There is a long history of human occupation in the James River Basin. The Early and Middle Paleoindian prehistoric periods (13,000-3,000 years before present) are represented by relatively few sites in southwest Missouri, and the subsequent Mississippian Period (up to 1,000 years before present) is also poorly represented, but villages did exist in major valleys during those times, such as along the James River. It is uncertain which Native Americans made their homes in the James River valley in early historic times, but most of southwestern Missouri comprised Osage lands by the early nineteenth century.
In 1808, the Osage ceded almost all of their land in southwest Missouri to the federal government. Other Native American groups were forced to sign treaties in the early nineteenth century as well, including the Delaware Indians. In 1819, the U.S. government forced the Delawares, who originally lived on the eastern seaboard, to move to a large tract of land in what is now Christian, Stone, Taney, and Barry counties. By 1820, the move had been completed, with the principal village located at Delaware Town, on the James River, where Chief William Anderson had his lodge.
The earliest white inhabitants in the James River Basin were primarily hunters and trappers, such as the Frenchman, Joseph Fillabere, who established a trading post among the Delaware Indians. Some of the first settlements in southwest Missouri were on the headwaters of the White River. By 1820 a thin chain of settlements extended up the White River into the James River Basin. The departure of Native American people from southwest Missouri mandated by federal treaties was followed by a large influx of American settlers after 1830. Part of the urge to move to the Ozarks derived from reports written by early explorers like Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, who ventured toward the James River from Potosi, Missouri in 1818-1819.
Schoolcraft and a companion set out on foot to locate and inspect the reported lead deposits near the James River. On the way, Schoolcraft recorded a variety of observations about the Ozarks, such as the “barren” nature of much of the land he traversed. But upon entering the valley of what he called the Findley’s Fork (Finley Creek), a James River tributary, Schoolcraft and his companion passed over a “body of well-wooded, fertile river bottom.” They stopped to admire the “stupendous cavern” (Smallin Cave) along Finley Creek and a few miles further found themselves “unexpectedly on the bank of James’ River,” a “large, clear, and beautiful stream.” Along its banks they “found extensive bodies of the land, covered by a large growth of forest trees and cane, and interspersed with prairies.”
On January 2nd, 1819, Schoolcraft located the small, crude lead smelter near Kerschner Spring at the confluence of Pearson Creek with the James River. This smelter was said to have been used by hunters and Indians for making bullets. Schoolcraft was headed back toward Potosi when he entered an extensive prairie on the James River uplands. He called it “the most extensive, rich, and beautiful, of any I have ever seen west of the Mississippi River.” The coarse wild grass, he said, “attains so great a height that it completely hides a man on horseback.” At the confluence of the James River with Finley Creek, he recorded a “high, rich, point of land,” an “eligible spot for a town, and the erection of a new county out of this part of the unincorporated wilderness of Arkansas.”
A city was never built at the confluence of the Finley and the James (although a subdivision is there now), but a village did form on the upper James River, along a tributary we now call Jordan Creek, at a site claimed by the Campbell brothers of middle Tennessee. To John Polk Campbell, the magnificent red oaks along Jordan Creek signaled fertile soils which, upon clearing, would yield healthy crops of corn. His decision to locate his cabin at one particular spot near the creek was based upon the presence of a peculiar geologic feature, a “natural well of wonderful depth.” This natural well was what we would today call a “karst window,” a vertical cave extending downward into the subterranean plumbing system of a spring.
Springs served important functions for the settlers and citizens of the James River Basin. Springs and spring-fed streams served mills on upper Pearson Creek, at Jones Spring on Pearson Creek, and at Riverdale, Linden, and Ozark on Finley Creek. Reynolds Mill was built on Spring Creek (near Hurley), Lewis Mill on Crane Creek, and Kimberlin Mill on Silver Lake Branch (on a small tributary of the James River). A major recreation center, later a city park, developed around Sequiota Spring in southeast Springfield. Visitors could take boat rides into the cave on the spring branch. This spring also supplied a state fish hatchery and formed the centerpiece of the state’s smallest state park.
Clear Ozark streams like the James River, with its impressive bluffs, exciting shoals, and good fishing, also contributed to the area’s desirability as a vacation destination. By the 1920s, the Ozarks had become a recreational mecca, drawing large numbers of people from Kansas City, St. Louis, and even further. Guided float trips on the James River came into vogue. Before the days of Table Rock Dam, a five-day john-boat float could be taken from Galena to Branson—amazingly, given the geographic proximity of the two towns—a journey of nearly 65 miles by river.
Abundant springs, spring-fed streams and swiftly flowing, clear rivers thus guided and influenced patterns of settlement and development in the James River Basin. It is fair to say that water resources in abundance and good water quality have been prime considerations for the residents of the basin since the earliest times of settlement. This historical context remains important today as resource professionals begin planning efforts designed to keep the James River flowing as Schoolcraft described it, a “large, clear and beautiful stream.”
Excerpt from the James River Watershed Management Plan
