The North Prong

The North Prong rises on the upland about nine miles south of Raymondville and runs generally southeast across Texas County to meet the South Prong a short way below the Highway Y bridge1 at Low Water. Measured along its channel it is 17.04 miles2 long, about a mile longer than the South Prong, and it drains about 59 square miles against the South Prong’s 88. All of it lies in Texas County, outside the national riverways3, and its banks are private. Plate A1 shows the two prongs together, and Plate A14 shows the North Prong alone.

Through this reach the prong falls about 30 feet a mile4. Its first mile of channel falls at about 130 feet to the mile, and the next five miles fall between about 35 and 55 feet to the mile. A long middle course of about seven and a half miles then falls only about 16 feet to the mile, and the last four miles, from near the mouth of Pine Branch, fall about 12. From its head to the junction the prong drops roughly 500 feet5. Even its gentlest miles are steeper than the river below the Prongs, which falls about 9 feet a mile as far as Steel Bridge6 (Reach C).

About 15 of the prong’s 17 miles are mapped as permanent stream7. The lowest eight miles are classed as a stream that keeps flowing in drought, and the seven above them8 as one that may stop flowing in dry weather but holds permanent pools. On August 14, 2006, the prong was carrying 13.5 cubic feet a second near its mouth and was dry at the Route 137 crossing9 (Chapter 12). Sinkholes are scarce in this western end of the watershed, fewer than one to a hundred square miles10.

The North Prong country is more open than the watershed as a whole. In the late 1990s about seven-tenths of its basin was forest or woodland and a little over a quarter was grassland, against about a fifth for the whole watershed11. Along the stream the clearing ran deeper: on about 11 of the prong’s miles12, more than a quarter of the strip beside the channel was in grass, crops or buildings. Among the drainages of the watershed where wider wooded strips along the banks would do the most good, the North Prong ranks in the highest class, second only to Shawnee Creek13 (Chapter 15). The man who knew the Hiker Hole (Chapter 15), whose family came to the upper basin in 193214, described the change in the early 1990s: “Back then, the fields was little islands15 amongst the timber; today, the timber is little islands amongst the fields.” The tie cutting along both prongs in the 1930s and 1940s is described in Chapter 7, and the spring burning of ridges and creek bottoms in Chapter 5.

About a fifth of the basin is public land, nearly all of it in the Gist Ranch16 Conservation Area. The Missouri Department of Conservation bought the tract, a single, heavily wooded block of about 11,240 acres17, from the Smith Flooring Company of Mountain View in 1997. About 7,400 acres of it lie in the North Prong’s basin, and the rest lies across the divide. Gist Ranch is one of three local names for the tract, with the Kinnard Ranch and the Stoner Ranch, and none of them has been traced to its source. In the 1940s the Conservation Department leased the land as a game refuge, when it was one of the few places in Missouri where deer and wild turkey19 were still to be found. The area has small springs and fens, dolomite glades on the ridges, ponds, a shooting range and about a dozen miles of trail18. None of the prong’s permanent water20 runs through it.

People who farmed the North Prong watched its channel change in the second half of the twentieth century. A woman born in 1917, who moved to a North Prong farm in the 1920s and farmed it until 1989, saw the creek spread out and lose its swimming holes after people upstream began dropping timber into it in the middle 1960s21 (Chapter 15). Her brothers had fished in the 1930s in “that blue hole” at her mother’s place, and by the early 1990s it was “about filled up until it’s not even much to wade in”; she did not say on which prong22 it lay. The same man who knew the Hiker Hole found that after a rise in about 1991 “there was a quarter inch of mud23 all over the gravel from all the way down from 17 bridge [State Route 17] all the way up the North Prong.” In 2017–19 state biologists searched two stretches of the prong for mussels, both of them places where mussels had been looked for in 1982, one about five and a half miles above the junction and one about eleven and a half. They found none, alive or dead24 (Chapter 16). A collection of the prong’s fish made on June 1, 1994, and kept at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays, Kansas, holds at least twelve kinds: central and largescale stonerollers, hornyhead and creek chubs, the Ozark minnow, telescope and bleeding shiners, the northern hog sucker, the slender madtom, the northern studfish, and rainbow and fantail darters25.

The stream has been North Prong Jacks Fork on the federal maps since a decision of the Board on Geographic Names in 196626. A tourist map of Texas County made in 1936 called it the North Fork27, and the Park Service’s river folder of 197728 still used that name. By one account it was often called Steiner’s Fork, for a Steiner who at one time owned most of the land along its upper part, land first filed on by Joseph Deggendorf29. How the junction came to be both the Forks and the Prongs is taken up in Chapter 18.

No float on the North Prong itself is on record. People who remember high-water floats on the upper river put in at the Prongs30 (Chapter 20), and no gauge now stands on the prong; the nearest is at Steel Bridge (Reach D). Floating and wading on a private stream are matters of state law (Part Six).

The miles in the headings are counted upstream from the junction of the prongs, along the prong’s channel as traced from elevation data, because the main river’s miles are counted downstream from the same point31. Left and right are as you face downstream (Fig. 1). The prong runs generally southeast, so its left bank is the north and east side.

Bend by bend

Headwaters

Source · about 9 miles south of Raymondville · North Prong mile 17.0 · Plate A14

The North Prong begins on the high, gentle ground of the plateau, where the heads of the Jacks Fork reach toward the main divide32 of the Missouri Ozarks (Chapter 2). The nearest town is Raymondville, a village in Jackson Township named by Joseph W. Brackett for his old home in Raymond, Maine; its post office dates from the 1870s33. No named spring is recorded at the head of the prong.

Harmon Branch

Branch · right bank · about North Prong mile 16

Within its first mile or so the prong takes in two branches of about the same size at nearly the same place: Harmon Branch from the west, draining a little over a square mile, and a branch with no recorded name from the northeast that drains slightly more34. The Harmons were among the early settlers along the upper prong. John Harmon became postmaster of the Jack’s Fork office in 1869 and George E. Harmon in 189035, and George E. Harmon was appointed at Grogan in 190036 (see Route 137 below). No record ties the branch to any one of them. The name appears twice on the prong, here near its head and again at Harmon Hollow, ten miles down.

Peabody Branch

Branch · right bank · about North Prong mile 15

Peabody Branch comes in from the southwest. It runs about a mile and three-quarters and drains about a square mile and a half37. A little above its mouth a smaller branch with no recorded name enters from the northeast. Aaron T. Peabody was appointed postmaster at Grogan in 190038, the same year as George E. Harmon, and the two branches at the head of the prong carry their surnames, though no record connects either branch to either man.

Saddle Branch

Branch · left bank · about North Prong mile 12.3

Saddle Branch comes down from the north, about two and three-quarter miles long and draining nearly three square miles. A few hundred yards upstream, at about mile 12.6, a creek of about the same size enters from the west on the opposite bank. It drains a little over three square miles39 and has no name in any record, the largest such creek on the upper prong. A saddle is a low gap in a ridge; which gap, if any, gave the branch its name is not recorded.

Route 137 and the Nagle and Grogan neighborhoods

Highway crossing and former post offices · about North Prong mile 11.9 · positions estimated · Plates A1 and A14

Route 137 crosses the upper prong a little below Saddle Branch, about a mile above the mouth of Black Branch. The prong was dry here on August 14, 200640 (Chapter 12). While it was still a gravel road, into about the 1960s, its potholes were filled with gravel dug from the creeks41 (Chapter 15). A Mountain View resident who came to the area from Oklahoma in 1979 fished the North Prong by the highway42.

On the hill north of the bridge stood the Nagle church and school, lettered Nogle45 on the 1948 topographic map, and a post office, the 86th in Texas County, opened in 1901, 1902 or 190444. Its postmasters ran from James M. Embree to William Lawson in 1922 and Mary Jane Lawson after him, and it closed in 1925. The office took its name from the C. H. Nagle family, landowners, as did a Methodist church and a school; it is also placed in Ozark Township47, and the name Nagle still marks a place on the upland near here46. Joseph Nagle, a preacher, held services at the Nagle church and at the Rocky Ford church43 down the prong (see Tracy Hollow below).

The Grogan school and post office stood about three miles up the creek. The office ran from September 1897 to January 1954, when its mail went to Tyrone. Its name is traced both to its first postmaster, William B. Grogan49 (also spelled Grogran)48, and to J. E. Grogan, on whose land it was established; it is also dated from 1899 and placed in southeastern Cass Township50.

Black Branch

Branch · right bank · about North Prong mile 10.7

Black Branch is a branch of nearly two miles from the southwest, draining a little less than a square mile. The Blacks were an early family here, settled before the Civil War52. A little below it, at about mile 10.4, a creek of about two and a half square miles51 enters from the north on the left bank. It has no recorded name.

Peters Creek

Creek · left bank · North Prong mile 9.6 · Plate A14

Peters Creek is the North Prong’s largest tributary. It drains nearly 12 square miles53 from the north and runs between five and a half and seven miles, depending on the measurement. Only about two and a third of its miles are mapped as permanent stream, and its lower three and a half miles54 are classed as water that may stop flowing in dry weather but keeps permanent pools. It heads in the Gist Ranch country and is the only stream named on the conservation area’s map55. Several smaller branches feed it, none of them named.

The creek takes its name from a cattle ranch. The Western Land and Cattle Company, founded in London in 1881, bought 28,000 acres in Texas County in 1883, including the land along the North Prong. Charles E. Peter came from Scotland in 1885 to manage it, the property became known as Peter’s Ranch, and the creek was named for him. About 14,000 acres of the ranch lay along the North Prong, and in 1980 the tract was still in one piece, grown to about 18,000 acres56. Whether the conservation area is part of the same block of land has not been traced through the deeds (The Open Ledger).

The mouth of Peters Creek lies on the federal map sheet named for Eunice, a village to the north, named for the wife of W. B. Cooper, who opened its post office in 189157.

Sanders Branch, Spargo Branch and the old mill

Branches, mill site and road crossing · Sanders Branch left bank, Spargo Branch right · about North Prong miles 8.2 to 7.8 · Plate A14

Two creeks of about three square miles each reach the prong about a third of a mile apart here. The upper one, Spargo Branch, comes from the west on the right bank at about mile 8.2. The lower one, Sanders Branch, comes from the northeast on the left bank at mile 7.8, runs about four miles and drains about three and a half square miles58. Every map that names them, from the 1948 topographic sheet on, places them so59. Neither name has an explanation on record.

A gristmill stood on the prong a little above the mouth of Sanders Branch and was running before 1837. At one time it was called Mahan’s Mill. Shortly before 1980 a shift in the channel uncovered its main beams, walnut timbers forty feet long joined by four cross members60. At least three more mills stood above the Prongs, and two of them may have shared one site below Sanders Branch. Reuben Harlow ran one in 1860 and the Campbell Brothers another in 1880; which prong each stood on61 is not known (Chapter 5). Harlow is remembered in Texas County as one of its earliest settlers62 (Chapter 5), and his family’s name is on Harlow Ford below the Prongs (Reach C).

The ford beside the mill carried the road from Jefferson City to Little Rock, laid out in 1837 with federal money to connect the two capitals. Part of it was cleared, but it was never finished. Trails to the West are said to have crossed63 the upper Jacks Fork because the country to the south was too rough to cross easily. The roads that came later are described in Chapter 8.

Houston School and the Houston Rural Cemetery

Former school and cemetery · right (south) bank · about North Prong mile 6.4 · Plate A14 (cemetery symbol)

The Houston Rural Cemetery stands beside Arroll Road, County Road 4480, on the south side of the creek65, about half a mile above the road’s crossing64. About ninety burials66 have been recorded there. On the 1948 topographic map Houston School stood beside it, with a surveyor’s benchmark of 1,085 feet67 at the schoolhouse, and a map drawn in 1980 shows both the school and the cemetery between the old mill and Harmon Hollow68.

The school’s name has two explanations. In one, Houston School, District No. 15, was named for T. J. Houston, “who was instrumental in building the school.” In the other it was named for Houston Scalt, from Arkansas70. Neither ties it to Houston, the county seat, about seventeen miles71 to the northwest. District No. 15 is placed in Pierce Township69, and whether the school by the cemetery lay in Pierce or in Date Township has not been settled from a district map. The cemetery probably took its name from the school.

Harmon Hollow

Hollow · left bank · North Prong mile 6.25 · Plate A14

Harmon Hollow is a short hollow from the north, draining about two-thirds of a square mile72, that reaches the prong a little above the Arroll Road crossing. Houston School stood near it73, and the hollow carries the name of an early family on the prong74 (see Harmon Branch above). The newcomer of 197975 who fished by Route 137 knows the place as “Harlow crossing.”

Pebble Dam and the Arroll Road crossing

Dam, road crossing and swimming hole · North Prong mile 5.8 · Plates A1 and A14

Pebble Dam is at the Arroll Road crossing of the North Prong, several miles above the junction, a little below the mouth of Harmon Hollow and about half a mile below the Houston Rural Cemetery. A map of 1980 marks a ford a little below Harmon Hollow, about here, with a spring on the south side76 a short way below it, where a small branch comes in from the southwest. People from Mountain View and Arroll know the place77 as Pebble Dam. A Mountain View resident who grew up at Arroll calls it Pebble Rock Dam: “There is a dam and a bridge78, and a swimming hole with a large rock to jump off of. That’s why it’s called Pebble ‘Rock’ Dam.” The resident’s summers at the dam79 are told in Chapter 19. Asked where the North Prong has a falls or ledge, the resident answered that “the drop off or ledge in this fork is actually at the Dam at Pebble Rock Dam.” The newcomer of 1979 described it only as “Arrollo road,” marking a spot near Arroll on a map.

What the dam was built for is uncertain. By the account of an Arroll resident who grew up there, it went in during the 1920s or 1930s “to power the gist ranch lodge.” No record of a lodge, a power plant or the dam’s construction has been found. The federal wetland maps show a pool of 2.79 acres impounded in the channel of the North Prong, the largest dammed or diked water beside any sizable stream in the whole Jacks Fork watershed and the only such pool listed on the prong, so it is probably the pool behind Pebble Dam80.

The newcomer of 1979 remembered friends who were camping at Pebble Dam and were nearly swept away by a flash flood, losing both of their vehicles81 (Chapters 8 and 14). The mussel search of 2017–19 that found nothing about five and a half miles above the junction82 was close to the crossing.

Pine Branch and East Fork Pine Branch

Branch · left bank · North Prong mile 4.1 · Plate A14

Pine Branch is the prong’s other large tributary, draining between eight and nine square miles from the north. It runs four or five miles and falls about 140 feet to the mile near its head. None of it is mapped as permanent stream, though its lower four miles are classed as water that keeps permanent pools. East Fork Pine Branch, about three and a half miles long and draining more than three square miles, joins it a little over a mile83 above its mouth. In the late 1990s less than one percent84 of Pine Branch ran through land more than a quarter cleared, the best record of any stream its size in the watershed. The prong’s flatter last four miles begin about here.

A cemetery stands on the ridge above Pine Branch, where Criders from Belle and Farrars from Texas and Shannon counties are buried. A skirmish between Northern and Southern forces is said to have been fought near it, with casualties on both sides and some Germans from Belle85 among the fighters. The war on the Jacks Fork is told in Chapter 6.

Tracy Hollow and Rocky Ford

Hollow, former ford, church and cemeteries · left bank · North Prong mile 3.7 · Plate A14

Tracy Hollow is a short hollow of about a square mile from the north, about four-tenths of a mile below Pine Branch86.

Rocky Ford crossed the prong below Pine Branch, near the mouth of Tracy Hollow. It had two cemeteries, an old one that had partly washed away by 1980 and a newer one started after it. Some of the graves are said to be of Delaware Indians, and Woolseys and Thorps are buried there too. The Delaware lived on the “Currents” in the early 1820s88, and how far up the Jacks Fork they reached is taken up in Chapter 4. The Rocky Ford church stood below the ford, with Joseph Nagle as its pastor. Ben Meador ran a small mill below the ford and may have come into the country with the Delaware87.

The 2006 station

Former stream station · about North Prong mile 2.7

For part of the summer of 2006 the U.S. Geological Survey kept a station on the prong between Tracy Hollow and Buckhorn Hollow, named “North Prong Jacks Fork below Arroll.” It recorded daily data from May 16 to July 20 and took three water samples. At that point, about 930 feet above sea level, the prong drains 55.9 square miles, nearly all of its basin. It has recorded nothing since. On the station’s last day, July 20, 2006, Survey biologists also took fish from the prong there, carmine and bleeding shiners, which went to the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science in Jackson89. About seven-tenths of a mile below the station, at about mile 2.090, a small branch with no recorded name comes in from the north.

Buckhorn Hollow and Arroll

Hollow and village · left bank · North Prong mile 0.7 · Plate A1

Buckhorn Hollow comes down from the north-northwest and reaches the prong on its last loop, about seven-tenths of a mile above the junction, draining about 1.3 square miles91. The hollow leads north past the Arroll school to the village92.

The man who knew the Hiker Hole, who lived at the VFW camp below the Prongs in the early 1990s, counted at least two miles up each prong among the stretches where “all of those areas are filling up104 and you’re getting hole after hole after hole” (Chapter 15).

Arroll is a village on Route W93 in Date Township, on the upland about two miles north of the junction94. The township was formed from Carroll Township in 1896 and was probably named for Date95, a post office whose site is not known; Date’s first postmaster was appointed on June 20, 1892, and the office closed on February 1, 1896, when its mail went to Oakside96. Two stories explain Arroll’s own name. In one, the applicants proposed Carroll and “clipped off the C”97 when that name was taken (Chapter 5). In the other, Turner Cook sent in the name ARRALL, and his handwriting was read as ARROLL98. The first recorded appointment at the Arroll post office is dated July 9, 1898. The office closed on November 30, 1914, reopened on February 12, 1938, and closed for good on May 3, 1957, when its mail went to Summersville99. By one account the Jack’s Fork post office, kept by Reuben Harlow from 1849, became the Arroll office; that account dates the change to 1899100, the year after the first Arroll appointment, and the Jack’s Fork office is also dated 1860 to 1902101 (Chapter 4).

In the early days William Harvell ran a hotel and livery stable at Arroll. In 1980 there were still a few homes, a church, a cemetery and a couple of stores102. A correspondent from Arroll sent the news to the Mountain View Standard in March 1913, including that “several men attended the bridge meeting at the Buck Hollow Ford”103 (Chapter 8). A Mountain View resident who grew up there in the 1960s and 1970s remembers that “it used to be a hopping place,” with “always someone at the store to chat with while grabbing a soda and a snack, maybe a little gas.” The same resident’s thoughts on what the park changed for people at the head of the river are in Chapter 11.

Collectors’ labels have long placed this country by its distance from Arroll. On April 27, 1952, Julian Steyermark, who later wrote the standard flora of the state106, collected spring coralroot, a small leafless orchid of shady woods, along the North Prong about two miles southwest of the village105. His labels of the 1930s107 give Barn Hollow and the bluffs of the river below the Prongs as so many miles southeast of Arroll (Reach C).

Below Buckhorn Hollow the North Prong finishes its loop and runs the last seven-tenths of a mile108 to meet the South Prong, which comes in from the west after passing under the Highway Y bridge. The county low-water crossing109 near the junction is described in Chapter 8. The junction, where the river’s miles begin110, and the two crossings at Low Water are in Reach C (Plate A3).