Willow Springs History in Focus

Willow Springs Historical and Genealogical Society Museum

 

First and foremost, I am excited to announce that, beginning this week, I will be writing a new column for the Howell County News every other week!

 

Through this column, I will share museum updates, stories from the past, and interesting historical photographs from Willow Springs and the surrounding area. Many of you are already familiar with a great deal of our local history, but I believe there is always something new to discover—even about the people and places we think we know well.

 

Thanks to Lou Wehmer, I recently received access to a large collection containing thousands of photographic negatives taken by longtime Willow Springs photographer Wayne Smuck. I have been working to invert, edit, and bring these photographs back to life, many of which probably have not been viewed in years.

 

I am also digitizing a large collection of photographs loaned to the museum by John Mathieu. Both collections are packed with remarkable images, including detailed views of many places we still recognize today. In addition, the museum has a legacy collection containing thousands of photographs that have been preserved there for many years.

 

It is time to take these photographs out of storage and make them available for everyone to see! Each edition of this column will feature one or more historical photographs, along with some of the stories behind them.

 

The following are just a few of the ways we are currently working to bring local history back to you.

 

History Is Making Its Way Around Willow Springs

 

The Willow Springs Historical and Genealogical Society recently placed three large historical canvas photographs at locations around town as part of our new traveling photo display. Displays can currently be found at Simmons Bank, West Plains Bank, and Willow Springs City Hall, with a fourth coming to the Willow Springs Senior Center next week.

 

Each canvas is accompanied by a sign explaining the history behind the photograph, along with the museum’s hours, information about purchasing historical prints, and a QR code linking visitors to the museum’s Facebook page.

The traveling photo display is one of our newest efforts to bring Willow Springs history out of the museum and into the community. These photographs allow people to see familiar places as they appeared decades ago while also helping spread the word about the museum and the work taking place there.

 

The canvases featured in the display are available for purchase, with all proceeds benefiting the museum and its ongoing projects. A variety of historical prints are available at the museum in sizes including 11×14, 16×20, 18×24, and 24×36. If there is a particular photograph in our collection that you would like to have printed on canvas or regular photo paper, we can have it made for you, with custom sizes available as well.

 

Purchasing a print is a wonderful way to bring a piece of local history into your home or business while supporting the museum and its preservation efforts.

 

Work Continues Behind the Scenes

 

Photographs are only one part of the enormous digitization project taking place at the museum. We are also digitizing documents, family histories, historical newspapers, scrapbooks, and much more.

 

Our long-term goal is to make these collections available through a dedicated website, allowing people both locally and across the country to explore photographs, documents, and other pieces of our area’s history. Digitization is a time-consuming process, but it is an important part of ensuring that these materials and the stories they contain remain accessible.

 

Willow Springs Documentary Making Headway

 

We are also making good headway on another exciting project: the Willow Springs documentary film, Where They Once Stood: Memories of Willow Springs.

 

The documentary will tell the story of Willow Springs and the surrounding area, beginning with the Civil War era and continuing through our community’s history. The film is being produced by Jason Brasier of Flintlock Syndicate Productions and will be packed with interviews with residents, personal stories, historical photographs, and historical video footage.

 

There has never been anything quite like this produced for Willow Springs. Our goal is to bring together the photographs, footage, stories, and memories of our community in a film that will preserve them for generations to come.

There is a lot happening at the Willow Springs Historical and Genealogical Society Museum, and we are excited to continue finding new ways to share our local history with the community.

 

Help Us Preserve Local History

 

Please remember that the museum is always accepting loans and donations of local historical material. This includes photographs, documents, family histories, newspapers, books, scrapbooks, artifacts, and just about anything else connected to the history of Willow Springs and the surrounding Ozarks. If you prefer not to donate your original materials, we will gladly digitize them, return the originals to you, and provide you with copies of the digital files upon request.

 

We also gratefully accept monetary donations to support the museum, fund projects such as those mentioned above, and simply help keep the doors open and the lights on. The museum operates solely through donated funding, and every contribution helps.

 

The Willow Springs Historical and Genealogical Society Museum is located at 211 N. Harris Street, directly across from the Willow Springs Public Library. We are open every Thursday from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.

 

Stop by and see what we have been working on—and maybe take a piece of Willow Springs history home with you!

 

Now, for the Featured Photograph!

 

The first photograph chosen to kick off this column shows the second State Highway Department garage in Willow Springs. The image was taken by Smuck Photography.

 

The first State Highway Department garage in Willow Springs was established in 1924 at Walnut and Third streets, near where the vacant former Mercantile and U.S. Bank building stands today. The district’s original garage was in West Plains, but because the offices were in Willow Springs, officials believed it would be more convenient to move the garage here.

 

Approximately 30 automobiles were stored at the Willow Springs location, along with a number of trucks, tractors, and graders used to maintain roads throughout the district. The Highway Department quickly outgrew the Walnut and Third Street property, and the much larger facility pictured here was constructed in 1936 by contractor J.O. Brown at a cost of $44,400.

 

The native stone used in its construction was quarried at Saratoga by the Works Progress Administration. Measuring 105 by 65 feet, the building stands two stories tall. It was originally constructed with a flat roof but has since been updated with a gabled roof. 

 

Although the Highway Garage dominates the photograph, another important piece of local history is visible in the distance. The buildings at the far right were part of the Willow Springs U.S. Forest Service Ranger Station, constructed by the men of Civilian Conservation Corps Company 1739 from Camp Willow. These men were also responsible for building Noblett Lake, Blue Buck Fire Tower, and many other conservation projects throughout the area.

 

The need for projects such as these can be traced back to the timber boom of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Logging operations removed nearly all of the virgin pine and valuable hardwood from large portions of the Ozarks. The cutover land was left vulnerable to severe erosion and repeated wildfires. Logging debris, known as slash, covered the ground and became extremely flammable once it dried.

 

Conditions such as these raised concern at the federal level. On March 1, 1911, Congress passed the Weeks Act, allowing the federal government to begin purchasing damaged and cutover lands for watershed protection and restoration.

 

Missouri delayed consenting to this process until 1929, when the state authorized the federal government to begin purchasing land. The original consent act placed limits on the amount of acreage that could be acquired, but amendments passed during the early 1930s removed those restrictions.

 

During the summer of 1933, the U.S. Forest Service began surveying southern Missouri to determine which areas were most in need of restoration and protection. On August 30, 1933, the National Forest Reservation Commission approved Missouri’s first four purchase units: Clark, Fristoe, Gasconade, and Pond Fork. Additional units followed over the next two years, including Gardner, Wappapello, St. Francois, and Table Rock.

 

These purchase units were not yet national forests in the modern sense. Instead, they established boundaries within which the federal government could begin purchasing damaged, cutover, and abandoned land.

 

To manage these newly acquired lands, the Forest Service established ranger districts throughout the purchase units. Each district was responsible for protecting and developing its portion of the emerging national forest. Permanent ranger stations were then constructed to serve as operational headquarters, typically including an office, a residence for the district ranger, garages, equipment sheds, workshops, and other necessary facilities.

 

Willow Springs was selected as the headquarters of the Willow Springs Ranger District within the Gardner Purchase Unit, which then contained approximately 103,000 acres. Construction of the Ranger Station began in the fall of 1935 under the direction of contractor Everett Shyrock. Native stone quarried at Saratoga was also used in its construction, and the facility was completed and operating at full capacity by 1937. The station continued serving the district until around 2004, when the Willow Springs Ranger District was consolidated into the Ava/Cassville/Willow Springs Ranger District, headquartered in Ava. Today, both the former Ranger Station property and the former Highway Department buildings belong to the Willow Springs School District.