Truman Dam is in the Ozarks, barely. The upper reaches of the reservoir are in prairie country, which have created a very shallow ugly body of water. This is a scene near Clinton, Missouri. Click to enlarge.
As the old saying goes – ugly lake, ugly souvenirs. The Harry S. Truman Dam, built by the Army Corps of Engineers on the Osage River, is one of the least economically justified, most ecologically destructive of many useless federal public works projects. It created a banal, windswept, turbid reservoir.
Truman Lake is decent crappie fishing, but it destroyed the most productive spawning grounds in the world of the giant, valuable paddlefish. Now Missouri’s sports paddlefishery must depend on expensive hatchery-raised stockings. This was a tragedy, doubly so as a lawsuit by the Environmental Defense Fund and others predicted these problems. Nevertheless the town fathers of Warsaw, Clinton and Osceola railed against the lawsuit. After several years of litigation, a federal judge refused to stop or modify the dam. The project has been a mixed blessing and former supporters have expressed their disappointment.
In the history of tourist memorabilia, is there anything as god-awful as this Truman Lake souvenir? The color combination splashed on this indifferent, awkward hunk of driftwood exceeds the Fauvist assault on traditional tonality.
Souvenirs encompass a wide variety of artistic merit. On the high end are Canaletto paintings of Venice’s Grand Canal and Van Gogh landscapes of southern France. On the low end, there are displeasing artifacts that are redeemed by the nostalgic, sentimental, or vague way they recall the place visited. In that sense, the unholy Truman Lake rootwad does resonate with the unsightly reservoir it commemorates. It is, we reluctantly admit, a successful if ugly souvenir.
Forest products are put to many trivial and crass uses, but the spirit of dead trees calls out for vengeance for this souvenir of Truman Lake.
Thinking perhaps it was prejudicial to have photographed the Truman Dam root abomination on our concrete driveway, I took it inside our garage-studio and shot it on gradated seamless paper. If anything it turned out to be even more deficient of esthetic value. Then it struck me. Perhaps I was unfairly maligning the crude $5 artifact merely because it said “Truman Lake.” Outside our suburban duplex, the low autumnal sun kissed our oil-stained driveway with golden rays. So on a mottled, tobacco colored background I flipped the thing over so the offending identification could not be seen.
Might this reveal the souvenir to be an adventurous piece of outsider art by an unknown Ozarks faux Fauve? Nah.
Click on the book cover for more information on Damming the Osage.
The tone of this book is more objective than this bit of souvenir sarcasm. We sell the $35, all color, 304 page book for $25 postage paid.