Lookouts and Ruins Along the Current River

34° and lightly raining today, but it was also our last day to explore more of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. So we made another scenic drive of it, looking for a few fire towers, then looking for a place to ford the Current River to check out an old abandoned hospital.

First up, Flat Rock fire tower, built in the 40s and rebuild in the 60s. Proof that there are no rules in Missouri, this one even had a sign that climbing was allowed! Well. It said “climb at your own risk,” and “no more than 5 people on the tower at a time,” but that’s pretty close to permission. So despite the falling ice chunks, I had to give it a go.

Chris Mahan, a forestry and wildlife crew leader in Eminence, has watched the use of fire towers decline since he joined MDC in 1994. The seasoned tower operator has logged many hours at Coot Mountain, Deer Run, Flat Rock, Panther Hill, Shannondale, and Summers-ville fire towers. Yet this spring, he notes, he spent just three hours in the Flat Rock tower, an area where towers might have been manned 40 to 50 days a year in the past.

People today use cell phones to report wildfires. […] Firefighters respond if they have an exact location. If not, two crew members head to two different towers—such as Flat Rock and Coot Mountain—to […] pinpoint the location of the fire.

The Missouri Lookout Towers That Helped Fight Forest Fires, Missouri Life Magazine.
Instead of bicycles, the “Share the Road” signs here feature illustrations of carriages.

Next, Hartshorn tower, which was smaller with just a single ladder all the way up. I went up just enough to take a couple photos and then bailed because the ladder rungs were covered in slippery, melting ice.

Match 17th, 1949: Two Conservation agents are investigating the origin of a forest fire which blackened a thousand acres of the upper Current River country north of here last week, said Lee Fine, district forester for this area.

Fine said his Hartshorn towerman sighted a small blaze at 9 P.M., Monday.  Before crews organized an attack, the fire was apparently ‘strung’ for more than two miles by horse mounted arsonists.  Suppression was greatly impeded by high winds plus the persistence of the ‘fire bugs’, who continued to string flames throughout the night.  Forestry crews were assisted by Pioneer Cooperage employees but despite their combined efforts the fire raged nearly 24 hours before being brought under control.

Hartshorn, Forest Lookouts (website).

After Hartshorn, our adventure along the Current River began. While planning the day, we’d noted multiple paces marked on the old CalTopo atlases as fords, and even a pontoon ferry in Akers.

Unfortunately, the river seems to be higher than its usual level and the ferry is not running today. So after bombing around a few trails and backroads looking for a crossing, we bailed to a spillway bridge outside Cedargrove. But the trails were a great time.

Vanity. I removed my front tray-table for better pictures, and to protect my shins.

That may be the most dramatic photo of the Xterra ever taken — it usually doesn’t look particularly dramatic, even if I feel like I’m about to be in big trouble. But that’s two wheels off the ground with some incredible flex. Don’t tell Mom.

On the far side of the river, we walked up to the Welch Spring Hospital Ruins, which we had spotted from the opposite bank twice already. We’d designated it the finish line, should we find a way to reach it, since we spent most of the afternoon on the trails.

Sitting along Missouri’s Current River, the gorgeously abandoned Welch Spring Hospital Ruins once offered healing waters but now simply provides scenic ruin.

Back in 1913, an Illinois doctor named C.H. Diehl bought Missouri’s Welch Spring for just $800. Dr. Diehl believed that the spring water had healing properties and that the cool, pollen free air coming from the adjacent cave would be beneficial for people with asthma, emphysema, and tuberculosis, which were collectively known at the time as “consumption.” […] To tap this clean air resource, Dr. Diehl built a hospital over the mouth of the cave. Welch Spring, which flowed from the cave, was dammed up so that water would close off the entrance. This was to force more air out through the cave opening into the hospital. In today’s terms, Diehl’s “hospital” would be better called a “health spa” since there wasn’t much in the way of formal medical treatment. […] Access to the area surrounding the Current River was limited to just a few rough dirt roads, and the flood of patients and other guests that were to flock to the site’s healing surroundings never materialized.

Welch Spring Hospital Ruins, Atlas Obscura.

By the time we got back to the cars, it had gotten dark. We took highways most of the way back, but made a quick stop in Akers to see the platform ferry, then took one last forest detour on a trail through a ravine that crisscrossed a number of small creeks headed into the river.

In all, a fitting final drive of the trip. Tomorrow we’ll begin the trek home and into 2021 officially. At least the first bit of that will still be in the lonely mountain roads before linking back up with interstates and the busy roads of the real world.