Portuguese Point on the Gasconade River

 Beautiful Ozarks, See The Ozarks, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jul 072020
 

Real photo postcard, 1930s. Written on the postcard, “Looking down on Gasconade River from Portuguese Point. S-243.” Inevitably, photographs of the panoramic landscape contain a figure poised at the edge of the cliff.

There is a bluff called Portuguese Point overlooking the Gasconade River valley about eleven miles south of Dixon, Missouri. It has a splendid view, is easily reached, and photographers and artists, professional and amateur alike, exploit its graphic opportunities. The mystery is, what were the Portuguese doing in the Ozarks? We found a credible explanation in the KJPW’s Old Settlers Gazette, July 26, 1997, in an article by Gary Knehans. Apparently, John Anderson Smith immigrated to the Ozarks in 1858 and ended up in a fertile valley in a bend in the Gasconade. The pioneer had Cherokee blood and apparently, he and his children had Native American features. Fearing prejudice against Indians, he told his neighbors he was of Portuguese ancestry. Smith had a colorful life. Bushwhackers hung him but he survived somehow to die of dropsy in 1922. As he had voted twice for Henry Clay for President, his age was variously calculated at 110 or 116 years old. The article doesn’t cite any references but it’s an interesting and credible explanation.

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Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. You can see sample pages of our most recent book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco, on our website: hypercommon.com.

Lover’s Leap Legends won the bronze medal in the popular culture division of the 2020 Independent Publishers’ Book Awards, an international competition. This year there were entries from forty-four states, seven Canadian provinces and fifteen other countries.

James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River was a finalist in Regional Non-fiction in the 2019 Indie Book Awards. Lens & Pen Press’s earlier river book, Damming the Osage: The Conflicted Story of Lake of the Ozarks and Truman Reservoir, was awarded a silver medal by the Independent Publishers’ Book Awards in 2013.)

 

Historic Randles Court motel in Eldon

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May 192020
 

Jennifer Hart by the just-restored Randles Court neon sign.

The rock rubble classic motor court from the early days of America’s roadside culture is coming to life again along Business Route 54 through Eldon, Missouri. Jeremy and Jennifer Hart are renovating the place to offer hospitality for nostalgia-driven travelers. The nostalgia bringing me to Eldon was hunger for some of the world’s best onion rings, which we used to get at two restaurants there – a discovery made the summer we spent in Eldon making a very early direct-to-video horror movie, Copperhead. But I digress. Both restaurants are gone now. One of them was part of the Boots-Randles Court Motel. It burned to the ground, but the motel remains.

Jeremy’s aunt and uncle owned the place in the 1970s and through a series of karmic events, it has come to them. Jennifer can explain the full string of connections that finally put this roadside jewel in their hands. She’s made it her mission to put the pieces of history together, treating herself to occasional visits to the Eldon newspaper to search their archives.

One article she found indicates that Lloyd Boots started building his motor court in 1931, with a plan that called for a gas station and five cabins with attached carports. That was the year that Bagnell Dam closed. Eldon soon took the motto: “Gateway to Lake of the Ozarks.” The carports don’t show in the façade of the building today but architectural evidence remains. As the Hart’s renovated, they found original hardwood floors in every other room, and concrete floors in the ones between.

Last year, a tornado hit Eldon and the Randles Court. The stone building survived; roof, windows and the classic neon sign were damaged. Cleanup and repairs from the tornado carried on through the summer and early winter. Plans made for a grand reopening were put on hold with the coronavirus lockdown. Now with stay-at-home orders lifted and the classic neon sign fully restored and reinstalled, they are planning the lighting ceremony for this Friday night, May 22, the one-year anniversary of the tornado. Check their Facebook page for more information.

Provided to the Harts for the amusement and edification of their future guests, our book See the Ozarks, a visual history of the early days of tourism in our region.

Branson’s College of the Ozarks had its beginnings in Forsythe

 James Fork of the White, See The Ozarks  No Responses »
May 062020
 

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.

Lens & Pen books are available for purchase on this website on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. See sample pages from our new book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco, on our website: hypercommon.com

Harold Bell Wright’s erstwhile melodrama jump-starts Ozark tourism

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Apr 082020
 

Real photo postcard circa 1910 by G. E. Hall. Captioned on front, “At the Deer Lick, 33 Hall Photo Co.” Deer Lick is a location in the novel, The Shepherd of the Hills.

Printed on back of this very early Hall postcard is “The Shepherd of the Hills series,” Made by G. E. Hall, Notch, Mo.” At that time the entire region from Galena to Branson and surrounding hills and river bottoms of Taney and Stone counties was known as the Shepherd of the Hills Country.

In his just-published Volume 2, A History of the Ozarks, The Conflicted Ozarks, Brooks Blevins gives credit to Harold Bell Wright’s 1907 novel, The Shepherd of the Hills, for fixing an image of the Ozarks as a homeland of dramatically primitive but appealing Americans. Blevins attended a performance of the Shepherd of the Hills outdoor theater near Branson in 2013: “It wasn’t Chekov; no one goes to the ‘Shepherd of the Hills’ thinking it’s going to be. But it was entertaining—and melodramatic, syrupy, platitudinous, and predictable, just like the beloved novel on which it as based.” Blevins goes on to point out some real history about the truly dramatic night-riding Baldknobbers is worked into the sentimental storyline.

Locals began representing themselves as the real characters in Wright’s book. Photographic images of them at the landmarks where the novel took place helped perpetuate the idea the region was populated with somewhat backward but appealing characters, whose lives were uncommonly dramatic.

Lens & Pen books are available for purchase on this website on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. See sample pages from our new book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco, on our website: hypercommon.com

 

Increased tourism justified mass-produced postcards

 See The Ozarks, Uncategorized  No Responses »
Mar 112020
 

Powersite Dam, 1920s postcard. White River Art Station.

Real photo postcards were produced one at a time, usually by the photographer himself, which made them ideal for small regional markets; it also means they are less common today on the collector’s market. As Ozark tourism grew, entrepreneurs turned to producing printed postcards, which could be printed in large runs. After A.K. Bishop, an early producer of real photo postcards, died in 1925, his widow, Mrs. Grace Bishop, continued in the picture-postcard business. Her stock and trade were mechanically reproduced postcards. A photograph was hand-colored then reproduced as a lithograph to be printed by the thousands. Mrs. Bishop operated a store in Branson, the White River Art Station, and labeled her postcards with that name.

When a large flood inundated Branson in 1927 an article in the Stone County News Oracle (April 27), Galena, gave an indication of the scale of the printed postcard business. The article noted she had not suffered as much damage: “Possibly one who suffered the least in the form of ruined stock was Mrs. Grace Bishop of the White River Art Station.” She had placed her stock on high shelves and was able to enter the studio in a rowboat and retrieve her stock: “Mrs. Bishop says she has a hundred thousand picture cards on hand and two hundred thousand ordered. She is ready for summer any day she wants to come.”

An abundance of White River Art Station printed postcards are for sale on eBay and through postcard dealers throughout America for a few dollars. George Hall’s real photo postcards, however, are rarely for sale and can bring $60 to $200.

 

Lens & Pen books are available for purchase on this website on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble. See sample pages from our new book, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Tee of Waco, on our website: hypercommon.com

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