Thread: Truman Dam Question

Originally Posted by peculiarmike

If you have some time and want to do some reading on Truman this link is interesting.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/vi...eographythesis

I am going to read that for sure. I am also going to buy this book. Damming the Osage From what I can read the authors sure seem to think that Truman Dam and Lake are a negative thing as far as the Osage River goes but there are a ton of pictures and history in it from what I can tell online.

this has been a great thread so far. I appreciate all the little tid-bits of local history as well as the info, very fascinating! I wish I had been a local to warsaw back then, so I could see the process. I would think that a fisherman who knew the landscape well before the lake was built would have a huge advantage. it would be cool to catch a crappie out of the same tree you shot your first squirrel out of!

I saw that book while trying to find a map of the river pre dam. It looked like it would be a great book of the history of the Osage river.
I would think by pic that the bridge and roadway were the old 7 hwy, maybe not.
I just thought the dead channel was the old river channel, maybe not, maybe they built it to divert the water while dam was under construction. Maybe what is know as the weir dam is just the old road rip rap?
I did find a map that you had to go to Kansas City library to view, was not available online.
Not that it really matters, was hoping some of the old timers had some answers to these thoughts. I have faint memories of sitting on the bluff overlooking the Osage River at H Row Bartel scout camp, also got canoeing merit badge below that bluff.
Wish it would warm up!!!!

The bridge over the river was the old swinging bridge in town. Was 1'lane and I would not want to take a big truck across. The bridge at the weir was just temporary while the construction of the dam was going on. The old river channel followed the bluff to what is now called the dead water etc.

you got that spot on us ol timers know

That's where my wife kept saying she was hanging up in the rocks. Strangely enough, those rocks kept swimming away. Two catfish rocks and one largemouth rock.

It is not a "weir" as such. A weir is a barrier across the horizontal width of a river that alters the flow characteristics of the water and usually results in a change in the height of the river level. Weirs are commonly used to control the flow rates of rivers during periods of high discharge. Some have gates in them similar to a dam. But it is not a dam.
On Truman "the weir" is simply the remaining submerged temporary roadbed constructed to allow traffic around Truman Dam while it was under construction. It had a concrete bridge in it which was removed before the lake filled, leaving a gap in the roadbed. To some extent the flow pattern of water up and over the roadbed alters the water flow pattern in front of the dam, depending on the amount being released through the dam, as it flows to the dam gates. The dam side of the roadbed is a quiet area and holds fish, much as the down river side of a wing dam in a major river does.
It would be more accurately referred to as "the roadbed".
If you fish La Cygne Lake over in KS it has the same type roadbed feature under it except the concrete bridge is still there. And holds fish.