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