Bagnell Dam Marks 75 Years With Tours, Festivals
at Central Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks

LAKE OF THE OZARKS, MO.– Tennyson Degraffenreid, 85, clearly recalls the morning of May 30, 1931. His aunts, Oma and Noma Degraffenreid, decided they would be the first to drive across the new Bagnell Dam at the Lake of the Ozarks when it officially opened at 6:00 a.m.  They were supposed to wake up Tennyson to join them for the historic ride, but they left without him.  “They probably didn't want a little kid with them!” he says, adding that a third aunt, Elda Degraffenreid, also was in the car.
   
Degraffenreid's father and grandfather were among the thousands of men who worked on the dam.  “We'd go to the observation platform and look down on the construction site,” he says.  “It was quite a deal in 1931 and it still is today.”
   
Oma and Noma's famous ride and the dam they drove over 75 years ago will be commemorated at the first-ever Oma and Noma Days , Sept. 29-Oct. 1, on and around the Bagnell Dam “Strip” along Business Highway 54 in Lake Ozark.  “The whole idea is to bring back that time when the dam was finished in 1931,” says Mike Page, owner of Dogpatch, Leatherman and Grandma's Candy Kitchen on the Strip.  “We will celebrate up and down the Strip with music and activities.”
   
Festival activities will include historical displays and pony rides, a vintage auto show and a frog-jumping contest, a history cruise and talent show, plus a dog show, checkers matches, Little Miss and Mister and a peanut spitting contest.  “You can't have a proper festival without spitting a few peanuts,” notes Page.  Area shops, attractions and restaurants also will offer specials and merchants will be dressed in period fashions. And of course, Oma and Noma re-enactors will be on hand.
   
AmerenUE, formerly Union Electric, builders of Bagnell Dam, also will celebrate the 75th anniversary Sept. 8-10 at the company's parking lot below the dam.  A major highlight will be free guided tours of Bagnell Dam, which will be open to the public for the first time in more than a decade and for that weekend only, says Alan Sullivan, committee chairperson. “A lot of people have told me, ‘I wish I'd taken the tour when I had the chance,' and now they'll have that opportunity.”
   
The AmerenUE celebration also will include a commemoration ceremony on Friday, free barbecue, non-stop music and educational displays.  Officials also will dedicate a time capsule that will be sealed and displayed at Willmore Lodge until 2031. “We'll also have a 1931 Ford Model AA truck and a brand new line truck so the public can see what we started with and what we have now,” Sullivan says.
   
That sentiment also could apply to Bagnell Dam itself.  “It's hard to believe what has happened here in 75 years,” Sullivan says.  “To go from the sparsely populated rural area it was to what we see on the Lake today is a phenomenal achievement of progress and the advancement of society.  It's far beyond the wildest dreams of those who built Bagnell Dam.”

Building for the Future
Union Electric Company of St. Louis and the engineering company Stone and Webster began construction of Bagnell Dam on Aug. 6, 1929, “harnessing the rivers and putting them to work for the people,” according to the Versailles Statesman of Nov. 28, 1929.  The dam was named for the nearby town of Bagnell, which was named for the Bagnell brothers who owned a timber company that operated between St. Louis and the Osage River – where the boomtown of Bagnell once thrived.
   
Just months after dam construction began, the stock market crashed, followed by the Great Depression.  But jobs were plentiful in Central Missouri – in fact, over its 22-month construction period, the Bagnell Dam project provided more than 20,500 people with jobs. According to newspaper articles the area resembled a gold-rush, with thousands of people pouring in by boat, car, horse and on foot.
   
Workers were on the job for nine to 12 hours a day in around-the-clock shifts, and earned anywhere from 35 cents to slightly more than a dollar per hour.  To accommodate the workers, the company built bunkhouses, mess halls, a hospital, a movie theater, a dance hall, a commissary – and a jail.  New small towns sprang up all over the region.  A favorite joke of the period was, “As the mighty Osage said to the Little Niangua, ‘Well, I'll be dammed!'”

Three-Part Project
The mammoth Bagnell Dam project – the largest and last private dam built in the United States – was divided into three major areas. One part included the dam and powerhouse, as well as the camps, roads, railways and a river bridge.  Dozens of structures were built, many of which still are in use today.  The concrete dam (made of 553,000 cubic yards of concrete with 2,000 tons of reinforcing steel and 1,500 tons of structural steel) is 2,543 feet long and supports a 20-foot wide roadway and three-foot wide sidewalk.  The power station is 511 feet long and the flood-control spillway section is 520 feet long.
   
A second part of the project was erecting more than 250 miles of electrical transmission lines to carry the generated power to the consumers.
   
The third part was preparing the water reservoir, which meant surveying and mapping nearly 100 square miles, clearing thousands of trees over 30,000 acres, and outlining where the shoreline would be.  The reservoir covers 54,000 acres, holds 646 billion gallons of water and has 1,150 miles of shoreline.
   
When Bagnell Dam was completed, the lake – then unnamed – began to fill on February 2, 1931.  Four months later it was opened for use.  The first traffic – including the car carrying Oma and Noma – crossed the dam on May 30.  Electric service from the dam began on Christmas Eve, 1931.  Today at peak generation, the plant, using much of the original 1931 equipment, produces 220,000 kilowatts of power – enough to serve the household needs of 225,000 people in St. Louis and eastern Missouri.
   
“Like a Chinese dragon, the Lake of the Ozarks twists and winds for one hundred and twenty-nine miles among the rolling foothills of the Ozark Highlands,” reads a prophetic 1931 Union Electric pamphlet. “What a vision of splendid vacations under smiling summer skies! …Little wonder that the Lake of the Ozarks is destined to become the playground of the Middle West.”

First Stop
For an outstanding overview of Bagnell Dam and the Lake of the Ozarks, stop at historic Willmore Lodge and visit its fascinating museum.  Built in 1930 for $135,000, the 29-room lodge was used by Union Electric as an administrative and entertainment center.  Its five guest rooms were named Linn Creek, Zebra, Passover, Arnolds Mills and Nonsuch after towns that were displaced by the lake.  The lodge was completely assembled in Oregon of western pine logs before it was dismantled and shipped to Missouri for reassembly near the dam construction site.
   
Willmore Lodge also houses the Lake Area Chamber of Commerce.  Executive Director Trish Roberts says, “All the festivals and fun are opportunities to celebrate this important milestone and to honor those visionaries of the past who made a mark on our Lake's history.”  Adds Page, “It's a cool milestone.  It's fun to reflect on where you started and where you are.”
   
AmerenUE's Sullivan agrees and believes the next 75 years will bring even more changes.  “One thing I think we'll see will be a real resurgence in the Lake Ozark community itself.  The time is right and the development potential is here and from what I've heard a lot of new things are coming this way,” he says.  “So I think it will be an exciting time to be here, as long as we don't overrun the real draw which is the natural beauty of the Lake of the Ozarks. If we can walk the line between development and preservation we are certain to come out ahead.”
   
For more information about visiting Bagnell Dam and Central Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks for the 75th anniversary celebrations or any other time of year – including festivals, lodging, dining, attractions, shopping and more – contact the Lake of the Ozarks Convention & Visitor Bureau at 800-FUNLAKE or visit www.funlake.com .

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