Saving Bull Creek | Loring Bullard & Robert Kipfer
In the rugged Ozarks of southern Missouri, three creeks roughly align, flowing north-south into the fabled, now dammed, White River: Beaver, Swan, and Bull Creek. The Bull Creek watershed encompasses most of the land between the rapidly growing areas of Springfield and Branson. Humans have lived here for millennia, although the earliest left few traces. Illustrative of the watershed’s rough topography, the 19th century explorer, Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, became lost in the tortuous valleys along Bull Creek. Settlers, farmers, millers, lead miners, tie hackers, and hydroelectric engineers followed in Schoolcraft’s footsteps, and later the roads bisecting the watershed, from the early 1800s Mail Trace to a modern four-lane highway. Loring Bullard and Robert Kipfer provide a sensitive, multifaceted overview of the Bull Creek watershed, beautiful and durable, but also under duress.
