Ozarks

• 1. Introduction

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  Wahzhazhe Summit, formerly known as Buffalo Lookout, stands 2,561 feet high in the far west of Newton County, Arkansas. It lies 6.2 miles east of the town of Boston, in neighboring Madison County. This is the highest point in the Ozarks. The region covers nearly 47,000 square miles, which makes it the most extensive highland between the Appalachians and the Rockies. It spreads across Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma, and it reaches a small corner of southeastern Kansas.

  Together with the Ouachita Mountains, the Ozarks form a larger upland that geographers call the U.S. Interior Highlands. Within that upland, one region has gathered an unusual collection of stories. Where did its odd name come from? What lies beneath its hills, and why do so many caves open under them? Why were some of its rivers dammed while one was fought over and saved? And how did a land of mills, fiddlers and tall tales become a tourist draw?

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• 2. A Contested Name

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  Arkansas Post, a French trading post in the wooded lowlands of the Arkansas Delta, may hold the key to the name Ozarks. It stood above the point where the Arkansas River meets the Mississippi. In the decades before the French and Indian War of 1754 to 1763, the phrase aux Arkansas referred to this post. One theory holds that aux Arcs, a short form of aux Arcansas, was adapted into English as Ozarks. The French phrase means of, at or to the Arkansas, here meaning the Quapaw people.

  Clifty Hollow Natural Bridge in Missouri, which is really a series of arches, points to a second explanation. Aux arcs could also mean land of the arches. The Ozarks do hold dozens of natural bridges, shaped by erosion and by caves that collapsed. Alum Cove, in the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest, is another example.

  Nobody can say which French phrase won out. By the early 20th century, the word Ozarks was in common use anyway.

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• 3. An Island In Ancient Seas

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  The granite and rhyolite of the St. Francois Mountains date from between 1.485 and 1.350 billion years ago. These hills in the northeastern Ozarks are the worn remnant of an ancient range, and they form the exposed core of the whole highland dome. The same family of rocks stretches from Ohio to western Oklahoma. Beneath the thin cover of younger rock, it forms the base of the crust under the entire region.

  For several hundred million years after that volcanism, the land stood above the sea. A gap in the rock record marks this stretch, which lasted until the middle of the Cambrian period. Erosion carved relief of up to 1,500 feet in that time. In the late Cambrian the seas returned and laid down the Lamotte Sandstone, 200 to 300 feet thick. Carbonate rock followed. Coral reefs grew around the granite and rhyolite islands, and the Bonneterre carbonate layer, now mostly dolomite, reaches between 400 and 1,500 feet in thickness.

  The rich lead ore of the Lead Belt formed when the sea withdrew again, between the latest Cambrian and the early Ordovician. Mineral-bearing fluids concentrated in the reefs that flanked the old island. They produced the lead and zinc ores that miners have worked for generations and still mine today.

  In the Ordovician, sediment began to pile up again, forming the Gunter sandstone, the Gasconade dolomite and the Roubidoux sandstone and dolomite. The Roubidoux forms prominent bluffs along streams in the southern part of the Salem Plateau. With the Gunter, it also acts as an aquifer, a layer that holds groundwater. The sand came from the emerging Wisconsin Dome to the northeast.

  The last great push came in the Pennsylvanian period. A deep ocean basin in central and southern Arkansas rose in the late Paleozoic, when South America collided with North America. That collision folded the Ouachita Mountains and lifted the Ozark plateau to the north. The rocks of the Boston Mountains stayed little disturbed and flat-lying, and their highest ridges wear caps of Pennsylvanian sandstone such as the Atoka and the Middle Bloyd.

  The limestones and dolomites left by those seas now hold most of the region's caves and springs.

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• 4. Plateaus, Caves, And Glades

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  Salem, Missouri, lends its name to the Salem Plateau, the largest geologic area of the Ozarks. Springfield, Missouri, nicknamed the Queen City of the Ozarks, names the second largest, the Springfield Plateau. The surfaces differ in age. The Springfield surface is mostly Mississippian limestone and chert, while the Salem Plateau is built from older Ordovician dolomites, limestones and sandstones. Both form long flat plains, divided by steep escarpments that interrupt the rolling hills.

  The Boston Mountains run about 200 miles in length and reach 20 to 35 miles north of the Arkansas River Valley. Their valleys cut 500 to 1,550 feet deep, which gives some of the greatest relief between the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains. Five unnamed peaks stand at or slightly above 2,560 feet. The Ouachita Mountains to the south rise a few hundred feet higher, yet they are not geographically part of the Ozarks. Many Ozark waterways start in these uplands, including the Buffalo, Kings, Mulberry, Little Red and White rivers.

  St. Louis and Jefferson City sit on the northern border of the region. Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville, Harrison, Mountain Home, Batesville and Eureka Springs are significant Ozark cities in Arkansas. Smaller subregions include the White River Hills, the Courtois Hills, the Osage-Gasconade Hills near the Lake of the Ozarks, and the Cookson Hills of eastern Oklahoma.

  Missouri is known as the Cave State, with over 7,300 recorded caves. Only Tennessee has more. The majority are found in Ozark counties. Springs, losing streams and sinkholes are common in the limestones of the Springfield Plateau. They are abundant in the dolomite bedrock of the Salem Plateau and the Boston Mountains. The Ozark Plateaus aquifer system affects groundwater movement everywhere except the igneous core of the St. Francois Mountains.

  Collared lizards, tarantulas, scorpions and cacti live on Ozark hilltops, in rocky openings called glades. The glades are made of limestone or dolomite, with shallow soil that gives them a desert look. Periodic fires keep them open by limiting the growth of grasses and forbs. These animals and plants are more typical of the Desert Southwest.

  Below those hilltops, the springs feed the rivers that engineers would harness in the 20th century.

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• 5. Dammed And Spared Rivers

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  Powersite Dam, built in 1911 on the White River near Branson, Missouri, created Lake Taneycomo. It began a long program of harnessing Ozark rivers for electrical power, recreation and flood control.

  After President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Flood Control Act of 1938, six large flood control dams rose on the White River and its tributaries. They are Beaver, Table Rock, Bull Shoals, Norfork, Greers Ferry and Clearwater, and each holds back a lake. The Army Corps of Engineers, among others, operates multiple dams in the region.

  Bull Shoals Lake, completed in 1952, is the furthest downstream lake on the White River proper. Table Rock Lake followed in 1958 and Beaver Lake in 1960. Lake Sequoyah, a small fishing lake east of Fayetteville, came in 1961 and is the uppermost impoundment on the river. Norfork Lake was formed on the North Fork River in 1941.

  The Osage River and its tributary the Pomme de Terre River were dammed in 1931-1961 and 1979 to make Lake of the Ozarks, Pomme de Terre Lake and Truman Lake. Grand Lake o' the Cherokee in northeast Oklahoma dates from 1940, when the Grand River was dammed. Stockton Lake, formed on the Sac River in 1969, supplements the water supply of Springfield in Greene County.

  Baxter County, Arkansas, alone saw nearly 400 people displaced to make room for the reservoir behind Norfork Dam. The town of Forsyth, Missouri, was relocated in its entirety to a spot 2 miles from its old site. Cemeteries, farm roads, river fords and railways were lost. Before the dams, streams had supplied water and power to communities, farms and mills concentrated in the valleys.

  The Army Corps of Engineers succeeded so well on the large rivers that the Ozark Society began protesting to keep the others free flowing. After more than a decade of battling a proposed Corps dam in the media, the legislature and the courts, the society won. In 1972 an Act of Congress created the Buffalo National River, the nation's first National River, administered by the National Park Service. The Ozark Society still leads the fight to keep it pristine. Roughly 800,000 people a year camp, canoe, float, hike and tube there.

  In Missouri, the Ozark National Scenic Riverways was established in 1964 along the Current and Jacks Fork rivers. It was the first US national park based on a river system. The Eleven Point River joined the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System in 1968. These parks and rivers are a major economic driver for some of the least populated counties in Arkansas and Missouri, attracting up to 1.5 million tourists annually.

  Free-flowing Ozark streams typically run clear, with baseflows sustained by many seeps and springs. They pass forests and limestone and dolomite bluffs, with gravel bars along shallow banks and deep holes under the bluffs. Except when heavy rain or snow melt makes the water rise quickly, they suit most canoeing and tubing.

  The same springs also made fish hatcheries common, beginning with the Neosho National Fish Hatchery, built in 1888 as the first federal hatchery.

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• 6. Forests And Wilderness

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  In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the Ozark National Forest to preserve 917,944 acres across five Arkansas counties. Another 608,537 acres were added the following year. The first boundaries reached as far south as Mount Magazine and as far east as Sylamore.

  Congress established Mark Twain National Forest at nine sites in Missouri in 1939. Wildlife management areas had been founded in the 1920s and 1930s to restore animal populations to viable numbers. During the Great Depression the Resettlement Administration reclaimed some land for the government, and the Ozark National Forest gained over 544,000 acres in further additions.

  In the 1930s and 1940s, Aldo Leopold, Arthur Carhart and Bob Marshall developed a wilderness policy for the Forest Service. Their efforts bore fruit in the Wilderness Act of 1964, which protected areas "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by men, where man himself is a visitor and does not remain." The act also covered second-growth public forests such as Mark Twain National Forest.

  In 1976, Congress established the Hercules Glades Wilderness, the first of 13 designated wilderness areas in the Ozarks. In 1986 it created the Ozark Plateau National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Oklahoma. The red wolf, Ozark big-eared bat, Indiana bat, Ozark cavefish and Ozark chinquapin are among the endangered and threatened species these protected areas help recover. The region is also a habitat for migratory birds.

  Oak-hickory is the predominant forest type in the Ozarks. Eastern junipers are common, and stands of pine often appear in the southern range. Less than a quarter of the region has been cleared for pasture and cropland. Heavy logging in the early to mid-20th century left second-growth forest that has since recovered. Yet logging of frontier forest sent erosion into the streams. Gravel bars grew, channels became wider and shallower, and deepwater fish habitat was lost. Commercial farms and processing operations also raise levels of chemical and biological contaminants in Ozark streams.

  During the New Deal, the Civilian Conservation Corps employed hundreds of workers to build nearly 400 fire lookouts across the Ozarks. They stood at 121 known sites in Arkansas and 257 in Missouri. About half remain, and many are still used by the U.S. Forest Service. In 2007, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named these lookouts and related structures among America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.

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• 7. Mines, Mills, And Markets

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  Lead, zinc, iron and barite all lie in the ground of the Ozarks. The Lead Belt of southeastern Missouri is still being mined. The Tri-State district around Joplin, Missouri, has also been an important source of metals. Mining practices common in the early 20th century left abandoned underground mines in that district, along with heavy metal contamination in topsoil and groundwater.

  Hundreds of water-powered timber and grist mills once worked Ozark streams. They served as centers of culture and commerce, and they often thrived within a few miles of one another. Few relied on inefficient water wheels. Most used a dam, a millrace and a water turbine.

  Beef cattle ranching is common across the area, and so is dairy farming. Small dairy farms usually sell to a corporate wholesaler, which packages the product under a common brand. Petroleum is extracted in the Oklahoma portion of the Ozarks and in the east half of the Boston Mountains in Arkansas. In the 1960s, federal activity promoted modernization through better transportation and tourism, and the Ozarks Regional Commission sponsored numerous projects.

  Tourism is now the growth industry. The entertainment center at Branson, Missouri, celebrates traditional Ozark culture. The rapidly growing Northwest Arkansas metropolitan area draws nationwide attention for the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville.

  Tyson Foods and ConAgra Foods each operate several hundred poultry farms and processing plants in the Ozarks. Schreiber Foods has operations throughout southern Missouri. J. B. Hunt, ABF and Prime, Inc. are national trucking carriers based in the region, and Springfield remains an operational hub for the BNSF Railway. Wal-Mart, Leggett & Platt, Bass Pro Shops and O'Reilly Auto Parts are Fortune 500 companies based in the Ozarks.

  The Ozark Highlands and Ozark Mountain American Viticultural Areas are wine regions here, alongside the Ozark Highland Spirits Region and a number of microbreweries.

  Yet the culture that Branson celebrates has an older, quieter form, preserved in tunes and tales.

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• 8. Fiddles, Folklore, And Fiction

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  Pioneers from the Southern Appalachians reached Missouri at the start of the 19th century, and Irish and German immigrants followed in the 1840s and 1850s. Much of the Ozark population is of English, Scots-Irish and German descent. Early settlers hunted, fished, trapped and foraged to supplement their diets and incomes. Foraging for morel mushrooms and ginseng continues today, with established buyers in the area, and persimmons, pawpaws, black walnuts and wild berries are also gathered.

  Historian Vance Randolph traced the making of much Ozark lore to individual families. In his words, "backwoods parents begin by telling outrageous whoppers to their children and end by half believing the wildest of these tales themselves." He gathered songs in Ozark Folksongs, a four-volume anthology of material collected in the 1920s and 1930s. He also produced Ozark Magic and Folklore and the national bestseller Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales, published in 1976. Many tunes and tales trace to British origins and to German folklore, and many anecdotes are bawdy and full of wild embellishment on everyday themes.

  In 1941 and 1942, Randolph returned to the Ozarks with a portable recording machine from the Library of Congress. Alan Lomax of the Archive of Folk Culture had commissioned the trip. Randolph captured over 800 songs, ballads and instrumentals. In 2001, Rounder Records released 35 of those tracks on Ozark Folksongs.

  Square dances were an important social avenue into the 20th century. They sprang up around mills and timber camps, springs and fords, and in towns large and small. Geographically isolated communities developed their own dance tunes and variations. The fiddler held a distinct place in both community and folklore. Local fiddlers were revered for carrying the tunes, while traveling fiddlers brought new tunes and entertainment, even as many viewed their arrival as a threat to morality.

  In 2007, Gordon McCann donated his recordings, fieldnotes and photographs to Missouri State University in Springfield. He had chronicled Ozarks folklife and fiddle music for over four decades. The collection includes more than 3,000 hours of fiddle music and interviews. A 2008 book and 37-track CD set by Drew Beisswenger and McCann, Mel Bay Presents Ozarks Fiddle Music, features 308 tunes and 30 legendary fiddlers.

  From 1973 to 1983, the Bittersweet project, which began as an English class at Lebanon High School in Missouri, collected 476 taped and transcribed interviews. It published 482 stories and took over 50,000 photographs documenting traditional Ozark culture.

  Books set in the Ozarks include Where the Red Fern Grows, The Shepherd of the Hills and As a Friend. The 1999 film Ride with the Devil depicts Civil War conflict in southwest Missouri. It is based on Woe to Live On, a book by Daniel Woodrell. Woodrell's novel Winter's Bone reflects on contemporary methamphetamine culture and its effect on families on the plateau. The 2010 film version won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

  Several early and influential country-music television and radio programs originated in Springfield in the 1950s and 1960s, including ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee and The Slim Wilson Show on KYTV. Porter Wagoner and the old-time fiddler Bob Holt are Ozark musicians. The Clampett clan of The Beverly Hillbillies offers a stereotypical picture of Ozark people. The Netflix drama Ozark premiered on the 21st of July 2017. It is set in Osage Beach, Missouri, where the Byrde family is uprooted from Chicago after a money laundering scheme goes wrong.

  Silver Dollar City and the now defunct Dogpatch USA are the two major family theme parks of the region. Ozark Folkways in Winslow, Arkansas, and Ozark Folk Center State Park in Mountain View, Arkansas, interpret regional culture through musical performance and exhibitions of pioneer skills and crafts.

  Ozark religion, like that of Appalachia, was predominantly Baptist and Methodist during early settlement. It tends toward the conservative or individualistic. The Assemblies of God and Baptist Bible Fellowship International have headquarters in Springfield, and the General Association of General Baptists is headquartered in Poplar Bluff.

  Population has flowed into the Ozarks since the 1950s, and the region sits between the Midwest and the Upper South. Theme parks and theatres that seem to reflect regional values have little in common with traditional Ozark culture. The community tradition bearers who remain are fewer each year, and they work far from the commercial stages.

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