Real photo postcard of some faculty of the School of the Ozarks on a 1909 outing at Swan Creek.
Along with Harold Bell Wright’s moralistic Shepherd of the Hills influence, a component of the region’s image has been the School of the Ozarks, now called College of the Ozarks (“Hard Work U.”). It began as an effort by the Presbyterian Church to expand the limited educational opportunities for Ozark children in the early 1900s. A $20,000 brick building was built on a hill overlooking Swan Creek. A fire destroyed it in 1915. The school used the facilities of the Forsyth Public School for a time until a campus was started at Point Lookout in Hollister where the College is today.
The Christian ethical influence of Harold Bell Wright and College of the Ozarks is in sharp contrast with the more secular origins of another Ozark tourist draw, Lake of the Ozarks. Two of the three men most influential in the creation of Bagnell Dam and the Lake did time in federal penitentiaries.
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