Sep 102018
 

Linen postcard, Lover’s Leap at Lake of the Ozarks, 1940s.

Season 2 of the Netflix streaming series, Ozark, dropped August 31. In Season 1, a few establishing shots were grabbed at Lake of the Ozarks, but the series itself was filmed in Georgia thanks to that state’s generous tax credits for filmmakers. To our utter amazement, the last scene of that first episode showed Marty Byrde’s (Jason Bateman) first sight of the Lake at a spot we recognized as Lover’s Leap, a precipitous bluff near the drowned town of Linn Creek. J. W. Vincent, editor of the Linn Creek Reveille, included his version of the tale that gave the spot its name in his  1913 booklet, Tales of the Ozarks. Winona states she “will die rather than be false to her lover” before leaping off the cliff.

Lover’s Leaps on the Osage and the James rivers got us interested in the subject. Then we ran across Mark Twain’s satiric comments on the fate of Winona and the legend of Maiden Rock (Wisconsin). “There are fifty Lover’s Leaps along the Mississippi from whose summit disappointed Indian girls have jumped but this is the only jump in the lot that turned out the right and satisfactory way.” That got us working on our new project, Lover’s Leap Legends: From Sappho of Lesbos to Wah-Wah-Te of Waco.

Lens & Pen books are available on this website, on amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.

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