheel. A man named Lloyd rebuilt it in the late 1870s. The war on the creek, the skirmish of October 1863 with its story of the cavalrymen’s trophies and the Union patrol of that November75, is told in Chapter 6.

Up Mahans Creek to Delaware

Creek valley · Plate A16

Going up the creek, the first good spring76 is the Bill Smith or Jim Burrus Spring, and the Willow Hole comes next. By one account the creek used to run a lot of water, enough for boats in the gigging months, and in later years Willie Key drowned trying to cross it in his four-wheel-drive pickup. Broadfoot Hollow and Big Branch77 come in from the sides of the lower valley.

Delaware78 lies at the junction of Pine Hollow and Mahans Creek. Pine Hollow comes in from the southwest with Larkin, Jam Up, Dry Camp and Spring Camp hollows, and about two miles of it are officially a losing stream80 (Chapter 12). This Jam Up Hollow lies far from Jam Up Cave and Jam Up Creek upriver, and how the two came to share the name is unsettled81 (Chapter 18). Above Delaware, Mahans Creek comes from the south past Open Hollow, with Pin Oak Hollow in it, and Turnback and Railroad79 hollows. The Delaware school82 washed off its foundation in a flood in 1895, by one account, and the schoolhouse became a church. By one account a post office named Delaware ran from 1871 to 187383, and another ran from 1923 or 1924 to 194184 (Chapter 5). The township and the village carry the name of the Delaware people who lived on the river in the early 1820s85 (Chapter 4).

The valley was logged from both ends. In the 1890s Cordz-Fisher ran a tram down Pine Hollow toward Mahans Creek, and Dry Camp was one of its camps86 (Chapter 7). In 1907 the lumber company’s line, later the Salem, Winona and Southern, came down Mahans Creek, and from 1909 it had a loading chute, stock pens and a flag station at Delaware87 (Chapter 7). Pertz, a stop on the line along the upper creek, had a post office from 190088, by one account.

West Eminence

Mill town, site · up Mahans Creek near the mouth · Plate A11

The lumber company’s mill town of West Eminence stood a short way up Mahans Creek, about a mile west of Eminence89 (Chapter 7). In December 1906 Shade Orchard sold his farm to the company for the town, and the mill was built in 1909 and 1910. The Martin Hub Mill, which made wagon hubs of clear white oak, stood by the bluff between the Christian Church and the elementary school and is said to have burned about 192690. By one account the county poor farm moved to West Eminence in 1927 and closed in 1948; the county’s purchase of company land91 is told in Chapter 7. In 1980 the ruins of the big mill could still be seen. By one account James Mahan92 was shot in November 1863 where West Eminence stands now (Chapter 6).

Storys Creek

Creek · left bank · mile 37.6 · Plate A11

Storys Creek comes in from the north about half a mile below Mahans Creek93, “unnoticed,” as one account has it. It drains a little over five square miles down Spurgeon Hollow and Spring Hollow, runs about four miles and flows all year in about its lowest nearly three miles95. An unnamed branch of about two square miles joins it about half a mile up94. Spurgeon Hollow is a state natural area within the Angeline Conservation Area, and Bush’s skullcap, a plant found only in the Ozarks99, grows there. The creek is said to be named for one of the earliest families in the Ozarks. Two Storys were among the men killed by the Union patrol of 186396 (Chapter 6), and one family that settled on the creek after the war later moved on to Big Shawnee97. The Storys Creek school now stands at Alley98 (Reach H).

In geologically recent times the Jacks Fork ran up the lower part of this valley and around a small knob before it cut through the neck100 of the loop (Chapter 2). An outcrop east of the creek gave its name to the rhyolite of Storys Creek101 (Chapter 1).

Places not yet placed

The fords of 1905 and 1906. In December 1905, by one account, Charley Smith was crossing the ford below Alley when one of his horses got out of control, and the wagon was swept into deep water and the team drowned. In October 1906 a buggy carrying H. H. Smalley, Mrs. Tripp and her two children home from Alley overturned in the river at the ford near George Chrisco’s farm. Mrs. Tripp and the children were caught under the buggy top, and her father, Mr. McFarland, who was riding alongside on horseback, pulled them out after they were already unconscious102. Neither ford has been placed.

Horse Creek and Old Horse Camp. By 2022 the park counted a Horse Creek river access and an Old Horse Camp primitive area below Alley103. Neither has been placed on the ground.

Delaware Creek104. In 1939 a stream rising in Delaware Township and flowing north to the Jacks Fork was called Delaware Creek, or Indian Creek. No stream carries either name today. It may be the stream now called Mahans Creek105.

On to Reach J

Below Storys Creek the river comes to the head of the Eminence riverfront at about mile 38.0, where Reach J begins with Circle B, Button Rock and Eminence Bluff and the Highway 19 bridge at 38.55106. Rules for the river are in Part Six.