|
Egan
Lodge functioned as an administrative center for Union Electric officials to
oversee the progress of the Great Osage River Project. That was from 1930 to May
of 1931. For the remainder of the '30s, the lodge became host to Union Electric
executives, friends, and families as a recreation facility.
As Union Electric pushed for greater
coverage of the region's power needs, its interests often clashed with those of
local residents who favored alternatives to the powerful company in the form of
city owned and generated power. In 1938, the company discharged a senior
accountant for refusing to allocate funds for political activities that were in
violation of federal law. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch broke the story, and the
Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation. The activities of
Union Electric and the parent company, the North American Company were under
scrutiny. The SEC found many things wrong. The Post-Dispatch summarized the
situation in a 1939 article noting "disclosures of far-reaching political
and lobbying activities" of the utility, "including financial aid to
favored candidates for public office, lavish entertainment of legislators and
other public officials at the Lake of the Ozarks, and huge payments to numerous
lawyers." Louis Egan and top Union Electric officials approved direct and
indirect campaign contributions, a felonious violation of the Holding Company
Act. Much of the illegal activity was conducted at the Lake of the Ozarks on
Union Electric property.
The company's methods extended from
out-an-out bribes to planting a propagandist on the staff of the St. Charles
newspaper to write pro-Union Electric stories during the year preceding a
municipal election involving electric power choice. Before the end of that year,
company officials Louis A. Egan, president; Frank J. Boehm, vice-president; and
Albert C. Laun, vice-president, had all resigned. Laun, described as an
"ace lobbyist" and the company's specialist in taxes and real estate
dealings, had served as "master of ceremonies" at weekend parties for
city officials and legislators at Red Arrow Lodge, on the Big Niangua arm. Egan
himself had hosted "more important political persons" at the
'Administration Building." By the time Union Electric put the lodges up for
sale in 1941, Laun and Boehm had already been convicted of perjury in the SEC
investigation, while Egan and the company itself were under federal indictment
for violation of the corrupt practices section of the Holding Company Act.
The lodge's role as a rustic retreat
for UE and its friends was at an end. Union Electric's new management closed the
resorts with a public explanation that UE no longer had "use for
them." With this being during World War II, the lodge did not readily sell.
In fact, the building was occupied only by caretakers and housekeepers for four
years until the 1945 purchase by Cyrus Crane Willmore.
List of Works Consulted
|