History Of Blue Springs

[lee G.]

Sure I remember the Dampier's. Henry and Ed, I believe, they were up river from us, if i remember correctly.

[GloryDaze]

I totally understand their wanting to mark the spring itself as private property- according to the laws, if you were to meander up to the spring you would indeed be trespassing. What I'm hoping is they haven't plastered no trespassing signs along the gravel bar right at the mouth of the spring and down around the corner.

In my opinion, that is a real pretty stretch of that river and from my experience is a wonderful gravel bar to take a lunch break during the heat of the summer, cool down in the water and relax.

Last time I was there, about 2 months ago, it looked like someone had been down on the gravel bar with a tractor trying to create a road across the creek right by the spring and all the way up to the river. I hope that nonsense stops......

[fishinwrench]

Someone has been rooting around in the river here, for sure.

http://goo.gl/maps/ZQlRd

They can legally do it though, which surprises and disappoints me.

The owners of Redbeard's once took a dozer and destroyed a really nice run that borders the Barclay stretch, removing midstream boulders and such to make for a launch/landing. I brought it to the attention of MDC and really thought heads were gonna roll. Nope.

[XP 590]

Someone has been rooting around in the river here, for sure.

http://goo.gl/maps/ZQlRd

Love those overhead views. I'm not familiar with this area of the Niangua, I never get past Barclay. Where is the land that this post was started about?

Thanks

[lee G.]

XP 590, on google, look at sweet hollow creek, the spring is there, its north a ways from Indian leap bluff.

[Greasy B]

Someone has been rooting around in the river here, for sure.

http://goo.gl/maps/ZQlRd

They can legally do it though, which surprises and disappoints me.

The owners of Redbeard's once took a dozer and destroyed a really nice run that borders the Barclay stretch, removing midstream boulders and such to make for a launch/landing. I brought it to the attention of MDC and really thought heads were gonna roll. Nope.

so much for being a good steward of the land.

[Phil Lilley]

Wouldn't there be a lot of old Indian artifacts close to a spring? Someone could have been "rooting" for them.

[lee G.]

I am sure the indians used blue spring as a camp, that there is sure cold water in the summer!

We picked up all kinds of arrow heads and axes in the bottoms on the farm downstream.

[Scooper]

The place where we camped on Henry Dampier's farm was right next to the river, on a gravel-covered piece of ground shaded by huge cottonwoods. It was maybe a half mile to a mile below Blue Spring. There was a riffle next that spot, the sound of which lulled us to a restful sleep at night. Just upstream of the camping spot was a thicket of willows, and on the other side of the willows was a small open gravel bar where we would park our canoe and a johnboat. The canoe was a green Oldtown made of treated canvas with cedar ribbing and gunwales that probably dated to the 1930s. The johnboat, also painted green, was made of yellow pine by a master johnboat builder named Hufstedler whose family owned a canoe and guide service on the Eleven Point River. I think the business is still there, but under different ownership. That johnboat was HEAVY, but sturdy and almost impossible to flip. Doc Bruner rigged it with a Johnson 3 hp outboard.

The place where we camped on Mr. Dampier's farm was perfect. To reach it, we would drive down a long gravel county road to Mr. Dampier's property, then down a steep farm road to a bottom field next to the river, around the field and into the wooded gravel-bottom camping spot. The field was usually planted in corn, and over the years we found some arrowheads and other artifacts by walking between the corn rows. I think the Niangua has a lot of archaeological sites along its course. Lee's comment about finding Indian relics on his family farm would seem to confirm that.

[fishinwrench]

Ya know, the amount of arrowheads that continue to be found (literally EVERYWHERE) just totally astounds me.

Did the idiots just run around throwing handfull after handfull of the dam things around like rice at a wedding ?

You'd think as much effort as it takes to make one that they would have been a little more conservative with them.