Download or read book A History of the Ozarks Volume 1 written by Brooks Blevins and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2018-06-28 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Missouri History Book Award, from the State Historical Society of Missouri Winner of the Arkansiana Award, from the Arkansas Library Association Geologic forces raised the Ozarks. Myth enshrouds these hills. Human beings shaped them and were shaped by them. The Ozarks reflect the epic tableau of the American people—the native Osage and would-be colonial conquerors, the determined settlers and on-the-make speculators, the endless labors of hardscrabble farmers and capitalism of visionary entrepreneurs. The Old Ozarks is the first volume of a monumental three-part history of the region and its inhabitants. Brooks Blevins begins in deep prehistory, charting how these highlands of granite, dolomite, and limestone came to exist. From there he turns to the political and economic motivations behind the eagerness of many peoples to possess the Ozarks. Blevins places these early proto-Ozarkers within the context of larger American history and the economic, social, and political forces that drove it forward. But he also tells the varied and colorful human stories that fill the region's storied past—and contribute to the powerful myths and misunderstandings that even today distort our views of the Ozarks' places and people. A sweeping history in the grand tradition, A History of the Ozarks, Volume 1: The Old Ozarks is essential reading for anyone who cares about the highland heart of America.
Download or read book A Living History of the Ozarks written by Rossiter, Phyllis and published by Pelican Publishing Company, Inc.. This book was released on 2010-09-23 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ozarks region-spanning parts of Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma-overflows with visible fragments of the past. A Living History of the Ozarks is a guide to the region through landmarks and sites which offer clues to its intriguing history. This splendorous land inspired Phyllis Rossiter, a native of the Ozarks, to write about the area to help people learn to appreciate its beauty and to recognize our dependence upon nature. "I feel that it's important to safeguard what we have left," says Rossiter. "In my writing, if I can help achieve that, then that's what I want to do-to help people acquire an appreciation for nature." Abounding with sparkling lakes and rivers (including the great Lake of the Ozarks), clear blue springs, rugged mountains, ancient caves, and windswept prairies, the Ozarks are a visitor's wonderland of natural beauty and legendary mystique. Author Phyllis Rossiter explores the major areas that make up the storied Ozarks. The Lake of the Ozarks region, the Springfield plateau, Ozark mountain country, the Buffalo National River, White River Hills, and the Big Spring region are all covered in depth. A detailed appendix lists places to view ongoing history such as caves and rock formations, Indian artifacts, bridges and ferries, gristmills, Civil War monuments, heritage crafts, mountain music, hiking trails, floatable rivers, national parks, and more. Offering keen insight on the area's history, as well as a complete guide to the sites and scenic spots of this popular American vacation destination, this book is a marvelous documentation of "living history" for tourists and interested area residents alike. Phyllis Rossiter resides in Gainesville, Missouri, where she is an active writer, photographer, conservationist, and lecturer. She is a member of the Missouri Writers Guild, the Ozarks Writers League, the Society of Children's Book Writers, and the Outdoor Writers of America.
Download or read book Ghost of the Ozarks written by Brooks Blevins and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2012-03-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1929, in a remote county of the Arkansas Ozarks, the gruesome murder of harmonica-playing drifter Connie Franklin and the brutal rape of his teenaged fiancée captured the attention of a nation on the cusp of the Great Depression. National press from coast to coast ran stories of the sensational exploits of night-riding moonshiners, powerful "Barons of the Hills," and a world of feudal oppression in the isolation of the rugged Ozarks. The ensuing arrest of five local men for both crimes and the confusion and superstition surrounding the trial and conviction gave Stone County a dubious and short-lived notoriety. Closely examining how the story and its regional setting were interpreted by the media, Brooks Blevins recounts the gripping events of the murder investigation and trial, where a man claiming to be the murder victim--the "Ghost" of the Ozarks--appeared to testify. Local conditions in Stone County, which had no electricity and only one long-distance telephone line, frustrated the dozen or more reporters who found their way to the rural Ozarks, and the developments following the arrests often prompted reporters' caricatures of the region: accusations of imposture and insanity, revelations of hidden pasts and assumed names, and threats of widespread violence. Locating the past squarely within the major currents of American history, Ghost of the Ozarks: Murder and Memory in the Upland South paints a convincing backdrop to a story that, more than 80 years later, remains riddled with mystery.
Download or read book A People s History of the Lake of the Ozarks written by Dan William Peek and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2016-05-25 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For tourists, the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks must seem in complete harmony with the natural order of its surroundings. Even lifelong natives can struggle to imagine a time when the reservoir created by the Bagnell Dam didn't exist. But beneath the placid waters of the lake that draws bustling visitors to its shores lies the drama of a remote Ozark community suddenly thrust into an urban world. True locals Dan William Peek and Kent Van Landuyt piece together the fascinating story of how that community adapted to the lake that redefined their home.
Download or read book Lake of the Ozarks written by H. Dwight Weaver and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2000 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history and development of the Lake of the Ozarks region from the building of the Bagnell Dam in 1929 through the growth of the towns in the region in the 1950's.
Download or read book BALD KNOBBERS written by Elmo Ingenthron and published by Pelican Publishing Company. This book was released on 1998-04-30 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1880s, the Ozark hills around Taney County, Missouri, echoed with the sound of Winchester rifles. Men were lynched from tree limbs by masked night riders. Bundles of switches were tossed on the porches of "loose" men and women as a grim warning to reform or leave the area. In this action-filled saga of the notorious eight-year career of the vigilantes, journalist Mary Hartman and historian Elmo Ingenthron have produced the most comprehensive account of the Bald Knobber era. They trace the roots of the group in the region's border struggles during the Civil War, and examine the organization of anti-Bald Knobbers which sprang up to oppose them. Giant Nat Kinney founded the Bald Knobbers, and led them in their violent campaign for law and order. Andrew Coggburn wrote satirical songs to infuriate Kinney and the other vigilantes. Seventeen-year-old Billy Walker murdered an innocent family and was hanged by the beleaguered authorities. Five opponents of the Bald Knobbers vowed to kill Nat Kinney, and played cards to decide who would do the deed. Elmo Ingenthron was an Ozarks historian, and collected Bald Knobbers lore for more than thirty-five years. Mary Hartman is a veteran journalist and freelance writer.
Download or read book Lake of the Ozarks written by Bill Geist and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beloved TV host Bill Geist pens a reflective memoir of his incredible summers spent in the heart of America in this New York Times bestseller. Before there was "tourism" and souvenir ashtrays became "kitsch," the Lake of the Ozarks was a Shangri-La for middle-class Midwestern families on vacation, complete with man-made beaches, Hillbilly Mini Golf, and feathered rubber tomahawks. It was there that author Bill Geist spent summers in the Sixties during his school and college years working at Arrowhead Lodge -- a small resort owned by his bombastic uncle -- in all areas of the operation, from cesspool attendant to bellhop. What may have seemed just a summer job became, upon reflection, a transformative era where a cast of eccentric, small-town characters and experiences shaped (some might suggest "slightly twisted") Bill into the man he is today. He realized it was this time in his life that had a direct influence on his sensibilities, his humor, his writing, and ultimately a career searching the world for other such untamed creatures for the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and CBS News. In Lake of the Ozarks, Emmy Award-winning CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Bill Geist reflects on his coming of age in the American Heartland and traces his evolution as a man and a writer. He shares laugh-out-loud anecdotes and tongue-in-cheek observations guaranteed to evoke a strong sense of nostalgia for "the good ol' days." Written with Geistian wit and warmth, Lake of the Ozarks takes readers back to a bygone era, and demonstrates how you can find inspiration in the most unexpected places.
Download or read book Opening the Ozarks written by Walter A. Schroeder and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the oldest European settlement in Missouri, Ste. Genevieve was the funnel through which the eastern Ozarks (the 5,000 square miles beyond Ste. Genevieve's location on the Mississippi) was established. A magisterial account of the settlement of this area from 1760 through 1830, Opening the Ozarks focuses on the acquisition and occupation of land, the transformation of the environment, the creation of cohesive settlements, and the building of neighborhoods and eventually organized counties. The study begins with the French Creole settlement at Old Ste. Genevieve in the middle of the eighteenth century. It describes the movement of the French into the Ozark hills during the rest of that century and continues with that of the American immigrants into Upper Louisiana after 1796, ending with the Americanization of the district after the Louisiana Purchase. Walter Schroeder examines the cultural transition from a French society, operating under a Spanish administration, to an American society in which French, Indians, and Africans formed minorities.
Download or read book Ozark Superstitions written by Vance Randolph and published by Read Books Ltd. This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The people who live in the Ozark country of Missouri and Arkansas were, until very recently, the most deliberately unprogressive people in the United States. Descended from pioneers who came West from the Southern Appalachians at the beginning of the nineteenth century, they made little contact with the outer world for more than a hundred years. They seem like foreigners to the average urban American, but nearly all of them come of British stock, and many families have lived in America since colonial days. Their material heirlooms are few, but like all isolated illiterates they have clung to the old songs and obsolete sayings and outworn customs of their ancestors. Sophisticated visitors sometimes regard the “hillbilly” as a simple child of nature, whose inmost thoughts and motivations may be read at a glance. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The hillman is secretive and sensitive beyond anything that the average city dweller can imagine, but he isn’t simple. His mind moves in a tremendously involved system of signs and omens and esoteric auguries. He has little interest in the mental procedure that the moderns call science, and his ways of arranging data and evaluating evidence are very different from those currently favored in the world beyond the hilltops. The Ozark hillfolk have often been described as the most superstitious people in America. It is true that some of them have retained certain ancient notions which have been discarded and forgotten in more progressive sections of the United States. It has been said that the Ozarker got his folklore from the Negro, but the fact is that Negroes were never numerous in the hill country, and there are many adults in the Ozarks today who have never even seen a Negro. Another view is that the hillman’s superstitions are largely of Indian origin, and there may be a measure of truth in this; the pioneers did mingle freely with the Indians, and some of our best Ozark families still boast of their Cherokee blood. My own feeling is that most of the hillman’s folk beliefs came with his ancestors from England or Scotland. I believe that a comparison of my material with that recorded by British antiquarians will substantiate this opinion.
Download or read book A History of the Ozarks Volume 3 written by Brooks Blevins and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the world wars, America embraced an image of the Ozarks as a remote land of hills and hollers. The popular imagination stereotyped Ozarkers as ridge runners, hillbillies, and pioneers—a cast of colorful throwbacks hostile to change. But the real Ozarks reflected a more complex reality. Brooks Blevins tells the cultural history of the Ozarks as a regional variation of an American story. As he shows, the experiences of the Ozarkers have not diverged from the currents of mainstream life as sharply or consistently as the mythmakers would have it. If much of the region seemed to trail behind by a generation, the time lag was rooted more in poverty and geographic barriers than a conscious rejection of the modern world and its progressive spirit. In fact, the minority who clung to the old days seemed exotic largely because their anachronistic ways clashed against the backdrop of the evolving region around them. Blevins explores how these people’s disproportionate influence affected the creation of the idea of the Ozarks, and reveals the truer idea that exists at the intersection of myth and reality. The conclusion to the acclaimed trilogy, The History of the Ozarks, Volume 3: The Ozarkers offers an authoritative appraisal of the modern Ozarks and its people.
Download or read book Hill Folks written by Brooks Blevins and published by Univ of North Carolina Press. This book was released on 2003-04-03 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ozark region, located in northern Arkansas and southern Missouri, has long been the domain of the folklorist and the travel writer--a circumstance that has helped shroud its history in stereotype and misunderstanding. With Hill Folks, Brooks Blevins offers the first in-depth historical treatment of the Arkansas Ozarks. He traces the region's history from the early nineteenth century through the end of the twentieth century and, in the process, examines the creation and perpetuation of conflicting images of the area, mostly by non-Ozarkers. Covering a wide range of Ozark social life, Blevins examines the development of agriculture, the rise and fall of extractive industries, the settlement of the countryside and the decline of rural communities, in- and out-migration, and the emergence of the tourist industry in the region. His richly textured account demonstrates that the Arkansas Ozark region has never been as monolithic or homogenous as its chroniclers have suggested. From the earliest days of white settlement, Blevins says, distinct subregions within the area have followed their own unique patterns of historical and socioeconomic development. Hill Folks sketches a portrait of a place far more nuanced than the timeless arcadia pictured on travel brochures or the backward and deliberately unprogressive region depicted in stereotype.
Download or read book Water Mills of the Missouri Ozarks written by George Graham Suggs (Jr.) and published by Editorial Galaxia. This book was released on 1990 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Living Ozarks written by William B. Edgar and published by Moon City Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes original contributions, reprints from OzarksWatch : the magazine of the Ozarks, book excerpts, and information from archival collections.
Download or read book The Heritage of the Ozarks written by Russel L. Gerlach and published by August House Publishers. This book was released on 1984 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Pioneers of the Ozarks written by Lennis Leonard Broadfoot and published by . This book was released on 1944 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Oil and charcoal portraits with explanatory stories in Ozark dialect.
Download or read book The Shepherd of the Hills written by Harold Bell Wright and published by . This book was released on 1909 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Ozarks in Missouri History written by Lynn Morrow and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2013-12-29 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interest in scholarly study of the Ozarks has grown steadily in recent years, and The Ozarks in Missouri History: Discoveries in an American Region will be welcomed by historians and Ozark enthusiasts alike. This lively collection gathers fifteen essays, many of them pioneering efforts in the field, that originally appeared in the Missouri Historical Review, the journal of the State Historical Society. In his introduction, editor Lynn Morrow gives the reader background on the interest in and the study of the Ozarks. The scope of the collection reflects the diversity of the region. Micro-studies by such well-known contributors as John Bradbury, Roger Grant, Gary Kremer, Stephen Limbaugh Sr., and Milton Rafferty explore the history, culture, and geography of this unique region. They trace the evolution of the Ozarks, examine the sometimes-conflicting influences exerted by St. Louis and Kansas City, and consider the sometimes highly charged struggle by federal, state, and local governments to define conservation and the future of Current River.
