Specialty crops like strawberries, apples and tomatoes, where produced in the hilly Ozarks. As early as the 1870s the rail corporations promoted the region as “the Land of Big Red Apples.”
Sportsmen and vacationers were not the only groups invited to come and see the Ozarks. The Frisco Line’s full-page ad in a 1912 Washington, DC, Star Sunday Magazine asked, “why don’t you take your family to live in the beautiful Ozarks? A small farm in the Ozarks is the opportunity you need. Think what a wholesome, healthy life it would mean for your children. You can get a small place near good towns, and good schools, as low as $10 per acre.”
Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House books, and her husband Almanzo were typical of these late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century settlers. She and Manny bought their farm, Rocky Ridge, near Mansfield in 1894. They practiced progressive farming and she wrote her classic books on pioneer family life.
Through the decades, Ozarks promotional material often mixed appeals to both vacationers and would-be immigrants. Visitors today are seen as potential buyers of condos or second homes. After a lifetime as summer visitors, many people come to live in the region when they retire. Others, who spent their childhood in the Ozarks and their working lives in faraway cities, often return to their roots.
Vintage Ozarks is a feature we provide to the monthly publication, River Hills Traveler. Our company, Lens & Pen Press, publishes all color books on the Ozarks. This image is taken from See the Ozarks: The Touristic Image. The hardback, all-color book on early tourism in our region is sale priced at $22.50, postage paid. Click on Buy our books .
