The story of Ozark Mountain Country is also a story of a people and their culture and values. To a great extent, the area was once defined by it's isolation. It comes as no surprise then that the folklore and traditional music of the region has it's origins deep in antiquity.

The Ozark hills were settled by yeoman farmers who moved into the area from the mountains of the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky - individuals who were themselves descendants of farmers from Scotland, England, and Ireland. These hill people brought with them stories and tales from their ancient homelands.

To the early settlers of the Ozark Mountains, life was hard. As the growing population depleted the once abundant game, residents were forced to exact a subsistence living from their small farms. When row crops like corn were planted on the steep hillsides, the region's soils, never rich or deep except on the regularly inundated flood plains, were scoured by gully washing rains. By the last decades of the nineteenth century, the economic history of the region became a story of various attempts of the local population to supplement their meager incomes.
Various industries were tried with little or no success; two examples are lead mining and the collection of mussel shells from the area rivers for the button industry. The first sustained boom to the area's economy resulted from the harvesting of local timber when the nation's expanding rail system created demand for a seemingly endless supply of cross ties. After the forests were cleared of their virgin timber, the revenue vacuum was filled by the development of the tomato and strawberry industries. The production of moonshine was sometimes used by the remote hill people for supplementary income.

The Entertainment Industry

As Branson and the lakes area gains national attention for drawing to its stages large numbers of the nation's most popular and enduring country and western stars, it is easy to forget that the area did not become a magnet for country music celebrities overnight. The entertainment industry is here because of a long and involved history. Fishing, originally in the White River and James Rivers and then in the lakes, caving in Marble Cave, the revival of the area's craft industry, and visitors' interested in the setting of a best selling novel all contributed to a gradual increase in the area's tourism. Here you can explore the histories of Silver Dollar City, the Shepherd of the Hills, and the Country Music Boulevard - the three most visited attractions in the Ozarks.

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The City of Branson

The men who founded the town of Branson in 1903 were planning an industrial center in the Ozarks that would generate trainload after trainload of logs, lumber, and manufactured products for the outside world, thereby generating steady income for area residents. Today, as country music theaters, motels, and restaurants mushroom across the surrounding hills, an industrial boom has indeed come to Branson, but it is based on drawing tourists to the town's entertainment industry, not exporting the area's resources.

When incorporated, on April 1, 1912, Branson had 1,200 residents. Shortly there after, the idea of Branson as a resort town began to take root, spawning a commercial ice plant, a soft drink bottling plant, a candy factory, and an ice cream factory near the waterfront. The town's three hotels - the Commercial, Branson, and Malone (the latter renamed the White River Hotel in 1937) - were catering to vacationers, and neighboring factories and businesses were encouraged to stack their logs, lumber, and bricks so that they looked more tidy.

Hobart McQuarter, who had a boat factory and a bulk gasoline business on Branson's waterfront in conjunction with his passenger service up and down the lake, built Branson's first vacation cabins - the Sammy Lane Resort - just upstream from the Main Street bridge. The cabins stood on stilts and were anchored with cables to keep floods from washing them away.
The women of Branson, many of whom were employed or helped operate family businesses, organized a Civic League in 1914 and begun what would be a decades long effort to beautify the streets, establish parks, and make life better in their community. They paid off the debt on the old community building and in 1936 supplied the land where a new community building was built. They planned community celebrations and activities and provided the town a well-equipped municipal bathing beach and picnic ground on lake Taneycomo.

By the 1930's Lake Taneycomo had become an inexpensive vacation spot easily accessible to distant or nearby cities by car and train. Visitors drawn by street fairs, parades community picnics, and boat races, as well as by the scenic lake and hills, helped the town's businesses survive through the Depression and bank failures.

After World War II, many artists, craftsmen, and retirees came to the area, along with returning servicemen and war industry workers. One of those returning workers was artist Steve Miller. In the late summer of 1949, he and businessman Joe Todd dreamed up the idea of putting a huge lighted Adoration Scene on the Mount Branson bluff, across Lake Taneycomo from downtown Branson. With help from local carpenters, the creche scene's figures, up to 28 feet tall, were in place for lighting on the first Sunday of that December, in front of thousands of awe-struck visitors.

In 1953, with more people coming for the lighting each year, the sponsoring Chamber of Commerce took a leaf from Branson's long history of Santa Claus parades, pet parades, and costume competitions, and added an Adoration Parade to the lighting ceremonies. The parade and ceremony, kept free of commercialism, today draws crowds as large as 30,000 people.
Preparations for the construction of Table Rock Dam began the year after the first Adoration Parade, and continued through most of the 1950's. When the dam was completed in 1959 and water rose to its expected average level, Branson's citizens were relieved that floods no longer threatened their waterfront. Tourists came in growing numbers to enjoy the big new lake, the Herschends' 1890's Silver Dollar City theme park, and the Trimbles' new outdoor theater at the Shepherd of the Hills Farm. Resorts near Branson and on downstream were encouraging their guests to fish and visit the area's new attractions. Lake Taneycomo was too cold for swimming now that it was fed by the deep cold waters of Table Rock Lake. Branson's merchants welcomed the increasing number of tourists.

In 1960, just as tourism began to increase rapidly in the area, the Missouri Pacific canceled all passenger service on its White River Line. With so many visitors arriving by automobile, traffic on winding U.S. 65 to Springfield often slowed to a crawl. To shorten and straighten the 75 mile route down to 40 miles, dynamite crews and earth moving equipment blasted a road through the limestone hills between Springfield and Branson.
A four-lane bypass was completed in the mid 1970's. The bypass rerouted U.S. 65 away from Branson's congested downtown business district and provided interchanges at Highway 76 and at Highway 248, and a new bridge across lake Taneycomo. At that time, businesses were just beginning to develop along 76 west of Branson with only a few scattered shops and five music shows. A decade later, eleven more music shows and many restaurants, motels and tourist attractions had extended the built up area three miles further west. The number of music shows, which started with the Baldknobbers in 1957 and increased to sixteen in the 1980's, now exceeds thirty; and with the addition of the Ozark Mountain Christmas Celebration, the tourist season has increased to nine months.

In the first half of this century, Branson's citizens worked very hard to turn their town into a prosperous industrial town and still attract sightseers and vacationers. Today those aims are one, and Branson residents and their mayor, city council, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Downtown Branson Betterment Association face many new challenges as they go about the business of welcoming and entertaining more than a hundred thousand visitors each day in their small town in the Ozarks.

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History of Silver Dollar City

Silver Dollar City has developed into one of the most successful theme parks in the United States. Situated at the site of one of the Ozarks oldest and most enduring attractions, Marvel Cave, Silver Dollar City literally sprang from the ground. The cave, which has been designated a National Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior, is important not only because of its subterranean features, but also because the origins of Silver Dollar City are tied to its development.

The first oral record of Marvel Cave comes from the Osage Indians. The first written record was noted during an 1869 expedition. Henry T. Blow of St. Louis, a lead mining magnate, led a party of six miners into the cave. They found no lead before returning to St. Louis, but convinced that the flat wall of one room was composed of marble, they originally named the cave Marble Cave.
The cave remained undisturbed until 1882 when another group of entrepreneurs, led by Mr. T. Hodges Jones and Truman S. Powell of Barton County, entered the cave in hopes of finding lead. Jones and Powell found huge amounts of bat manure, or guano as it was called, and the flat wall, which they, too, believed to be marble. Two years later Jones bought the property and, with several of his friends, formed the Marble Cave Mining and Manufacturing Company to mine the cave. The company planned a town, Marble City, on the rough hilltop near the cave and in 1884 recorded a plat map at the courthouse in Galena. Although a few lots in the new town were sold, little development seems to have taken place.

By 1889 much of the Guano had been mined from the cave, the marble wall proved to be lime stone, and no lead ore was found. The mining company, which had developed so quickly, ceased operation.
The history of the cave took another turn in 1889 when William Henry Lynch, a Canadian miner and dairyman, purchased the cave and a square mile around it for $10,000. Lynch, with the aid of his family, proposed to open the cave to sightseers. The Lynches began operation of the sightseeing venture in 1894 with a grand celebration and a few visitors. The venture was not immediately profitable and was closed until Lynch could raise additional capital to reopen the cave sometime after 1900. The cave has remained open since then, making it one of the oldest continuously running tourist attractions in the Ozarks.

When William Lynch died in 1927, ownership of the cave passed to his daughters. Shortly there after, the name of the cave was changed to Marvel Cave. The Lynche family operated the cave for nearly fifty years until a Chicago vacuum cleaner salesman, Hugo Herschend, purchased a 99 year lease on the cave.

After Hugo Herschend's death, five years after he began managing the cave, his wife, Mary Herschend, took over the day to day operations of the venture. With the aid of her two sons, Jack and Peter Herschend, Mary Herschend was able to implement vast improvements to the cave, including a train which pulled visitors 218 feet, from the depths of the cave up to the surface.
Once the train was in operation the Herschends felt the development of the cave was complete and immediately began to search for ways to expand their growing attraction. Anticipating additional tourists to the Ozarks, they wanted to create an attraction which would attract even more tourists to the cave.

The Herschends decided to build an Ozark frontier town on the acreage surrounding the sight of the cave. The new attraction was named Silver Dollar City. Silver Dollar City originally was the sight of five shops, a church, a log cabin, and a street production reproducing the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys several times daily. With the growing numbers of tourists visiting the attraction each year, the Herschends were able to add many new shops, as well as, rides and variety shows. Today Silver Dollar City plays hosts to thousands of visitors each day during the tourist season.

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Shepherd of the Hills Farm

Signs all over Southwest Missouri proclaim it; businesses, motels, tourist attractions, and billboards affirm it: the region is Shepherd of the Hills Country. From every direction roads lead vacationers to the Shepherd of the Hills Homestead perched high on a ridge just west of Dewey Bald. From early spring until the end of October, the Homestead introduces visitors to the old J.K. Ross cabin and farm and, via an outdoor drama, to the people and events of Harold Bell Wrights immortalized in his 1907 novel, The Shepherd of the Hills.

During the day, guests tour the very log house where Wright first experienced Ozark Hospitality. Old-fashioned jitneys pulled by giant Clydesdale horses offer rides around the upper part of the Homestead. Motorized trams ply the steep wooded hillsides, dropping folks off to watch Ozarks artisans at work and to explore the rustic village which, after dark, becomes a giant stage where Wrights book is brought back to life.

Visitors stroll about the Homestead, walk or ride to Inspiration Point, and ascend the 230 foot enclosed tower to enjoy views of the hills and valleys for miles in every direction. Near the base of the tower are stone sculptures of characters from The Shepherd of the Hills and the reconstructed ninety year old church similar to those in which Wright preached during the years he lived in the Ozarks.

On Saturday night, August 6, 1959, The Shepherd of the Hills play was first presented in the Old Mill Theater at the Shepherd of the Hills farm. The actors who performed that night and through the early years of the play were drawn from nearby communities. In the years since, many of them and their children and grandchildren have continued to be involved with the play, and have become leaders in the development of many of Branson's current businesses and musical and recreational attractions.

In 1985, Gary Snadon announced that he had bought the Shepherd of the Hills farm. Snadon, a local resident, performed one of the lead roles in the Shepherd of the Hills drama for several years in the 1960's. He chose as his business manager Jerry Coffelt, who had been involved with the farm and play for many years.

Soon after Snadon took over the farm, the name of the attraction was changed to the Shepherd of the Hills Homestead and Outdoor Theater. His stated objectives were to keep the play and the farm faithful to The Shepherd of the Hills book, and to entertain the customers. His ownership has brought a full schedule of daytime entertainment and activities to the Homestead.

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