The ruins of Ha Ha Tonka’s stately “castle” link lore and legacy with today’s Ozarks. Even though the iconic mansion burned in 1942, its skeleton remains a tourist attraction, drawing visitors – alongside a number of natural wonders – to what’s known today as Ha Ha Tonka State Park. Before Camden…
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A new chapter of an old tradition will be created in big copper kettles on the Mount Vernon square this weekend with Apple Butter Makin’ Days. The annual celebration, now in its 58th iteration, has become a landmark event in the Ozarks fall festival season. Its success is seen through numbers as…
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Ozarks culture and community connections do grow on trees in Stockton, where the town’s annual Black Walnut Festival has been a tradition since 1961. Held annually each September, the festival is linked to black walnuts, which is a significant part of the town’s heritage. Hammons Black Walnuts…
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Time and traffic have raced by the Rail Haven, one of Springfield’s Route 66 landmarks. The motel opened in 1938 at the corner of St. Louis Street and Glenstone Avenue. It was a decade after the start of the Mother Road – which was born in Springfield a few blocks away – and out front, split-rail…
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When the contents of the wooden Wommack Mill were sold at auction in April 1970, the sale bill sounded like the end of an era. It signified the conclusion of the nearly century-old mill’s working days, a good-bye that came with the death of its owner and a world where such landmarks were fast fading…
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It sounds like bluegrass – and looks like it too, given the group with banjos, guitars and fiddles in hand beneath the slowly setting sun – but the music they play isn’t the only point of connection visible at Turners Station. There are also notes of community tucked among the folks lounging in…
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Entering Smallin Cave represents a world of contrasts. Visitors see the cave from light to dark as they enter its mammoth mouth, spanning about 55 high by 100 feet wide, which leads to narrow passages where water frequently flows. The contrasts also extend to its history, which represents both…
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Even though Rose O’Neill has been gone for eight decades, her life lets her live: Across generations, continents and in the Ozarks, where the world-famous artist and Kewpie creator felt most at home. That place is Bonniebrook, a tucked-away oasis in Taney County where O’Neill called home for much…
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It’s about the food, but really, it’s about something greater at Millsap Farms, a place where passion grows on a 20-acre plot of land in northeastern Greene County. The hands helping turn the dirt belong to Curtis and Sarah Millsap, a husband and wife who took a former nursery and transformed it…
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Guy Mace is driving a dream. To some, that dream might be the Jaguar XKE car he has parked out front, the one he’s chosen to drive this week. To him, though, it’s bigger than that: The dream is a collection of about 75 vintage and celebrity vehicles that today comprise the Route 66 Car Museum. The…
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