AT THE PAINTED WOODS. 150 
a ately proceeded to do. ‘‘Painted Woods Tenia 
was the name chosen for headquarters and a site selected 
on the Missouri facing the finest body of young cotton- 
wood timber in what is now known as Oliver County. — 
For a time all went well. Thousands of young 
cottonwood trees were cut down, made into cordwood 
and carted across the Missouri for the steamboat trade. 
The ‘‘Landing’’ became a popular wayfaring stopping 
place as well asa hilarious neighborhood rendezvous. A 
fine farm and truck garden was opened in connection 
with the ranch, and Mr. Adams began to congratulate 
himself that he had indeed ‘‘struck it rich’’ by coming 
ever to the Missouri. To put the rounding on his suc- 
cess he erected a wine press to utilize the lucious wild 
grape and tart bullberry that grew in generous profusion 
among the timber points of the Painted Woods country. 
But, unfortunately, there was too much destruction in- 
volved in all this to insure continued prosperity. Aside 
from chopping down the thousands of half grown cot- 
tonwoods for steamboat fuel, in his wine making, Mr. 
Adams employed a small army of grape pickers, who, 
thinking only of the present, destroyed the supporting 
vines. Inthis way the lucious wild grape gradually 
disappeared from that neighborhood. 
After the noon comes the lengthening shadow. After 
the strike the recoil. Mr. Adams desired to spread out 
his woodyard business, and to this end sent his oldest 
son John and a young man named Cook to start a new 
woodyard at Elm Point, the graveyard of so many 
past ventures of the overconfident. Cook returned to 
the Painted Woods a few months later to die, while the 
boy John abandoned the yard and pulled out for the 
