Missouri’s great Meramec River is finally getting some good publicity after lots of negative news about overflowing its banks this spring. The winding wonder is now the object of a new film, “Meramec River: Miracles and Milestones,” and later in May the mercurial Meramec will host the National Poling Championship.
River poling is a unique way to get upstream without a paddle. The nation’s top canoe polers will compete on the Meramec at Route 66 State Park, just off Interstate 44. No admission will be charged and learning clinics will abound. The May 29-31 event will be the American Canoe Association’s 43rd annual poling competition.
In addition to the national poling champions who will be on the Meramec, St. Louis area river favorites will also be rolling out their pole-popping skills. Among the local canoe poling masters will be Mike Guenther, Marty Guenther, George Barhorst, Syl and Al Beletz.
No better Meramer River storytellers can be found than the Beletz brothers!
Al Beletz can catalog Meramec River characters going back decades. He knows the campers, floaters, tubers, paddlers and racers who’ve enjoyed the waters of the Meramec. Among his favorite mavens of the Meramec are such legends as:
• Ralph “Treehouse Brown.” He was the Dizzy Dean of Meramec canoeing and actually lived in a treehouse on the Huzzah. He won the 1965 canoe poling championship. He could carry a 200-pound log to the campfire. Of course, he couldn’t do that after he lost partial use of an arm in a duel.
• Emma Crow. She is described by Beletz as a “real Indian girl from Oklahoma,” who lived in a one-room shack near the Museum of Transport. She’d bring chickens in a cage on canoe trips. She’d break their necks and fry them fresh on a gravel bar when it was time to camp.
• Joe Schele. He lived on the river, surviving on a diet of ducks, squirrels and potatoes. According to Schele’s own diaries, the legendary riverman “bagged” 994 red and gray squirrels from 1932 through 1976. Some would say Schele murdered an awful lot of little critters, but then they never ate squirrel stew with Joe.
• Arno Storbeck. As the German caretaker of Stites Beach, a Kirkwood recreation area on the river, Storbeck got tired of those who described the Meramec as especially treacherous, full of deadly eddies, whirlpools and undertows. Storbeck, used to say: ‘Das ist bullshit. There is no magical undertow,'”
The Meramec River is treasured by nature lovers for its tall bluff areas, scenic bends, its flora and fauna and its excellent gravel bars for relaxation. Environmentalists have done much to take this once degraded stream and to slowly nurse it back to health. According to the Open Space Council, river restoration work on the Meramec began in earnest in 1967 with the first annual Operation Clean Stream.
Of course, the Meramec River also is treasured – not just for its natural attributes – but for the great memories it has provided for those who love the outdoors along the river. Do you have some Meramec stories to tell? Do you know some Meramec characters like Emma and Arno? Please share them on our blog site here. We can’t wait to read more Meramec memories!
I guess my favorite memory of the Meramec was our canoe tipping over and being soaked in non-polluted water. That was nearly 40 years ago.
Don
Where do I start? Let’s see.
In my childhood, my summer weekends were spent on the Meramec in Eureka, Mo.
Around 1947 my folks and I lived, for a while, in a club house at
Kieffer’s Beach.
The 2006 June issue of the Kirkwood Historical Review contained an article I wrote on Kieffer’s Beach, Stites Beach.
This is where my parents courted. The article contains some vintage pictures. I also donated some great pictures of these places to the Kirkwood Historical Society library/archives.
Betty Beck
We all enjoy your interesting coverage of canoeing and the Meramec. I’m kind of a swamped old polesman, too old to pole in competition but my brothers and I, ages 94, 91 and 79 can eat with the best of them. And we became hungry reading your article about the Meramec and Emma Crow choking the chickens. My brother Syl says they were fresh and tasty. Feel free to relate anything in your Meramec stories from our book, “Canoeing God’s Gifts.”
By the way, there is a division in the Masters poling event for pole people over 40, If one reaches 50 the entrant gets an age handicap of 1 per cent off his time for each year over 50. So if your 80 you get 30 per cent off. But my complaint is that if one is overweight why not take 1 percent off for each pound a person is over his recommended health-chart weight for the handicap of having to ride deeper, thus slower, in the water. They won’t allow it because I’d win with my age of 79 plus I’m 50 lbs. over weight. So I should get 79 percent off my time. I will see everybody at the National Canoe Poling Championship on the Meramec on May 29-31 at the Route 66 State Park. Don’t Miss It!
DEAR DON:
THANK YOU FOR SUCH A BEAUTIFUL STORY ABOUT US MERAMEC RIVER RATS . OUR FAMILY WAS ONE FOR MANY YEARS.
THIS IS MY STORY:
MY FATHER ALBERT A. THOMPSON SR WAS BORN ON JUNE 3 1889 AND DIED JUNE 22 1965, MY MOTHER WAS BORN FEBRUARY 22, 1884 . THEY WERE MARRIED ON SEPTEMBER 13, 1813 .
THEY TOOK THE FRISCO R/R TO VALLEY PARK AND SPENT THEIR HONEY MOON ON THE RIVER ON PETTY’S HILL . FOR YEARS MY PARENTS WOULD MAKE THIS TRIP AND EVENTUALLY CONSTRUCTED A SMALL RIVER CABIN WHERE THEY STAYED , AT THIS TIME PETTY’S HILL WAS THE VACATION SPOT FOR THE RIVER RATS AND THEY DID THIS UNTIL THEY HAD LITTLE RIVER RATS , FOUR OF US.
MY OLDER SISTERS AND BROTHER WOULD GO WITH THEM AND BY THIS TIME DAD HAD A MODEL “T” AND WENT BY ROUTE 66
A TWO LANE HIGHWAY WITH RUTS AND POT HOLES AND 30 MPH WAS SPEEDING . THEN I CAME A LONG AND THE DEPRESSION AND RIVER RATTING SLACKED OFF.
IT AGAIN STARTED WHEN HE AND HIS BROTHER IN LAW RENTED A LOT WITH A CLUB HOUSE ON WHAT WAS CALLED SCHMIDT PROPERTY AND THE BUILT A BEAUTIFUL PLACE FOR THE TIME AND AVAILABLE FUNDS, NOW COMES WWII AND AGAIN EVERY THING STOPPED AND ALL US YOUNG GUNS WENT TO WAR AND THE PLACE WAS SOLD BECAUSE OF RATIONING/
MY BROTHER WENT IN THE NAVY IN 41 AND WAS DISCHARGED IN 44 AND I WAS DRAFTED INTO THE ARMY. MY DAD AND BROTHER FOUND 2 LOTS FOR SALE IN EUREKA ON THE JEFFERSON COUNTY BY THE OLD RICKETY BRIDGE AND IT HAD HOUSES THAT WERE ON THE GROUND FROM THE PREVIOUS FLOODS, ONE WASN’T SO BAD BUT THE OTHER ONE THEY WRECKED FOR LUMBER , AND HERE WE WERE AGAIN “ RIVER RATS”
THE FUN BEGAN, MY DAD KNEW THAT THE HOUSING WAS GOING TO HAVE TO BE HIGH ENOUGH TO ESCAPE FLOODING SO THE WHOLE THING HAD TO BE RAISED, BUT HOW ?
BROTHER BERT WAS WITH THE PHONE COMPANY AND
GOT 3 POLES , THEY WERE SLID UNDER THE HOUSE BY JACKING IT UP.
NEXT 8 COLUMNS WERE STARTED TO BE POURED UNDER THE POLES AND THE HOUSE US RAISED ON HOUSE JACKS A FOOT AT A TIME TO THE HEIGHT OF 27 FEET ABOVE THE GROUND, THEN THE BUILDING WAS TIED DOWN WITH OLD GUY WIRE AND INTO THE CONCRETE PILLARS . ALL THIS WORK WAS DONE BY THE FAMILY ON WEEK ENDS AND WAS COMPLETED IN A YEAR.
THE INTERIOR WAS FINISHED . IT AND A HUGE PORCH THAT ACCOMMODATED ALL THE FAMILY FOR SLEEPING WE DUG A WELL AND PUT IN A TOILET AND IT BECAME OUR SUMMER HOME , WHAT A WONDERFUL TIME WE HAD , FISHING WAS FANTASTIC SWIMMING WAS GREAT, WITH VERY STRICT RULES LAID DOWN BY DAD . THE BIGGEST FISH CAUGHT WAS CAUGHT ON DADS TROT LINE IT WAS A BLUE CAT AT 100 POUNDS , MY GOD WAS IT BIG.
MY DAD DIED ON JUNE 22 1965 AND MY SISTER AND MOM TOOK OVER BUT IT WAS TOO MUCH FOR THEM AND THEY SOLD IT.
SEVERAL YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH AND SHE BECAME ILL .
WHAT A WONDERFUL TIMES WE HAD AS A WHOLE FAMILY THESE TIMES WERE WONDERFUL AND UNFORTUNATELY OUR CHILDREN OF TODAY WONT HAVE THE CHANCE TO DO THEM. THE HOUSE IS STILL THERE JUST OVER THE HWY W BRIDGE, THESE ARE MY MEMORIES AND AT 81 YEARS I CAN STILL REMEMBER.
MY NEPHEW BEN KNOX WHO IS RETIRED FROM THE ST.LOUIS COUNTY PARKS HAS TONS & TONS OF INFORMATION ON THE MERAMEC RIVER AND KNOWS WHERE A FLYING MOVIE IS THAT WAS MADE ON IT , THIS IS FANTASTIC TOO SEE.
SO THIS MY STORY , A REMEMBERENCE OF MY WONDERFUL FAMILY LIFE AS A MERAMEC RIVER RAT
GEORGE THOMPSON
SHREWSBURY, MO
Tornado on the Meramec
I remember back in the early ’90’s my brother Barry and his brother-in-law Rich Riester and I put in a johnboat seven miles upstream from Bird’s Nest Lodge on the upper Meramec out of Steelville. Rich had taken a bad fall while repairing a flagpole at his home. He had really messed up his ankles so we decided to take a johnboat to give him more room than in a canoe.
There was no motor available. So we had three guys paddling down the Meramec in a johnboat. It was precious. We were fishing and had only gone a couple of miles when over the hills came the darkest clouds we had ever seen. A wave of the strongest rain we had ever witnessed descended upon us. We saw this wall of water coming down the river directly at us. We just looked at each other and said two words “Oh Sh–!” We thought we had bought the farm.
We paddled as hard as we could to get down the river away from the storm. Our fishing was over — and we were thinking we were too. I’m not sure we ever had that boat really under control and we never even stopped to have a beer. A tornado passed by us and went into Steelville where it wrecked the lumber company and did other damage. We continued stroking as fast as we could down the river to Bird’s Nest Lodge where we knew that this would indeed be a day which would be etched in our memories forever — Paddle!
When we got to Bird’s Nest Lodge, the people there were getting ready to go out on the Meramec River to look for us. Thank Goodness We Had Made It!
To paraphrase the classic line from a Bogart movie: Tornadoes? — We Don’t Need No Stinking Tornadoes!
Respectfully,
Dick Reeves
Kirkwood, Missouri
Hey Dickie,
I hope this finds you doing well. We did the Huzzah several years from the Brown’s rental after you loaned us Treehouse’s recording by Shipley. Drop me a note if wish.
Sarge
Corisande was “our beach.” Dunno why our family preferred it to Keiffer’s – knowing my Frugal Father, the entry fee was probably less!
One memory I have of the place was hearing the incessant playing of “The Woody Woodpecker Song” from the pavilion in the evening; this would have been about 1947 – it drove my Dad nuts, and of course we little kids loved it…
And for some reason, this particular stretch of the Menacing Meramec was regarded as “safe;” we were even allowed to paddle across to the opposite bank in our tubes, followed by our faithful paddlin’ dog, Daisy.
Thomas F. Maher, Kirkwood
From Poling the Meramec
I was just a kid, 9 years old when Al Beletz, handed me my first pole. I had tried paddling upriver, but never got anywhere. That pole was the answer. From that day forward I was a river explorer a poler. I was lucky to be surrounded by all the greats, Ron and Sue Kloepper, Mike and Marty Guenter and of course Frank, Al and Syl Belitz, all with words of wisdom on the art of poling. I became the girl that poles the river.
After 40 years, the love for the sport still remains strong within me, but out of it came an even deeper love and respect for the Meramec.
Now I am a long time member of Stream Team and feel compelled to clean up its banks and do whatever I can to make the river better. I am saddened by how disrespectful people can be. Our river, our legacy, is not a trash can nor the place to run huge motor boats that destroy the banks and speed way to fast past children playing in the water. Please take a look at the banks and the water quality of the National Scenic Riverways where a 25hp. cap is enforced and then compare it to the Meramec.
You too will be saddened, after the weekend the water is murky until Thursday, from the silt the weekend boaters stir up. The banks are all muddy. The motors frighten the swimmers, the canoers and the fauna. We need the boaters to reduce speed, and we need every one to deposit their litter in trash cans. Slow down and pick up a few beer cans along the way. Please help take care of the treasure that is the Meramec river.
Jackie Wibbenmeyer, St. Louis
please send me your e-mail adress so I can attach my meramec river stories. thanks Steve
Don,
Thanks so much for the heads up on the canoe polling on the Meramec River. I got to go and watch Saturday am. Amazing to watch those people maneuver about on the high and dirty Merrimac. I am now trying to score some of that alloy tubing and make a pole.
Frank “gonna be a canoe Poller” Wentz of Kirkwood
In a recent column where he asked for reader input, Don Corrigan talked about Ralph “Treehouse” Brown. My family has been going to the Huzzah (a tributary of the Meramec River) since 1950 when a Kirkwood neighbor Roy Fischer told us about the Huzzah at Highway 8. My family first met Ralph Brown the summer of 1959. We were camping in a state owned area across the Huzzah from Ralph’s property. On our first night there, Ralph came over the low water bridge carrying a dead copperhead he had shot. He had his pistol on his hip. My dad (Ray) was always a good listener and he gave Ralph a few beers and had quite an evening, with Ralph reminiscing about his days on the Huzzah and in the Navy. Ralph invited us to camp on his property next time and so we did for many years down by his beautiful bluff on the Huzzah. We had many enjoyable campfire talks with Ralph. Ralph’s property at Scotia on the Huzzah is about one mile up from where the Huzzah flows into the Meramec. We had many fun times there fishing, swimming, canoeing and playing ball. If you respected Ralph, his property and the river, as we did, he always treated you right. But if you crossed him and showed no respect, you were making a big mistake. He could be as tough as they come.
My parents had a female black and gray part cocker spaniel named Charlie whom my sister had gotten at the Humane Society on Macklind. Charlie loved to go to the Huzzah and swim and play in the water. If we were not taking Charlie to the Huzzah with us, we would have to literally sneak out of our own home so that Charlie would not see us with anything that indicated to Charlie we were going to the Huzzah, i.e., old tennis shoes, fishing hat, ice cooler, fishing rod, etc. Charlie always got so excited (running around the house yipping) to know we were going to the Huzzah but if Charlie knew she was being left behind it would almost destroy her. That only happened once—Charlie was yipping, whining and barking in our home as we left the driveway—Horrors of Horrors—Charlie knew we were going to the Huzzah without her—Did we ever feel The Guilt! After that Charlie was always with us swimming in her beloved Huzzah. Ralph Brown always got a kick out of seeing Charlie enjoy his Huzzah. When that dog died there were many watery eyes.
Years ago when I taught an ethics class at McDonnell Douglas, I used the videotape “Treehouse” with music by Brewer and Shipley which showed Ralph Brown—a tough, hardworking ole riverman you had to respect. He was indeed a man of his word.
On the wall of our home in Kirkwood, my wife Nancy and I have a photo of our son Bill and my Mother (Frances) with Ralph Brown taken prior to a Huzzah float. My Mother floated (with a life jacket of course) until she was 83 years old. On her 80th birthday we floated the upper Meramec River near Steelville. We also have a photograph on the wall of my Mother and sister Martha standing in front of Ralph’s Treehouse taken when we spent a good day at Scotia. Now, whenever we float the Huzzah we always rent our canoes from Ralph’s nice daughter, Rose Brown. Now, Nancy and I and our daughter Beth, son Bill and their spouses Tony and Shawna and our grandchildren Emi and Kenta continue the tradition of a trip to the Dear Ole Huzzah.
Dad, Mother, Ralph and Charlie are all gone now. Several years ago when my Mother died, my brother Barry, son Bill and I spread her ashes on the Huzzah near Ralph’s Famous Treehouse. The three of us then reminisced of our days on the Huzzah at Good Ole Ralph Brown’s. They were indeed Precious Days.
— Dick Reeves, Kirkwood
In my high school days, my buddies and I had access to a clubhouse on the Meramec River located near Lemay Ferry Road, formerly the meeting place of the Top Hats Club. We spent many a weekend night partying and fishing at our river getaway. An older man who owned the next clubhouse over used to come to the river every weekend in the summer, and we’d go out with him in his boat in the middle of the night to run trout lines. Sometimes it would be foggy out on the river, affording us an adventurous experience. Often we’d pull up large catfish, and occasionally a snapping turtle. In the early morning hours we’d return from our fishing run and try to get to sleep before the sun came up.
In the flood of 1982 a friend’s home on Meramec Bottom Road was flooded. He and his family were able to get to higher ground before the water inundated his house. I called and asked if I could do anything to help him out during that trying time. He asked if I’d survey the damage and give him a report on it, so a friend and I rowed out to the house, which was still surrounded by floodwaters, and tied our boat off on the front porch. We could hardly believe the bizarre scene when we opened the front door. The living room floor was completely carpeted with pecan nuts, and the walls were plastered three feet up with chicken feathers. Later we found out that he had recently bought two bushels of pecans and had them sitting in the room. His wife had been collecting chicken feathers from a flock of birds that she raised to make feather pillows for her grand children. She had several grocery bags filled with these feathers sitting in the room, and the flood had rearranged these items.
I’ve spent much of my life boating, camping, swimming, and fishing on the Meramec River. Twice, I floated the entire river from Highway 8 to Telegraph Road, one time alone and once in the dead of winter. The lower river is a great recreational resource that is really quite under-utilized, considering its close proximity to the St. Louis area. In the summer of 2007, my son Ben and I started a canoe rental operation on the lower Meramec River, renting canoes, kayaks and rubber rafts: Forest 44 Canoe Rental. We service a 36 mile stretch, from Robertsville State Park down to Valley Park, offering several float trips, ranging from 5 miles to 11 miles in length. We also offer evening floats on Fridays and Sundays. With the current price of gasoline near $4 a gallon, people will be able to enjoy the surprising beauty, seclusion, tranquility and wildness of our local Meramec River without spending a fortune on gas and a good deal of time getting there. Folks can enjoy a high quality outdoor experience with friends and family virtually in their own back yard.
Steve M. Hoffmann
Dear Don,
Even tho I left comments on your mail site and Times site I wanted to tell you that last year I donated 2 of my canoeing trophies from 1966 and 1967 to the Route 66 Museum at Times Beach This year I donated the matching trophy from 1966 won by Ron Kloepper who I was dating at that time. He also had me donate his National Poling Championship 1966 plaque to the museum. I truly hope that the people there have decided to display them after the race weekend held there in May. I was there and at the dinner – but did not participate in the competition .
Thanks for all of the update.
Susan Stumpf Kloepper – Dallas, Texas
In 1977, I bought 5+ acres with an old log cabin on it on Highway O between Cuba and Steelville (375′ frontage on the river), and spent many a day and nite and weekends enjoying wade fishing, having a few with the locals (mostly loose ends in Cuba), enjoying a Steak Sandwitch at Noels, and listening to the incredable nite sounds (including beaver tail slaps and big bass jumping). The Meramec river is a soulfull place. The Hawks, the bugs, the watercrests and the rodan sized Blue Herons, the topless canoers, the worms on my island and my dog (Sid the wonder dog) who loved the river as much as I do. The gals from Rolla, and fuzzy the Crawford County Heavyweight Arm Wrestling champ who hurt me. The river farting, and the Big Mud Turtle I caught by the foot who tried to take my finger in return. The Nite time Gig fishermen and the drunks on the weekends messing up themselves and the river, and the times the river comes up so fast. Those are some of my memories. Bill
Ralph Brown was my father’s mother’s cousin. I liked him, but was too young to remember a lot about him, aside from the stories I’ve heard. I sure enjoyed those float trips and the rides in the back of his pickup down to the river.
Ralph Brown was definately an interesting character. You forgot to mention how he used to drive around drinking port wine and eating turnup greens he would pick off the side of the road. And most importantly how he empregnated his daughter with a son with down syndrome.
I would like some imfo on Pettys hill at the beginning and pictures and history of pETTYS HILL IN vALLEY PARK MO.
Pretty section of content. I just stumbled upon your site and in accession capital to assert that I acquire actually enjoyed account your blog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing to your feeds and even I achievement you access consistently rapidly.
Great blog right here! Additionally your web site loads up fast! What host are you using? Can I am getting your affiliate link to your host? I desire my web site loaded up as quickly as yours lol.
1940’s and 50’s life on the Meramac
Some of my best childhood memories. My brothers and sister spent our summers at our Grand parents club house on Petty’s hill. This was the 1940’s until my Grand Fathers death in 1953. Tony and Nellie Jaeger had built their cabin back in the 1920 to escape the summer heat and humidity of downtown Saint Louis. Tony would walk the mile or so down the Missouri Pacific rail road track each week day morning to Valley Park. From there he would take the train to the levee down town Saint Louis. He worked as a draftsman and salesman for Miller elevator.
For us in our preteen years summers on Petty’s Hill allowed a freedom few
children ever had. We roamed the surrounding farms, climbed the bluffs
hunted snakes with our BB guns, hiked daily down the bluff for our afternoon swim in the Meramec river from our family’s dock.
Spring floods on the Meramac river were a common occurrence. The cabins built on Petty’s Hill remained high and dry. Those along the river not so lucky. They were built high on stilts. But I remember the water up to the roofs
My Grandparents had family and friends who had also built summer club houses on Petty’s Hill. They gathered to play cards and horse shoes. Weekend cat fish and bull frog fries together. On Sunday mornings we dressed our best and walked a mile or better down Vance road to mass in Valley Park.
I even remember old George Petty, his two story shack was near our club house. We would sneak into it when he was not around, it was full of clutter. It was very difficult to walk thru, he saved everything you could think of. He was quite eccentric, but my Grand parents said he was a very smart man. One time I had ring worm on my head. My Grandmother Nelli called Petty over he looked at my sore spit on it and walked away. Needless to say in a day or so the sore disappeared.
Our return to visit Petty’s Hill, hard to recognize it. Now a subdivision. Looks like they changed the roads. Stiener’s Farm is now gone, Petty’s lake on Vance road gone, all the original year round homes and summer cabins gone. The suburbs have taken over.
J. Jaeger
In 1848 my great great grandfather Roger Devlin rented his land on the north side of the “Merremack River in St. Louis Co., originally known as Catalogn’s Ferry at or near the croping of the St. Louis and Herculaneum Road” to a man named Noah Whittemore for the purpose of building a ferry. Do you know anything about where that was? Mary Jane Conrades