The South Prong

The South Prong rises on the upland of southern Texas County, east of Cabool, and runs about sixteen miles1, first south and then east, to its meeting with the North Prong a short way below the Highway Y bridge at Low Water2. Several of its creeks head across the line in Howell County3, within a few miles of Willow Springs. Its country falls into three drainages of about thirty square miles each, the upper prong, Pine Creek and the lower prong, about 88 square miles4 in all. Around 2000 roughly three-quarters of each was forest and woodland and most of the rest was grass5. Public land was almost absent: none on the upper prong, less than a tenth of one percent on the lower, and three percent of the Pine Creek drainage, a piece of the Mark Twain National Forest6. The whole prong lies above the national riverways7.

The South Prong country was one of the first parts of the Jacks Fork to be settled, because it was the land best suited to subsistence farming, and its bottoms were cleared for fields and hay9. Its streams once carried considerable water. By 1980 they were badly filled in, and in the uppermost parts of Pine Creek and the prong the water seeped between the holes8. People who grew up there remembered the same change in the early 1990s (Chapter 15).

The prong is a plateau stream, steep in its branches and gentle in its main valley. Through this reach the prong falls about 30 feet a mile10. Its lowest eleven and a half miles, below the meeting with the largest creek of its upper course, fall about 15 feet a mile, and its smallest headwater branches about 13011 (Chapter 2). The lowest six miles keep flowing in drought, and the four miles above them12 may stop flowing in dry weather but hold permanent pools. The springs are small. Of the two that have been measured, Big Spring runs about 1.4 cubic feet a second and Clear Spring between about 0.8 and 1.213 (Chapter 12). On August 14, 2006, hydrologists measured 15.6 cubic feet a second at one South Prong site and less than one14 at another; whether the prongs themselves lose water to the ground is one of the open questions of Chapter 12.

The prong’s banks drew the state agencies in the 1990s. A cedar-tree revetment was built on a South Prong bank in 1991, one of the bank projects15 of the watershed. In June 1992 state investigators looked into erosion and the runoff of sediment and nutrients on both prongs16. In March and April 1996 a survey flight filmed the prong and Pine Creek, among other streams, and catalogued17 the unstable banks and corridors. By 2001 the South Prong had the highest share of channel miles in the watershed whose streamside corridor was rated as not forested18 (Chapter 15). Mussel surveyors who searched South Prong sites in 2017–19 found none, alive or dead19 (Chapter 16).

The prong’s settlements were small places that grew up around a post office, a school or a church, and most of them lay in Pierce Township, which Texas County organized in 1852 as Jack’s Fork Township21 (Chapters 4 and 5). The western edge of the prong country, around Varvol, lies in Sargent Township, formed in 191722. Two of the post offices, Louisa and Hattie, took their names from wives20 of a storekeeper and a landowner. The dates of several of the offices differ from one record to another23.

The mile figures in the headings are South Prong miles, counted upstream from the junction of the prongs along the channel traced from the federal elevation model. The state’s float guide begins at the Highway Y bridge and gives no miles above it. Measured from the head shown on the federal names map, the prong is 15.90 miles long; it is also given as 16.324. Left and right25 are as you face downstream (Fig. 1). The prong runs south through its upper miles and generally east below Route 137, so below the bridge river right is the south bank.

Bend by bend

Headwaters and Louisa

Source and former post office · head of the prong · South Prong mile 15.9 · Plates A1, A15

The South Prong heads on the upland about ten miles east of Cabool26. Its headwaters are also placed about five miles east of Cabool27, which fits the head of the nameless creek at mile 11.5 better (Chapter 2).

Near the head, where a small branch comes in from the north, is the map point for Louisa28, a village and post office of 1910 to 1922 (its dates are also given as 1905 to 192330). It was named for the wife of Jim Embree, the storekeeper and postmaster29. Cabool itself, beyond the head, began in 1882 as a railroad town, named by its promoters, Ralph and Frances Walker, for the capital of Afghanistan. A local legend, current in the 1930s, tells of a chief named Cabool who carried off Tahassie, the daughter of Chief Pomona; when her father brought his warriors after them, the two plunged together over a cliff31 rather than be parted. The name came first, and the story was almost certainly fitted to it afterward32.

Wyrick Branch, with Brewer, Holden and Nigman branches

Branch · right bank · South Prong mile 12.6 · Plates A1, A15

Wyrick Branch comes in from the northwest after a run of a little over two miles, draining about three square miles33. Its two forks, Nigman Branch from the north and Brewer Branch from the west, meet to form it, and Holden Branch is a separate branch from the west lower down. All three names are printed on the 194834 Clear Springs topographic map, and the lower stream and its north fork also go together under the name Wyrick/Nigman Branch35. None of the names has been explained. The prong holds permanent pools up to about this point36. Above it two small unnamed branches come in from the northeast.

Pine Hollow

Hollow · left bank · about South Prong mile 12.0 · Plates A1, A15

Pine Hollow is a short hollow from the northeast, about a mile and a quarter long, draining about a square mile37. Nothing is recorded of the name. The watershed has another Pine Hollow38 in the Mahans Creek drainage (Chapter 18). In 1948 New Liberty School39 stood beside the prong near the mouths of Pine Hollow and Wyrick Branch.

The nameless creek and Varvol

Creek and former post office · right bank · about South Prong mile 11.5 · Plate A15

A creek from the west comes in less than half a mile below Pine Hollow. It runs nearly six miles back toward Cabool, drains nearly thirteen square miles and is the largest creek in the watershed without a recorded name40 (Chapter 18). Streams are ranked by order. Two headwater branches with no tributaries of their own, first-order streams, join to make a second-order stream, two of those make a third-order41 one, and so on down. This creek is very likely the unnamed fourth-order tributary, 6.7 miles long, that in 2001 lacked a forested corridor along more than three-fifths42 of its length, and below it the prong is a fifth-order stream43.

Near its head is Varvol, where Highway HH44 crosses the creek on a short concrete culvert of 1956. On the federal bridge list the culvert carries the highway over the “Jacks Fork River,” so whoever entered it there probably took this creek for the head of the prong. The Varvol post office ran from 1892 to 1904 (its dates are also given as 1891 to 1909, with the spelling Varvel46). It was named for a family who kept the office in their general store, and a Varvol School45 took the post office’s name. Varvol lies in Sargent Township, which took its name in 1917 from the village of Sargent to the west, first called Stogsdill after its storekeeper and renamed by the railroad47 for one of its officials.

Shuld Branch

Branch · right bank · South Prong mile 10.1 · Plates A1, A15

Shuld Branch, a name nobody has explained, comes in from the southwest, a little over two miles long and draining about two square miles48. It enters less than half a mile above the Route 137 bridge and runs water only part of the year49.

Route 137 bridge

Bridge · about South Prong mile 9.7 · Plates A1, A15

Route 137 runs north from Willow Springs and crosses the South Prong between its junctions with Routes U and AZ50. The single-lane steel girder bridge of 193251 stood here until the state closed the road in the summer of 2025 to replace it52 (Chapter 8). The highway was a gravel road within living memory, kept up with gravel dug from the creeks53 (Chapter 15).

Mayhan Branch

Branch · left bank · South Prong mile 9.3 · Plates A1, A15

Mayhan Branch comes in from the north a short way below the bridge, a branch of about a mile and a half draining nearly two square miles that heads close to Clear Springs54 village. The name, also spelled Mahan and Mayhen, comes from Henry and Debarieth Mahan. Henry came up from Mahans Creek, far down the Jacks Fork, about 1850 and settled here, and Larkin Story55’s family settled nearby. The branch may stop flowing56 in dry weather.

Clear Spring and Clear Springs

Spring and village · left bank · about South Prong mile 9.2 · Plates A1, A15

Clear Spring rises on the north bank a short way below the mouth of Mayhan Branch, about half a mile below the Route 137 bridge57, and its run to the river is about a tenth of a mile58 long. It is named for the clearness of its pool59. Its flow has been measured at between 0.78 and 1.15 cubic feet a second60, and it has also been put at about half a million gallons a day, close to the lower figure61 (Chapter 12).

The village took its name from the spring. It had a post office from 1880, spelled Clearspring from 1897 to 191062, until 1953, when the mail went to Willow Springs; the office’s dates are given as July 12, 1880, to October 29, 195363, and as August 1880 to December 1953. Among its keepers was a Theodore A. Cross in 1885. The old village and its post office stood by the spring, and Clear Springs School, named for the village65, was on the hill nearby64. The 1948 topographic map still letters Clear Springs beside the spring66, a little north of the prong. The present community lies about a mile to the north, on Route Y67 a mile east of Route 137.

Pine Creek

Creek · right bank · South Prong mile 7.2 · Plates A1, A15

Pine Creek is the prong’s largest tributary. It drains about 27 square miles, close to what the prong itself drains above69 their meeting, and runs about twelve miles68 from its head near Sterling70, a former Frisco station in the country north of Willow Springs named for John Sterling, an Illinois man who entered land71 there. Joe Fisher72 ran a sawmill near Sterling in the early 1880s (Chapter 5). Esling Hollow, a valley whose name is unexplained, joins it from the south at the mouth of its largest side branch, which drains nearly four square miles73. The creek was named for its pines, which grew along the banks by one account and along the ridge by another74 (Chapter 18).

The lowest eight miles of Pine Creek flow all year75. The state scheduled the replacement of the 1932 Route 137 bridge76 over it for March to June 202677. Near the mouth of Rebel Hollow, Rebel Road crosses it on a one-lane concrete slab of 195078. Around 1998 the Willow Springs landfill79 held a state discharge permit on one of its branches (Chapter 17). Most of the small share of public land in the South Prong country is national forest in this drainage80.

Oak Ridge School stood near Pine Creek. Between Pine Creek and the prong stood the Solid Rock Church, the Pleasant Grove Church and its cemetery, and Pine Creek School81, named for the creek82.

Spout Spring Hollow and Spout Spring. Spout Spring Hollow joins Pine Creek about four miles above its mouth83. Its spring is on a hillside north of King’s Mountain, near Willow Springs. In the late 1930s89 it was a good-sized spring that bubbled in a strong stream from the side of the hill, and its owner, Harrison Godsey, had piped the water up the hill to his house, so that it was sometimes called Godsey Spring84. King’s Mountain is a high point on the divide with streams running off it in every direction85; its other sides drain to the Eleven Point86 (Chapter 18). Maps of 1850 and 1855 call it King’s Mount. Some people held that a man named King lived there in the early days and others that the name came from the height alone, and a borrowing from the Revolutionary battle of King’s Mountain, in South Carolina90, has also been suggested. About a mile east is a smaller rise, which by the late 1930s had been named Queen’s Mountain as its sister87. In the 1930s the spring’s water was said to run through Spout Spring Hollow to the Jacks Fork in Shannon County88. On the map the hollow joins Pine Creek in Texas County, and the spring’s exact position has not been fixed.

Rebel Hollow comes into Pine Creek about a mile and a half above its mouth91, near the Rebel Road crossing. The name is said to date from the Civil War92; how it arose is not recorded. Pine Creek also takes in several sizable branches with no recorded name93.

Flinger Branch

Branch · left bank · South Prong mile 7.0 · Plates A1, A15

Flinger Branch, a branch of about a mile and a half from the northwest, enters almost opposite Pine Creek and drains nearly two square miles94. It is given both as a branch that runs water all the time and as one that may stop flowing95 in dry weather. The name is unexplained.

Little Pine Creek, Big Spring Creek and Big Spring

Creek and spring · right bank · South Prong mile 6.0 · Plates A1, A15

Little Pine Creek drains about ten square miles from the south, runs about six miles96 and carries water all year97. Its upper branches lie in northern Hutton Valley Township98 in Howell County, and Big Spring Creek is the short run99 from Big Spring into it. The township took its name from the Hutton Valley post office, in a village laid out in 1873 and named for a Mr. Hutton, the first settler of that valley, who came about 1841100.

In the late 1930s Howell County people gave the name Big Pine Creek to a stream in northern Hutton Valley Township that flowed into the Jacks Fork in Texas County, for the large pine timber101 of that region. They also called its branch, Big Spring Creek, Little Pine Creek, to tell it from the larger stream102, and Pine Creek was a separate stream103 again. On today’s map Big Spring Creek is a branch of Little Pine Creek and there is no Big Pine Creek. The likeliest reading is that the old Big Pine Creek is the present Little Pine Creek, and that “Little Pine” passed from the branch to the main stream early: the 1948 topographic map already letters the main stream Little Pine Creek in Texas County, shows no Big Pine Creek, and letters Big Spring104 a little south of the county line. A Mountain View resident calls Big Spring Creek “Pine Creek.” Moore’s Hollow, named for Hugh and Thomas Moore, brothers who lived there by 1867105, ran into the old Big Pine Creek and so probably lies somewhere in this drainage.

Big Spring gave the branch its name. It lies a little over the Howell County line, at the short run of Big Spring Creek106. In the late 1930s it was a spring of ordinary size that supplied good water to most of the community107. Measured before 1974 at 1.41108 cubic feet a second, it has also been put at about a million gallons a day109 (Chapter 12). It is no relation to the Big Spring on the Current River.

A small unnamed branch comes in from the north on the opposite bank about a quarter mile below110.

Dixon Ford

Former crossing · lower South Prong · Plate A15 (not marked)

Dixon Ford, also called Dixon Crossing, was a crossing on the lower prong, below Route 137. Who Dixon was has not been traced. A Mountain View resident remembered it as “a great place to hang out at the river,” with “a couple of good places to play in the water and get some sun,” and as a place where a float could start, until its new owners closed111 it to the public (Chapters 8, 11 and 20). It is private land.

Stillhouse Branch, Guild and Union Star

Branch, former post office and school · right bank · South Prong mile 5.0 · Plates A1, A15

Stillhouse Branch comes in from the south, a little over two miles long and draining nearly three square miles112. It runs water, and it is said to have once had a whiskey-malting operation113 on it. The watershed’s other stillhouse names are in Chapter 18.

Guild stood on the ridge west of the branch, about half a mile south of the prong114. Its post office ran from June 1908 to March 1932, when its mail went to Hattie116; it is also dated 1910 to 1928. In the late 1930s several people still remembered the office, and none of them could explain its name115. Union Star School, also called Mount Olive, stood on the ridge above Stillhouse Branch117, and the topographic maps of the 1940s show a Mount Olive School across the branch east of Guild118. The school had been formed from two districts that kept both names, so on paper it was Star Union, and people called it Union Star because it sounded better119. Mount Olive was also the name of a Baptist church120 of Pierce Township.

Hattie and Rose Spring

Former post office and spring · on the prong between Stillhouse Branch and Wolf Creek · position approximate · Plate A1

Hattie stood on the South Prong in the southeast part of Pierce Township, about a mile and a half northeast of Guild121. It was named for the wife of John Cross122, a landowner, and a John P. Cross kept its post office from 1902. The office opened on July 14, 1891, closed on July 2, 1894, reopened on March 29, 1898, and was discontinued on May 3, 1957, when its mail went to Mountain View124. It stood near Rose Spring123, a small spring on the farm of John Rose125, for whom the spring was named. The 1948 topographic map letters Hattie on the north bank126.

The man who knew the Hiker Hole (Chapter 15), who grew up on the upper river in the 1930s and has owned a farm on it since 1960127, described floods128 tearing out the timber at the lower ends of the big holes and added: “Same thing with Hattie Hole. Hattie is gone—that’s on the South Prong.” The name very likely came from the settlement, since both were on the prong, but nobody recorded where the hole was. About here a small unnamed branch comes in from the south129.

Wolf Creek

Creek · right bank · South Prong mile 1.4 · Plates A1, A15

Wolf Creek is the prong’s last named tributary. It rises in the northeastern part of Hutton Valley Township130 in Howell County, runs about five miles northeast and drains nearly seven square miles131, entering about a mile above the Highway Y bridge. It may stop flowing132 in dry weather. Its name and the wolf hunting of the 1930s133 are in Chapter 18.

Places not yet pinned down

Gatons hole134. The same man from the upper river remembered a South Prong pool he called Gatons hole (the spelling is uncertain). Someone cleared five acres of bottomland a little below it, in the floodplain, and disked it, “and the next year there was nothing there but just a big old gravel bar. And that was all trees before.” He also knew old South Prong hayfields where “the water has cut through, cut channels through those fields.” The position is unknown.

A South Prong farm of the 1920s135. A woman who farmed with her husband from the 1930s at an unrecorded place on the South Prong remembered her father-in-law, in the 1920s, trying to move the channel to one side of his field to gain bottomland: “Instead of that, why, it would overflow and create gravel bars and it just took the holes out.”

Mountain Store. Mountain Store is remembered as an early trading place on the Jacks Fork, where a scouting patrol killed a guerrilla named Clarie in 1863136. A trading post of the same name stood a few miles east of present Mountain Grove and moved across the line into Wright County137 after the Civil War. Whether these are one place is unsettled. The Union patrols of the war are in Chapter 6.

The Jack’s Fork post office. A post office named for the river served Pierce Township. Its dates are given as 1860 to 1902138 and as December 1849 to 1899, when it became Arroll. It stood on the South Prong in 1871 and probably moved between the prongs139 with its postmasters; it has also been mapped on the South Prong between Hattie and Wolf Creek140 (Chapters 4 and 5).

Clyde. A village surveyed in Pierce Township in 1871 and named by a merchant, Ira Martin141, for reasons nobody could recall. No village and no post office followed.

Freedom School. A Freedom School is counted among the early South Prong schools with New Liberty142 (see Pine Hollow). The Freedom School of the 1930s, District 26, stood in Sargent Township near Willow Springs, across the road from Freedom Church143.

The 27-foot dam. Around 2000 a reinforced-earth dam 27 feet144 high stood on a tributary of the South Prong. It has not been identified.

On to Low Water

Below Wolf Creek the prong runs its last mile east. In 1993 the man who knew the Hiker Hole called a South Prong pit “just above the bridge” the most extensive gravel operation on the river, with the diggings running a mile145 upstream; he did not say which bridge, and the Highway Y bridge is the nearest to the junction (Chapter 15). The Highway Y bridge, the state’s South Prong Access, the low-water slab across the meeting of the prongs and the junction itself are in Reach C (Plate A3; Fig. 15).