|
|
|
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
|