TJic Beauties of Ha-Ila-Tonka. 



395 



THE BEAUTIES OF HA-HA-TONKA. 



During the session of the Forty-sixth General Assembly of Missouri 

 Senator T. J. Feaster introduced a bill providing for the purchase of 

 Ha-Ha-Tonka, a tract of some 7,000 acres in Camden county. The pro- 

 posed plan was to pay for the park out of a portion of the yearly reve- 

 nues collected in the game protection fund. The bill failed of passage, 

 as did a somewhat similar measure introduced in the National Congress 

 by Hon. D. W. Shackleford, a few years ago, but the agitation served to 

 call the attention of the people of the State and nation to one of the most 

 beautiful spots in America. It was of this place that Bayard Taylor 

 said, ' ' I have traveled all over the world to find here in the heart of Mis- 

 soun the most magnificent scenery the human eye ever beheld." 



E. T. Grether wrote as follows in the St. Louis Daily Globe-Demo- 

 crat of January 29, 1911 : 



Lake, Automobile Garage and Mansion, With Partial View of Grounds. 



"Ha-Ha-Tonka Park is situated in Camden county, Missouri, twenty- 

 five miles north of Lebanon, Missouri, which lies a little more than half- 

 way across the State southwesterly from St. Louis on the Frisco rail- 

 road. 



"In Ila-Ha-Tonka Park the residents of INIissouri will acquire a 

 resort equal in beauty to the fairest parts of Switzerland, and offering 

 opportunities for sport of the most attractive character, unexcelled in 

 the whole country, a place where the angler and hunter can find condi- 

 tions superior to those in the Adirondacks, the climate practically 

 perfect, the air splendidly invigorating, the water the purest product of 



