- Well, thank you guys for coming today.
I really appreciate it.
I always give the
disclaimer, I am a writer,
not a public speaker, so
you'll have to bear with me
because I always feel a little bit nervous
before I do these presentations.
But today, I'm here to talk
about unique places to visit
in the region.
And for those of you who I have not met,
I run a website called Ozarksalive.com
that gives me an excuse
to kind of wander around
and write stories about
a lot of different places
and pieces of history.
And it's actually let me
meet a lot of unique people
and special people too,
that's how I met Julie
and people here at the museum.
I've told the story several times,
about how when I was doing a story
about the Wizard of Oto, I came in here
and I was asking about information
and Julie loaded me into her
car and took me out to Oto
to show me where it was.
You can't get more
helpful people than that.
And so, that's been
one of the best stories
from doing these stories.
But as I've done these stories, which,
I guess I should keep...
I talk instead of doing my slides.
Why are we here?
Those stories, why are we here?
And I'm not talking about why are we here
in the grand scheme of life,
but today we're here to talk about
some of those unique places and people
and stories that define the region.
And I do have, I think it's
around 10 different places
I would suggest that you
visit, if you're out and about.
But really it's also about
the history behind them.
So there are several of them that
I think the backstory is as fascinating
as the actual attraction.
So we'll get into those as we go along.
The first one, and I
feel especially nervous
talking about this, 'cause
it's a Stone County thing,
but I wanna go ahead and
mention the Y Bridge.
And I assume that most of you
have been to the Y Bridge.
I know there's the whole deal about,
you don't visit places in your home town.
So maybe there are a few
of you haven't been there.
But if you have or have not,
I would encourage you to go visit
this really unique place.
And hopefully, probably this is a repeat
for some of you on the history of it,
but I just think it's fascinating.
And it's one of the places,
I'm embarrassed to say,
I didn't know about until I
just drove past it one day.
Probably a few years ago, I'm like,
"Oh, my gosh, what is this
amazing bridge right here?"
And I stopped and looked at it.
And of course, it's just beautiful.
It's this work of art, really.
And I saw that there was a display there
and so I stopped and read about it.
But then I really, once I left there,
knew I wanted to do a story
and started delving into
the history behind it.
And so, it's really interesting.
This is from before the bridge was there,
but as you probably know, this area became
a tourist destination, even
as far back as the 1800s.
With float trips and Eureka Springs being
relatively close-by, people
were really wanting to come
to the area for a variety
of different reasons.
It was difficult to get here, though.
I mean, especially back in the 1800s,
you didn't even have a railroad here
until the early 1900s.
And so, it was just very, very difficult.
However, that said, when
the railroad came in,
in I think 1906, it really
opened a whole new world
around here, especially
when you compile that
with "Shepherd of the
Hills" publication in 1907.
You had both a huge
draw for people to come
and a way for them to get here,
which really began to increase the tourism
around Stone County, around
where we would think of
Reeds Springs area as well.
But this began to evolve as time went on.
And what kind of happened in the 1920s
that was a revolutionary
thing in our society?
The advent of personal cars.
More and more people were
able to have their own cars.
And yet, there weren't a lot of good roads
for them to get places on.
And so there was a push
around that time to,
the Good Roads Movement was in full force.
It's not tied to this, but you think,
Route 66 began 1926,
that was a 1920s thing.
There was a big push for this.
And it's no surprise, in
line with those things,
1926 was when work began on the Y Bridge.
It was in line with all of those things.
This goes back to the float trips,
just another illustration
about the popularity.
It says, "There were summer
resorts and vacation points
"where one can rest the
body in indolent hammocks,
"and others where one may find
"the call to physical exercise."
I'm guessing floating is probably more
that physical exercise one.
(audience member laughing)
"There are places that stir
the blood of the hunter
"and the fisher and others
that appeal to the eye,
"which seeks beauty.
"But never have I found in any one trip
"that came so nearly
combining all of these
"as the float trip down
the James and White Rivers
"in the Ozarks."
And that still hangs on,
we still do a lot of floating today.
Anyway, so 1926 was when
construction began on the bridge.
You still see that plaque there today.
And it took several months,
it wasn't an overnight thing.
But it was finally ready for unveiling
in November of 1927.
This was dedication day.
And I wanna read a couple of
different newspaper excerpts
from this, because I love old newspapers.
They just kinda set the
whole tone for things.
But it says, this was one from
the Stone County News Oracle,
in the issue after this dedication day.
It says, "A crowd estimated at about 3,000
"attended the dedication
ceremony of Stone County's
"new state highway bridge
across James and Galena
"last Sunday.
"The day was raw and
cold, but in spite of all
"throughout points in south Missouri,
"some in Kansas City,
Jefferson City, and St. Louis
"forgot that it was bad weather,
"they were so busy
enjoying the new bridge."
They had several different
speakers throughout the day.
One of them, another
notable name around here
was Dewey Short, who was the
final speaker of the day,
and proclaimed, let's see
if I can remember it right,
that tourism was as
important to the Ozarks
as fruit, the cow, and the hen.
If I remember that right.
(audience laughing)
The hen is definitely one of them,
because you can't forget that.
I mean, and I don't know if it's a tie.
I don't think there was
preplanning in this,
but it was interesting,
one article noticed
about how they all
feasted on chicken legs.
I think there's gotta be more to that,
but I don't know the
backstory of that exactly.
But there was a note in
that article about the food.
And it didn't mention the
chicken legs in this one,
but it said, "The first
thing on the program
"was a big basket dinner."
And according to Dr. Kerr of Crane,
I don't know who that was, but
apparently a reliable source,
he said "The tables
reached from Reeds Spring
"to Ponce de Leon."
(audience laughing)
- [Audience Member]
That'd be quite a ways.
- Yeah, it would be quite a ways.
I don't know that that's exactly accurate.
But then the paper says, "Anyway,
there was plenty to eat."
So we know, regardless of the distance,
nobody went away hungry.
And in effect, the day was a good one.
The last paragraph of that story said,
"The celebration went off like clockwork,
"and publicity thus given Stone County
"will be far-reaching in its effects.
"Many people thought we were
only a small bridge here
"across a small branch, but
when they saw its magnitude
"and realized what it
means to construct a bridge
"such as this one, they
were indeed surprised."
You think about, back
then there weren't photos
of the progress in newspapers.
So you had to just kind
of imagine what this was.
Probably part of the
reason so many people came
in person, they wanted to
see this as it was done.
"Had the day been warm and fair,
"our little town would not have
accommodated all who came."
So, this puts in kind of
perspective what magnitude
this was for this region.
And we kinda...
This was 1927, like I said,
we're gonna jump forward here.
This is what it looked like in the 1950s.
This was a photo that the
News-Leader took back then.
And you can kinda see it off on the side.
This bridge continued serving this area,
I think, through the mid-1980s.
And I didn't see a lot of...
We hear a lot these days about controversy
over closing bridges and things like that.
And I may just not have
found the newspaper articles
that talked about the controversy.
It seemed pretty straightforward to me
that in the mid-1980s, the
bridge needed to be replaced
and they decided to turn it
into a pedestrian bridge,
which it is now.
So, this is another picture of it today.
The thing I found really
interesting about this is,
it is a bridge, and
just a bridge, I guess.
But I've been out there several times
since that first visit,
and I always see people around there.
Even one day, I think it was
the day I took these pictures,
there were two teenage girls
just walking across the bridge,
talking and laughing and stuff.
And you think about, it
clearly is an ingrained part
of the culture and a
very cool place to have
and be able to enjoy.
So if you have not been out to the bridge,
I would encourage you to do so.
And you can think about those floaters
who were going underneath
the bridge way back when.
And still do, actually.
I've floated over here and got out
at the Y Bridge access point, or the Kerr.
Is that the Kerr one?
I don't remember.
But anyway, I've floated
along here, as well.
- Cox Access.
- The Cox one, okay.
So the next thing I'm gonna jump into
are Missouri Show Caves.
Now I will say up front,
I really don't like caves.
Which might make you wonder,
why am I talking about them?
But I feel that, number one,
they are such a big part
of Missouri's history that
you can't ignore them.
And two, I like the stories behind them.
So those are two things, here let me...
(chair scrapping)
That I'm gonna get more into
with a few of these places, briefly.
So the first one I'm gonna talk about
is Bluff Dwellers Cave
out in McDonald County.
This is another place, I
think I just learned about it
when I was driving down the road
and saw a billboard for it.
But it's a cave down in McDonald County,
down in Noel, or NoEl,
if we're in December,
that has been open to the
public since the 1920s.
It's very beautiful.
I'm not gonna be able to tell you
anything about this picture,
other than that I know
this is a stalagmite.
Because I learned that in sixth grade.
Because remember, the tight
ones hang from the ceiling
and the mites grow up from the ground.
So I can tell you that,
I think that's true.
I think it looks really pretty.
I know there are critters
that live in it, like bats.
And other reptilian creatures.
I know that this is
called the lake in there,
this is Crystal Lake, which
is a very still body of water
that's been in there ever
since explorers have been in it
in recent, in this modern time.
And I can also tell you that there is
a very unique creature
that lives in this cave.
Probably no other cave in
the world has this creature.
And that is the duck.
(audience laughing)
(laughs) The cave duck
has lived in this cave
since the 1950s.
And of course, it's a joke
that they talk about now,
but it was something that...
I don't know how the duck
got in there to begin with.
Clearly, it did not wander in on its own.
But it's something that little kids love,
'cause they might be
scared, the cave's kind of
a scary, dark place,
and they see that duck
and they think it's hilarious.
(audience laughing)
So the cave duck has lived...
And it also shows the preservation
not being out in sunlight,
'cause that duck's been there
for like 75 years or something,
and he's still looking pretty good.
So you can visit the cave
and see all these things.
But I wanna back up for a second
and talk about the origins
of this cave in modern times.
Because, like I said, it is a
very longstanding attraction
here in the Ozarks.
This picture was from
around when it opened
to the public in 1927.
It had been discovered
sometime before that
by a man named Arthur Browning,
who lived in that area.
He was walking out one
day, felt some cold air
and realized, after some investigating,
that there was a cave there.
And they went inside and
realized it was beautiful,
and thought that the public
would like to know about it.
Now, I wanna jump back to what
I said at the beginning here,
because this was actually a
really kind of a new concept
to open up a cave to the public back then.
It was not the first show cave,
but once again, there
weren't a lot of ways
for people to see these places
when there weren't roads.
And so, it was difficult.
But once the '20s, '30s, '40s came along,
show caves exploded in
Missouri, and were everywhere.
And a lot of them have closed.
There are still, of course,
ones that are open today
like Bluff Dwellers, but it
was kind of a trend setter
in the grand scheme of things.
Which is why I'm gonna segue again here
and talk about somebody
who I find fascinating.
I think I should just do an
article about him sometime,
'cause he's really,
really interesting to me.
And it's a guy named J.A. "Dad" Truitt.
He's known as The Caveman,
or The Caveman of the Ozarks.
And actually, if you decide
after hearing about him
that you wanna learn more,
there is an entire book
written about him called,
"From the Cradle to the Cave."
(audience laughing)
So, that sets the tone.
J.A. was not an Ozarks native.
He moved here with his
wife, I think in 1914.
But he had always loved caves,
had been a guide out at Cave
of the Winds in Colorado
as a teenager.
And somehow, I don't know exactly how,
but got into the show
cave development business
in McDonald County.
And ended up finding, or
working as a promoter,
for many different caves in that area.
Which I'm always a little confused about
because he would find a cave, development,
open it to the public, and
move on to another one.
And I'm like, didn't
those people have him sign
a non-compete agreement?
Because, you'd have like
six or seven different caves
and they're all in a really close area.
But anyway, that was his life's work,
was he went from cave to
cave and developed them
and opened them.
Into his...
This book was written,
I think, when he was 89
and he was just getting
ready to open another one.
So, it was a life-long thing, for sure.
I know that he was connected
with Bluff Dwellers
in some capacity.
I don't really understand
what that connection was.
This book mentions it quite a lot.
And so, I know that it was
a thing he was focused on.
I think there may have
been some bad feelings
with the family that
discovered it, though,
because whenever I ask some
questions in the interview
when I did the story, it
was kinda vague on what...
They didn't...
There wasn't a lot of people...
They wouldn't wanna talk much about that.
So I'm not sure if...
And I may be just jumping to conclusions,
but I get the sense that
maybe there was some...you know
Not everybody was super
happy about the arrangement
at the time.
But anyway, he was a
huge force, like I said.
And so you can visit Bluff Dwellers,
that he was connected with.
But there's another cave down there
that's still a place you
can go and visit, as well,
that was tied to him.
And that's a place that's
known today as The Cave.
It's very imaginative.
But back in the day, it
was known as Truitt's Cave,
named after him.
And it was a place to
go eat, for many years.
We'll get to the fact that it is actually
a place to eat now, as well.
But it was said, it had
this Ripley's connection
where it had the only
fireplace in the world
with natural flue through a
mountain and a living spring
flowing beneath, because that
means you need to eat there.
(audience laughing).
Those things, big deal.
But of course, it also had cave formations
and things that they promoted, as well.
So it was kind of the
combination attraction.
Today, this is the exterior of the cave.
It's got a very unique
story of its own right now.
This man, at least as of
when I did the article,
owned the cave.
And he bought the cave
because he was convinced
that the world was going to end.
And he moved here from somewhere
else to live in the cave
and wait for the end of the world.
And he bought the goats because
they needed something to eat
after the world ended.
(audience laughing).
So, the world's end did
not come on schedule.
I think there was a set day he
thought it was gonna happen.
And it did not happen.
And so he decided he
needed a way to make money,
and so he opened a restaurant.
It's okay to laugh.
It's actually, it's a very unusual story.
But he...
It's now a restaurant.
You can go and eat at the restaurant,
you can pet the goats.
- [Audience Member] Do they serve goat?
- I'm sorry?
- [Audience Member] Do they serve goat?
- They do not serve
goat, as far as I know.
(audience laughing)
(laughs) But they serve a lot of burgers.
That was, at least when I was there,
that was their primary thing, was burgers.
And it is cool.
I mean, he and his wife, they
had no restaurant experience.
I think he was in IT for
the Department of Defense.
His wife was a principal or something.
And so, they were very
excited that they had
remade themselves into a new career,
which, I mean, it's a
very unusual, cool story.
It's just very unusual.
So anyway, that's another place,
when you're down that way.
Bluff Dwellers, like I said, is in Noel.
This cave is in Lanagan area.
So they're both pretty close together.
But that'd make kind of a
unique day trip, out that way.
The third cave, and
then I'll get off caves,
I'm gonna talk about is
Talking Rocks Cavern,
also here in Stone County.
Which, I say this before
every one of these things,
I just found it so
interesting as I got into it.
But, Talking Rocks Cavern is one of the
first tourist attractions of this area.
I mean, of course first
in terms of it took
thousands and thousands
of years for it to form,
but first also in terms
of bringing people here
and giving them something to do.
That's because, well, it
goes back to this guy.
Well, this guy was part of it.
This is Waldo Powell, who
is posing in the entrance
to Talking Rocks, as it was in the past.
But this came to be as a public attraction
because of the Powell family.
His father, Truman Powell,
moved to the area back
many, many years ago.
He was a newspaperman who
moved down here from Lamar,
most recently, because of health issues.
Moved to the area and ended up staying.
But they discovered
this cave at some point
and eventually decided that they wanted
to turn it into a tourist attraction.
Now, they also have kind of
a unique element to this,
and I'll keep moving
through these pictures.
That's one of the first
buildings when they first opened.
It says, "Fairy Cave," because originally
that was its name.
They called it Fairy Cave,
because they believed
it looked like a fairy
wonderland in there.
And it was a draw, I guess,
from early on when it opened.
It's interesting, you've got Fairy Cave,
and then of course you've
got Marvel/Marble Cave
over at Silver Dollar City
that aren't too far apart,
but they kind of coexisted.
But the other element of this was that
both Truman Powell and Waldo Powell,
the guy that you saw in the picture,
were said to be connected with characters
in "Shepherd of the Hills."
So they were not...
There was a lot of speculation back then
about who provided the
inspiration for the characters
in the book, and really
only one person, Uncle Ike,
was said to be tied to Levi Morrill.
That was a definite connection.
But everyone else, it
was up for speculation.
Which of course was a
great deal for tourists.
Because you could say,
"We believe that this
"is so-and-so."
And so, since two of the characters,
the Shepherd, who was
said to be Truman Powell,
and Oli, who was said to be Waldo Powell,
filled these roles, it was
a great tourist attraction
because of that, too.
That's one of the Powells, as well.
But it's also a great tourist attraction
because of someone named Pearl Spurlock,
who you've probably heard of before.
This was Miss Spurlock.
And she tied all this together.
Because this, I would say,
was the first bus tour
of the area, of the Ozarks, really.
Back before there were
roads, like we talked about,
or good roads, anyway,
she would pick up tourists
at the train station
and take them on trips
to all these spots that they needed to see
and Talking Rock/Fairy Cave
was one of the places she went.
And she would position this as,
"You're gonna go see
characters from this book."
And so, that was a huge draw.
I was fortunate to get to interview a guy
named Walker Powell before he passed away.
He was the grandson of Truman Powell,
and actually remembered the
cave opening back in the 1920s.
He's since passed away,
but I talked to him
a few years ago, he was in his late 90s.
And he said that he was a teenager,
he did not really
appreciate being pointed out
every time someone
showed up as the grandson
of "Shepherd of the Hills."
So, a teenager didn't find that too fun.
Anyway, that was her gimmick,
I guess you could say.
I say gimmick in a nice way.
It was a great way to
show people the Ozarks.
But just to prove a point
about how daring, really,
this lady was, to drive all
these people around in her car.
This was one of the roads
that she drove people over.
Road is kind of a...
I don't know if that's
the right word for this.
(audience laughing)
But it was the version of
the road she went down.
And so, you can imagine
how much of an adventure
it would've been perusing
the Ozarks back then.
But anyway, it did get Fairy Cave shown
to a lot of people.
These are some of the
formations from inside the cave.
Like I started out saying today,
this is known as Talking Rock's Cavern.
It was known as Fairy Cave
through the late 1960s.
The Powell family continued to own it.
But then they eventually sold it.
I believe it was 1969.
Does anyone know who they sold it to?
Surprised me when I found out.
- [Audience Member] The Herschends.
- The Herschends.
The Herschends own it.
So they own this, and,
of course, Marvel Cave
over at Silver Dollar City.
And I don't know why that was the case.
I don't know why they decided
to do that, but they did.
And they've maintained
ownership of it ever since.
And it's completely operated
as a separate attraction
and everything.
But it was amazing to me going in there
and thinking about how this was something
that some of the very early
tourists to the Ozarks had seen.
I will say, like I said, I
know nothing about caves,
I learned one thing, though,
on this trip to this cave.
And that is something that
I think would be obvious
to everyone else, but somehow
it did not sink in to me,
and that is, when it rains,
cave tours turn into water rides.
This is a picture of me in the cave
the day that I was there.
I'll always remember
this day because it was
the Saturday of those
horrific floods we had
in April of 2017.
And it was just like a shower
when you went in there,
it was just water everywhere.
And somehow, I've gotten the message
from all of the advertisements
that it's a constant
temperature in caves year-round,
but I had not gotten
the message about how,
avoid rainy days.
But I will remember that forever.
(audience member laughing)
So the next thing I'm gonna shift,
in a little bit of a different direction,
more towards the Ozark
Douglass County area
and talk about some of
the very popular mills
that are cool places to visit.
I think it's interesting,
and I don't have any
facts to back this up,
but I know that we don't have
a lot of mills that are left.
You see old schools and
churches and things like that
pretty often, but not mills as much.
And I think that they exist in this area,
the Douglass Ozark County areas
because there was an
effort, in the '70s, '80s,
to do Mill tours down around that area.
And so, you had enough
interest at that point
to revive these buildings to a state
that they weren't gonna fall down.
At least, as quickly
as ones in other areas.
But the first one I'm gonna talk about
is a place called Topaz Mill,
which is one of my most
favorite places that I've done.
It's a very, very cool destination.
I will say that this was an experience
getting to this place.
I felt like I was on a
road back like that one
that Pearl Spurlock was driving.
And I'm no stranger to gravel roads,
I drive on them all the
time; they don't bother me.
But I did even have to
pause when I looked over
and saw the remnants of a campfire
in the middle of the road and thought,
perhaps this is not
the road most traveled.
(audience laughing)
I will say that after I arrived,
I was told that I took the bad road.
And there is a much
better way to get there,
should you choose to visit.
But Topaz Mill is part of
the community of Topaz.
This was what it looked like in 1967.
This is an article that
the Ozark Mountaineer did.
And Topaz was a pretty
typical little town, I think,
from back in the day.
They had a store building,
which you can see the
mill is that next one.
They had a post office, barbershop there.
But this town was actually
pretty short-lived
compared to some of the others.
And really, around the time
World War II came along
was fairly non-existent anymore.
That said, this is still
what it looks like now.
You can kinda see, it
looks actually better
than it did back in the '60s.
And that's because, back in the 1950s,
a family purchased the town of Topaz,
if you can purchase a town,
or the remnants of it.
And moved down here from Republic.
They were farmers.
And you might recall, or have heard,
that there was a drought in the 1950s
and it was difficult for people back then.
And so, they wanted to relocate someplace
with a water source.
And so this advertisement talked about
Mill Spring, lots of
flowing water and all this.
And so, they purchased this and
moved everything down there.
And the same family still owns it.
Since they purchased it,
one particular family member
was very enthused about
restoring parts of it.
I guess there had been,
actually, a family connection
with knowing about how mills worked,
and so there was kind of a deep affection
for that technology and everything.
And just, has gradually restored things.
And at least, in addition to restoring
and just maintained, as well,
because there's just a lot of cool things
to go in and see in these places.
This is inside the store building.
You still see things like
the paper roll, the signage.
I didn't have an interior picture,
but it's just this really big room
with all sorts of different things to see.
The thing I liked even
more than that, though,
is the mill...
Well, there's another picture of the mill.
But the mill itself.
It still has all the old machinery.
It even still has the old barber chair
from when it had the barbershop.
And you can see on the
wall, "Haircuts, $.25,
"tonic, $.10."
And it's just like a time capsule,
that just was locked up and kind of left,
in a sense that, it
wasn't left to fall down,
but left in that we didn't disturb it.
And so, it's just a
really, really cool place.
The owners today, like I said,
it's still the same family,
but they love showing off this place.
And so, anyone who wants
to come down and visit,
they'll give tours and talk about this
as much as somebody wants to hear.
It's free to visit, they
don't charge anything.
They do have a non-profit
established to take donations
to help upkeep it.
But it's just a very cool chance to see
that this is exactly how
something was in the past,
that hasn't been altered, really at all.
- [Audience Member] What's a tonic?
- It's a thing with a shave, isn't it?
I've not studied old-fashioned
barbering, so I'm not--
(audience member murmuring)
Oh, in the hair.
Oh, there you go.
Now we both know. (laughs)
(audience murmuring)
- It's like volume cream oil, I guess.
- Yeah. (laughs)
So the next one I'm gonna
talk about is Rock Bridge,
which probably, a few
more of you have been to
if you've been out that way.
Rock Bridge has been preserved
in a different way than Topaz.
Because today, Rock Bridge
is really a destination
in Ozark County.
It was also a small town.
It started back in the early 1800s,
was, I think, at one point the
county seat of Ozark County.
And up until just a couple years ago,
had the oldest post office in Ozark County
because they still operated out of
the main store building there.
And I think they've been in operation
since something like 1842,
something ridiculously long.
But Rock Bridge today still
has the old mill building,
which you can see there.
This picture was also taken
after the April, 2017 flood,
so that's why it's kind of not perfect.
But it is a destination for
a bunch of different reasons.
You have the mill itself,
where there's a restaurant
and kind of bar area, you can
see, where that railing is.
And then they also have places to stay.
They're a big place to go fishing
and shooting, and things like that.
But then they also have
a regular restaurant
that's over in a building
behind this mill, which...
There's another older picture of the mill.
But this is the building,
where the building sits.
This is not the same building
where the restaurant is now,
because that burned.
But they rebuilt it very similarly.
And it's just a really cool place to go
and feel like you're in a
different world, almost.
It's very remote and beautiful.
And I would suggest, any time of year,
they're open all year these days,
but especially once
trees start greening up,
it would be a great time to go down there
and check it out.
Especially if you're doing this day trip,
you can hit Topaz first and see that
and then go on to Rock Bridge.
And then, the last mill
I'm gonna talk about,
oh that's more of the...
See, I just keep talking,
I like to talk too much.
Is Hodgson Mill, which is here.
And I would bet that
most of you've at least
seen pictures of Hodgson, because...
This is not a reliable statistic
because I don't remember where I heard it,
but I heard it someplace that Hodgson is
the most recognizable mill
in the world, or something.
And part of that, I would
guess, if that is true,
is tied to the fact that
there is a brand of food
called Hodgson Mill.
And it's because of this
mill, it wasn't a coincidence.
But this mill, I have not
written a story about this mill.
It's on my list.
So I'm not sure about
as many of the specifics
as I am about some of these places.
But, this mill fascinates
me because it was
a tourist attraction long
before any of the others were.
I've found newspaper
articles back to the 1940s
talking about people
gathering at Hodgson Mill
for different events.
State Chamber of Commerce
leaders met there one year
for their convention.
It was a destination on
maps for a long time.
The mill has gone through
a series of owners
and different purposes.
It no longer grinds any kind of meal,
or anything like that.
The business that is called Hodgson Mill
does not operate out of here at all,
I think they're in Illinois.
But the thing that I find
especially interesting
about this is, as far as
I've been able to tell,
the owner of this mill does
not live in the Ozarks.
The owner lives in
Mississippi and is actually,
from what I've been able to find out,
an attorney down there
who is very interested
in historic preservation
and restoration projects.
And so, I did call his office at one point
when I started to do an article,
and I didn't hear back from him,
so I need to get back on that again.
But I just wonder what his
ultimate purpose is with this.
Because I stopped in at
the local gas station,
everybody knows everything
at the gas station,
and they didn't even really
know what the plan was
with the mill.
It used to be open to the public for tours
and things like that.
It's not anymore.
The signage is still out there.
It's not in the picture,
but like, "Gift shop"
and "Hours," and stuff from the past.
But it looks like they
still allow people to visit.
That said, visit at your own risk
from anywhere other than the road,
because it is technically
private property.
But there are picnic
tables and it's maintained
and there aren't any No Trespassing signs.
So, I think it's a fairly safe bet
that they're okay with
visitors taking a picnic lunch
out there or some snacks or whatever.
But if nothing else,
it's a really cool place
to drive by because it's just beautiful
with that waterfall and everything.
And it's a great scenic spot to check out.
- [Audience Member] Did
you take that photo?
- I did.
- [Audience Member] Very nice.
- Oh, thank you.
Panoramic function on iPhones is helpful
(audience laughing)
So the next place I'm gonna talk about
is a place called Spencers' Sweet Call,
which is an old-fashioned
candy store out in Webb City.
Spencers' is not its original name.
The original name of the
store was the Minerva.
And this is a picture from the past.
But the Minerva was started by a family
of Greek origin in the
early 1900s in Webb City.
And developed a really big following
over the subsequent decades.
They were especially well-known
for their chocolate Easter
eggs at Easter time,
and they were known for their
candy canes at Christmas time.
And this picture is from 1980.
I think, yeah, Mike
back there did the story
and took the picture of this back then.
But this was one of the Mallos family,
that they were not the founding family,
it was actually purchased, I think,
relatively soon after it started,
but they owned it for the majority
of the time it was around.
And they operated it till
around 2008, I believe,
if I remember it correctly,
and then it closed.
It was purchased by a couple
who tried to reopen it
and did a lot of work
restoring the building.
Ultimately, that did not
work and they ended up
selling it again, to a
couple who reopened it
and now it is open.
It's been open for the
last couple of years.
This man is Charles Spencer,
he's one of the people who purchased it.
He and his wife are the ones who own it.
He's actually a minister.
She's in some kind of education work.
But he had been an amateur
candy-making enthusiast
and found the listing
for the store one day
when he was trying to find
some used candy equipment.
And ended up just buying
the store instead.
So it was kind of an unexpected purchase.
But they came down, I think
they lived in Lee Summit.
And this is their new project,
this is what they're doing.
They make all the candies there,
except for ones that are...
They've got some penny candy and jar candy
that people recognize, but
the vast majority of stuff
they all make themselves.
The thing he said was interesting
was learning how to scale
up, because he was used
to making small batches
for himself and things,
but now having to make it for a store
is a whole different ballgame,
and learning how to scale
up and down ingredients.
This is the inside of the store.
You can kinda see, the tile work
on the floor is just amazing.
It's so intricate.
And even, you kind of
saw it in this picture,
but the back bar is just
covered with mirrors everywhere.
It's just a stunningly beautiful space.
And their candy is all very good.
They also have other things too.
They have homemade ice cream, pies, cakes,
cinnamon rolls, all sorts
of things like that.
And the really unique thing I found
was that this year, they
brought back the candy canes.
(audience member laughing)
And so, they had the old
candy-making equipment,
which I had never seen in action.
And unfortunately, I don't
have a very good picture of it.
But, it is this thing down here,
you can see that the light is a flame.
And they have this big ball of dough,
such as it is, that they string out
and the flame keeps it
warm enough to be moldable.
And they string it out, and
then they cut it with scissors,
and then they mold it into the candy cane
and it hardens like that.
So, it was really interesting.
And was super cool.
I mean, who else makes
candy canes around here?
It's a really neat place.
So if you're out by around Joplin,
I would encourage you
to make a stop in there
and see them.
And onto more food stuff.
I figured I would talk about
the Ozark Cafe as well.
It's hard with restaurants sometimes,
because longtime restaurants
always have cool stories,
but a lot of it ties to the fact
that the food is just really good,
and it's just continued.
So as far as notable things to talk about,
that's always a little
bit difficult sometimes.
But the Ozark Cafe in
Jasper is an exception
because, in addition
to having amazing food
and being a local hangout,
it's also nationally
and internationally known.
This restaurant, it dates
back to the very early 1900s,
when it started on the square in Jasper.
I will note, don't get this confused,
there is an Ozark Cafe, I
believe in Berryville, as well,
so this is the one in Jasper.
Which, if you're familiar with Arkansas,
is in the middle of Buffalo River country.
So it's a very beautiful scenic area,
and also, once again,
go back to the roads,
this presentation is like,
all presentations lead back to the roads,
it was very difficult to
get to until recent years
because of very gravel, curvy roads
that led down into Jasper.
So for many years, the
majority of its existence,
this was just a local hangout.
But with the development
of the Buffalo River
as a tourist destination,
this began to get
a lot more popular, and
eventually caught the attention
of The New York Times, as
well as "Man Versus Food."
It's been featured nationally.
And even the day I was
there doing the story,
there was a guy from England who was there
and had heard about it and
wanted to check it out.
So it's a very cool place.
But that said, it's still a
place where the locals come.
I didn't ask them, I'm
not thinking those people
on the left are tourists.
(audience laughing)
Maybe they are.
(audience member murmuring)
Yeah, but it's a place that's remained
a really authentic stop for
locals in that area, as well.
And they do lots of things.
They've got Saturday night music,
that's a picture in here, too.
Saturday night music.
They do quirky things, like the menu's printed
on newspaper, that's what
that woman was reading
when you saw that first picture.
They also, of course, do
have some dishes of food
that are very kind of noteworthy for them.
One of them is called the Excaliburger,
which is this ginormous burger
that's got a knife in it, 'cause it's so big,
it needs it to hold it together.
And another--
(audience member murmuring)
Yeah. (laughs)
Another really unique aspect of this,
and it doesn't have to do with the food,
but it just has to do with the atmosphere
and kind of feel of this place,
is that the current owners, I think,
have owned it for a few
years now, not terribly long,
But they told me the story about how
years ago, the woman,
it's a husband and wife
and her daughter and her
son-in-law who own it together,
she had lived in the area for a long time
and back in the day, she was
pregnant with her daughter
who's the other co-owner.
And back then, they're so
remote from everything else
that it was hard to get to
the hospital to have a baby.
And so, the deal was,
if you could arrange it,
'cause we could arrange that
so well, and plan ahead,
you could have it at the nursing home,
because there was a suite
that the local doctor
could meet you there
and you could (laughs)
have it at the nursing home.
Because it was too hard
to get to the hospital.
You have to go to someplace far away.
And so, she had the baby,
that all worked out,
she had the baby there.
And of course, shockingly,
she didn't feel like
making lunch after she got
home from having the baby,
and so they stopped at the
Ozark Cafe and had lunch
right after she had the baby.
And so, she and her, this was
her daughter's first stop,
anywhere, probably in her life,
and then she ended up
owning the restaurant later.
(audience laughing)
So, it's probably just destiny.
So it's a really neat place to check out.
And of course, while
you're there, I'll back up,
you get to see this.
So, it's definitely a
amazing place to visit.
Everywhere around the Buffalo
River is incredibly scenic
and worth a trip all in itself.
- [Audience Member] So, could you clarify.
I was so excited to see that
person reading the newspaper.
- Yes.
- [Audience Member]
That's actually a menu?
- It is a menu. (laughs)
(audience laughing)
Sorry to disappoint you. (laughs)
- [Audience Member] It's a big menu.
- (laughs) Yeah.
So then I'll jump over to Dallas County,
back up into Missouri, at
a place called Windyville.
And this is a place, I have
talked about Windyville before
occasionally in other presentations,
and most people have heard
of it for one reason.
Has anyone heard of Windyville?
- [Audience Member] Yes.
- Yes.
- Been there.
- Yes, what'd you think of it?
- There wasn't much there.
Doesn't it have some kind of a cult, or...
- (laughs) I think you're...
Yeah, there's the School of Metaphysics,
which is down the road.
Yes.
But the reason that people
generally know of Windyville
is because it's said to be haunted.
It's got a very wide following for
its supposedly paranormal existence.
And at the heart of this town,
like Julie said, there's not much left,
but there is now a reopened General Store,
which is where this
picture was taken from.
Windyville, kind of like Topaz
and the other communities
we talked about, started
out many years ago.
This was an early picture of the store.
It had your pretty typical
Ozarky community things.
The name of the town I find hilarious
because it was supposedly named after
the original settlers who
had such long-winded tales
that they had to call
the place Windyville.
(audience laughing)
But it started out, here is
one of the early pictures.
Unfortunately, it also
fell into disrepair.
People moved away, the
community kind of dried up,
until just a couple of years ago
whenever someone came
in and bought the store
and completely restored it.
And so, today you can go and
visit the Windyville store.
You can also stay there,
which is a great draw
for people who are
interested in ghost hunting
because you can hang out and
see if you think it's true.
One of the really quirky
little things about it, though,
is, well, you can see things
like the original sign,
which was salvaged as it was restored.
But you can buy $.15
baloney sandwiches in there.
(audience laughing)
That was one of the things
the owner wanted to do,
was she wanted to bring back something
that people could reminisce about,
and also introduce a new generation to.
So, you can go in there and get yourself
a $.15 sandwich.
And also while you're there,
you can check out the old cannery,
which is behind the store,
which I have been told,
they have just recently started, actually,
offering tours of.
And I have not been inside.
I was out there before they
had gotten it ready to see,
and was...
I can deal with gravel roads,
I can't deal with random snakes.
And I decided maybe I'd wait to tour this.
Or ghosts, 'cause that's
supposedly haunted, too.
But if you're out that
way, get your sandwich,
get a tour, I think they
do the tours on Saturdays.
But they're on Facebook, so
you can check that out for sure
on time and things like that.
So the next place I'm gonna
mention is Bo's Hollow.
It's another kind of settlement,
except that this particular
settlement is a fake town
in the middle of nowhere,
as I would call it.
Bo's Hollow is kind of...
It's out there.
It's out kinda by Salem.
But it is a village that's
designed around the 1930s.
And none of the buildings,
as far as I'm aware,
unless they've added new
ones, are actually vintage.
They built them all brand new.
But they're all around the idea
that this is what a 1930s
village would look like.
So you have filled with
different memorabilia
and designs and displays.
And it also ties in
with this Model A theme,
because that's how this
originally started,
was the family were collectors.
People wanted to come
up and see their cars.
And so it eventually grew
into this attraction.
So while you're at this
town, let me back up,
while you're at this town, you can see,
they've got all sorts
of different buildings.
And they actually sell barbecue there,
so you can get lunch while you're there.
And you can take a ride in their car.
That was what this first
picture was taken from.
So, they'll take you on
scenic tours around the area.
Once again, with a road.
So there's that tie in
with the presentation.
But it's open seasonally.
So if you're interested in visiting there,
I would double check to make
sure they're open again,
but I think they open
around March or April
and stay open through October, or so.
The last couple places
I'm gonna talk about,
I think they're last, is a
really unique combination
of places in Lamar.
We very rarely see small
towns that still have
a movie theater, let alone both a drive-in
and a movie theater, but Lamar has both.
And it's kind of a really cool story.
They've both managed to survive
because of community support.
Both of them kind of had moments,
especially, I guess, the
main theater on the square,
where it was kind of like,
we have to decide if
we're going to save this
or it's going away, and
the community stepped up
and helped raise the money to restore it.
And so both of these are now owned,
technically, under a community
betterment association
who oversees them.
But there's actually a family
that is the primary overseers
of them, they run them all year round.
So the Barco Drive-In
stands for Barton County,
in Lamar where Barton County is.
Goes back to the 1950s,
and this is the screen.
One really quirky part that
is irrelevant to everything,
except I find it interesting,
is there's actually an
apartment built into the screen.
I guess that's where one
of the caretakers lived
in the past.
But anyway, during the summer months,
this was an ad from the grand opening
when it first opened.
But it's still, during
the summer, like I said,
I think most weekends,
maybe even during the week,
they have showings out
there of different movies.
That's one picture from a recent thing.
It's clearly still a very popular thing.
I mean, and with so few
drive-ins available these days,
I would bet they get some
traffic from far away.
And this is the theater on the square.
Which is very interesting to me.
It's art deco everywhere.
You go inside, it's
just, looks super '30s.
And it actually opened in the late 1930s.
I think they are almost, or
they celebrated an anniversary
last year, I think maybe it was 80th.
Or maybe 85th.
But they have been around
for a very long time.
They did have a period where
they closed for a period,
a brief number of years, but that's when
the community stepped up and decided
they wanted to reopen it.
And it's been open ever since.
One thing that was
interesting about its opening
was it was a huge deal,
as you can imagine,
but a big enough deal that
stars were sending telegrams
congratulating them on its opening.
Which makes you wonder what the deal was.
I don't know what the
connection, why they were aware.
One thing is, this is just
purely speculation on my part,
was it's been said that Clark
Gable came through the Ozarks
several times in early years,
and stayed at the Boots
in Carthage, which isn't next to Lamar,
but not that far.
And so, I wonder if maybe
he came through Lamar
at some point and met the owner
of the theater or something.
But there, once again,
kind of like the bridge
at the beginning, you
couldn't have photos of this
very easily as it was being constructed,
and so the words had to describe to people
what they were missing out on.
And this was what the newspaper printed
right as it was opening.
It says, "It is truly a place of dreams.
"Its acoustics seem perfect.
"The coldest and least imaginative visitor
"could not restrain an
expression of delighted wonder
"when you trod the
softly carpeted runways
"into the open spaces of the theater
"behind the subdued and
harmonious blending loveliness."
So...
- [Audience Member] Oh, dang!
(audience laughing)
(Kaitlyn laughing)
- [Audience Member] That's
laying it on pretty thick.
- Yeah.
This is kinda what they
saw in parts of it.
This is in the auditorium itself.
The murals, as per the
caretaker, like I said,
he does not believe
they've ever been touched,
since the 1930s when they opened.
And you can kinda see, it's like this
colonial-type French scene.
But there are details just everywhere
that are really cool.
This is the chandelier from the entryway.
There are lights and backlit
scenes and all sorts of things
that are just, make it an experience
to just go see the theater itself.
And another contrast with this theater is
they typically run first-run movies,
as opposed to waiting.
They have enough community support
that they tend to do that.
So you may not get it the
first weekend it's open,
but it's never too long behind that.
But, all that said,
I don't wanna keep you guys here all day,
even though I can keep talking all day.
I mentioned at the beginning
of this presentation that,
like I said, I run a
website where I get to
write about a lot of
different eating places
and people are generally
interested in getting out
and exploring different places.
And so a few months ago
I decided to publish
a few of these different places in a book,
which I have some with me today.
This is what the book looks like,
and here's a physical copy of it.
But it's got 61 different
places to visit in the region.
I've got photos and
stories about each one.
And it's my hope that
people will take this
and write in it and keep it in their car
and just use it as a guidebook
when they're gonna be
out and about and want something to do.
And that said, I am happy
for questions or comments.
Hopefully no tomato throwing.
Anything else that you'd
like to talk about?
And I would also say that
I have an email newsletter
that goes out whenever
I publish new stories,
so if you would like to be added to that,
just give me your email
address and I'll add you,
it's completely free.
But thank you very much
for letting me come present
and thank you for coming.
(audience applauding)
- Well Kaitlyn, this
has been very enjoyable.
- Well good. (laughs)
- Wanna go to some of those places.
When you mentioned that
you had written an article
about the Wizard of Oto,
our next program next month is going to be
a gentleman that we ran into somewhere,
I don't remember where we were, Linda.
- [Linda] Down at the
fair, the Country Fair.
- Oh, the Country Fair
down at wherever that--
- The Hillcrofters did?
- Hillcrofters.
- Oh, cool.
- And he said he knew who
the Wizard really was.
- Wow.
- And he supposedly has proof.
He is going to be here next month.
- Wow.
- Second Saturday, 2:00.
(Kaitlyn laughing)
So if you wanna know who
the real Wizard of Oto was,
he's supposed to let us know.
- [Linda] You might want to come early,
because Curtis Copeland is
also interested in this,
and is going to tell everyone he knows.
So we may very well have a
full building, very possible.
- We hope.
- [Linda] We hope.
- You never know.
People have other things to do.
But does anybody have
anything they'd like to
talk to Kaitlyn about, or
anything you wanna know
about the society?
We operate on dues and donations.
And if anybody knows of any grants,
we're happy to try to apply for those.
We wanna preserve as much
of the Ozarks as we can.
So you might hear some
things about the Y Bridge,
that needs some definite work on it.
And we don't know who to
ask to even get an estimate,
hardly.
Who does bridges?
Like that.
- [Audience Member] Who
actually owns the Y Bridge?
- It's supposedly owned
by the City of Galena.
- [Audience Member] Okay.
- But they have no money, so...
- [Audience Member] Yeah.
- [Audience Member] So it's in disrepair
even as a pedestrian bridge?
- Where are you from?
- Yes.
- I'm from Webster County
originally, but I live in Springfield now.
- Springfield?
- Yeah.
- Well, concrete, when it's 100 years old,
starts to...
- [Audience Member] Crumble.
- Crumble.
And there's places where
the rebar is showing.
And there's some pieces of concrete
that have fallen into the river,
which is not a good thing.
Because, if it hits somebody
as they're canoeing down,
or if the Corps of Engineers
decides it's a hazard...
- [Audience Member] They may take it out.
- They may decide to take it out.
But the last time somebody
wanted to take it out,
the neighborhood watch in Galena spent
oh, I know we raised $25,000,
so we probably spent more than that,
on doing some repairs on it.
But that's been 30 years ago.
And it needs it again.
And you've always got the little darlings
that go in there and take a hammer
and start pounding on stuff
if they see anything chipping away.
If they'd let some of us
take care of children
like we took care of ours,
they wouldn't do it more than once, but...
(audience laughing)
You're not allowed to even tell them no.
So, that might be
something you're gonna see
or hear about, if you're
interested in working on that,
helping find somebody who
could give us an estimate
of what could be done with
it, what it would cost.
From what we heard
last, the infrastructure
is still pretty good.
Now, it's survived the
major flood that we had in
oh, I think it must've been
about 2000 or maybe '99,
oh, it was in the '80s or '90s.
There was a major flood where the water
was up to the bottom of the
bridge, it was that high.
I mean, there were refrigerators
floating down the river.
- [Audience Member] And propane tanks.
- And propane tanks--
- I remember that.
- And cows.
(audience laughing)
I remember seeing cows, too.
People trying to pull them out.
I mean, it survived that
and people looked at
it and said it still--
- [Audience Member] How
much are your books?
There's a lady that wants one.
- They're $25.
Yeah.
- Yes, if you wanna buy books--
- Yes, yes, I have books.
They're $25 and I have a box of them,
so I can give you as many as you want.
- Yeah, and we--
- [Audience Member] So
Kaitlyn, what's the farthest
you've traveled to for a
story that you've written?
And what do you consider to be your range?
- Well, it's flexible because
I can go wherever I want to.
So generally, I stay over in
Missouri on the Kansas side,
but I will go down into Arkansas.
Thank you.
I will go down into Arkansas,
and I do go over to...
Around that Salem area is
about as far as I'll go
on the eastern edge.
Although, if there was
something I wanted to do,
I'd go farther.
But it's just hard because
I do this in my spare time
and so, it's generally nights
or weekends when I go places.
And so, it's a little
difficult on a Saturday
to get much farther than that
and not be ready to pass out
by the time I get back home.
So, those are the loose boundaries.
- [Audience Member]
There's a little store,
if it's still there, Iconium, Missouri.
Have you been to that little store?
- Uh-huh.
- [Audience Member]
It's up at Truman Lake.
- Oh!
Iconia?
- [Audience Member] Iconium, Iconia.
- Okay.
- [Audience Member] I
can't remember which,
but it's a little...
It's like that little town you had there.
- Oh, really?
- [Audience Member] It's
about the only thing there,
just a little store.
Just an old country store.
- Well thank you, I'll write that down,
I'll have to look that up.
- [Audience Member] I was
there four or five years ago,
she and I went up there
and wandered around,
stopped there and bought a few things.
- Well, thank you very much.
Yes, and that's a...
If you guys ever think of anything,
please email me or let me know,
because I love getting
suggestions for stories.
'Cause, a lot of places I write about,
I don't know about until
I randomly drive by them.
Or, somebody tells me. (laughs)
- [Audience Member] Well,
you was talking about
that one in Jasper, I
don't know how many times
I've drove through Jasper,
and we didn't even stop
to eat or something,
the time it took, I didn't
ever heard of that place.
- Yeah, it's really neat.
And, yeah.
It's just a very sweet place.
They were also talking
about how every year
they do a Thanksgiving
dinner for the community.
I think it's maybe by donation only,
or some nominal fee,
and all the money goes to a charity.
It's really nice, very nice people.
- [Audience Member] Gonna have to get out
and wander around.
- (laughs) Well, thank
you guys for coming.
I'll be here for awhile if
you wanna come up and chat,
but thank you.
- Thank you.
