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From The
President of
The Wilderness Road Of The
Ozarks
James F. (Jim)
Barrett
My dear
Wilderness Road Gang readers: My word, what a
couple of wild, exciting, nerve stretching and very
interesting months your old president has just had,
and a few more stretch out before me! So much to
tell you, wow! Okay, first - at the tender age of
nearly 70, I'm quitting a very secure (and
relatively undemanding) job at Wal-Mart. I've been
there seven years, running the Paint and Hardware
Department at night, from 3 to 12, four nights a
week. The pay isn't tremendous, but the insurance,
medical discounts and other perks are great! Then
why quit? Well, here's why:
Over forty
years ago I came to the Ozarks from Kansas City
because my surgeon thought I had throat cancer and
the operation ruined my career as one of KC's
promising young electrical engineers and as the
manager of a major electrical construction firm. I
came here to start all over. My throat recovered
and my voice slowly returned to normal, however,
much deeper and (so the girls said) sexier than
before. Other people, much more interesting than I,
were coming here about the same time, or perhaps
just a bit earlier. The fabulous John Q. Hammons
built his first Holiday Inn where the brand new
Kimberling Bridge crossed the, also brand new,
Table Rock Lake. And then he dozed off the entire
hill and created the beginnings of Kimberling City.
While the parking lot was still raw gravel, a Mr.
Russ Sherer came here to look things over. Russ had
just been "retired" from his position as a VP at
White Rogers when Emerson Electric bought out his
firm. Russ and his family moved here to primitive
quarters, from a lovely home in St. Louis, and
built the Hillbilly Bowl and Restaurant. He and his
family, including the elder Sherers and the
relative Runges, ran the facility for many, many
years. And it became THE watering hole on the lake
for all those years. It was THE place to eat, meet
and greet for the folks of Table Rock Lake for at
least two or three Table Rock generations. But the
elder Sherers died, the younger Sherers went on to
their own careers in other places and so, Russ and
Verda Sherer sold the facility, retired and
eventually passed away as well.
Other hands
ran the Bowl and Restaurant, some doing it well,
some doing it badly, for the ensuing years. And
then, the restaurant pooped out and closed for the
first time in over thirty years. The owner of the
Kimberling Inn Resort and Restaurants finally
bought the entire complex, rejuvenated the bowling
lanes and the conference facility in the rear built
some years back by Ray Smith, and generally fixed
things up. But the restaurant languished, fumbled,
stumbled and, after forty years, finally closed
again, as it has remained for the last couple of
years or more. Now to the fun part:
My step-son,
Randy Thamm, who owns D's Restaurant up at
Claybough Plaza in Branson West, decided it would
be fun (and possibly profitable) to reopen his
grandparent's restaurant, particularly if he could
bring back much of the past: The best parts of the
old menus, the historic ambiance, the family
quality food, the good prices, the fun times and
honest, sincere service. He met with the owner of
The Kimberling Inn and the Hillbilly Bowl Complex
and talked the idea over. (It didn't hurt that Jim
Christianson happened to be Randy's very best, long
term friend.) They decided to give it a serious run
for the money. Randy retained me (an old retired
builder, developer and contractor) to revive and
renew the restaurant facilities for him and his
family to take over. (You see, his mom, my wife
Vicki, was one of the third generation Sherers. Her
son, Randy, and his cook and waiter boys, Brandon,
Britton and Cameron, are the fourth and fifth
generation of the family, serving quality food in
the Ozarks, and now opening the new (old) Sherer's
restaurant. Five generations of one family, isn't
that neat?)
I took two
months off from Wal-Mart in the dead of winter to
personally take on the project. We rewired,
plumbed, patched, scraped, scoured, primed, painted
and repainted the entire massive old kitchens. They
hadn't been seriously cared for in thirty years. We
built lovely new waitress stations. We put up
lights, we laid new tile, we steamed the carpets -
and on and on and on. My wife, Vicki, and I began
to search for all the old documentation, papers,
pictures, menus, posters, and so on that we could
possibly scrounge up regarding the past of the
Hillbilly Bowl and Restaurant. At first we were
discouraged, nobody seemed to have anything. How
odd, after people working and serving there for
thirty years?! Then things began to crop up. Randy
decided to "do" the restaurant in a "historic"
theme, centered on the old Maybry (then Kimberling)
Ferry, the Old Wilderness Road (now 13 and 160),
the Radical Campground (where the City now stands)
and more than150 years of local history.
Pictures,
documents and all manner of interesting things
began to show up, which were cleaned, restored,
retouched and framed, ready for the walls of the
new (old) restaurant. But the crème de la
crème is a picture I created, blended,
retouched, edited and lovingly restored with my
trusty computer. It's what Randy really and truly
wanted up behind the new waitress stations - to,
for sure, set the historic note and theme for his
new (old) restaurant. And there it is, waiting for
all you reader friends to come in and take a look.
Thanks to Ayres Outdoor Advertising (more family),
it's a five foot tall and ten foot long,
professionally printed by a giant digital printer
out in Kansas, picture no one has ever seen before.
Because I put it together out of several fifty year
old, faded and scratched pictures taken in the
middle of the last century. And it came out even
better than I had hoped or dreamed. I can hardly
wait for you to see it. It's of the two Kimberling
Bridges, the new (in 1958) award winning one that
we all use today, and the old (opened in 1922)
bridge which is also still there, but now buried
beneath 200 feet of Table Rock Lake's waters. The
few old-line natives who have seen it say it gives
them chills - because it brings back memories they
thought were gone and forgotten a half century
ago.
The picture
also clearly shows the Old Wilderness Road where it
ran down to the Maybry (later Kimberling) Ferry. It
shows the old bridge as the last few cars went
across before the lake took it beneath its waters.
It shows old Highway 43 winding up the hills from
the riverfront and heading south to Berryville. It
shows the last of the float fishermen loading their
trucks to beat the oncoming floods that would
create the lake. Folks, it's a great picture, if I
do say so myself! You've just gotta come see it.
Oh, oops, I lost my thread of thought about
quitting Wal-Mart. I'm going to work for Randy,
doing whatever he needs done to help get the
restaurant up and running for the next couple of
years. Mostly, I guess, I'll tend bar at night (an
entirely new and nervous causing employment for
me), though I'll also probably have to buss tables,
sweep the floor and do whatever needs doing from
time to time. Great work for an electrical engineer
and a retired general contractor - but what the
hey! It'll be fun, for sure.
Now to the
exciting part (sound of trumpets). We of the
Wilderness Road Gang intend to have a small, but
delightful (we hope) dinner theater in one of
Randy's new (old) dining rooms. Presenting myself
in costume as Joe Philibert, the first permanent
settler in the mid Ozarks, I have spoken and
entertained across the state on behalf of the
Missouri Humanities Council. Now I will speak, in
costume and as Joe, in the new (old) dinner
theater. We plan to have other historical speakers,
entertainers, slide shows and so on. These will be
on scattered nights and slow at the start, we
assume, but they'll become more frequent and
dynamic as our expertise and skills grow with
experience. My acceptance across the Mid-West as a
historic journalist and storyteller will help us
get up and rolling, I sincerely hope. So, I invite
all you dear readers to come to RT's Restaurant at
the Hillbilly Bowl to see all the nostalgic and
historic pictures and documents. To see my
love-child, the fifty square foot picture behind
the waitress station, and to enjoy an evening now
and then with us in the dinner theater.
Editor Ed
and I are so excited about all this resurrection of
the Mid-Ozarks' history that he's going to crack on
another special edition of the Message Tree in the
middle of April. We'll have photos of lots of old
landmarks, ancient road beds, a glimpse of my
love-child picture, a bit of this and a bit of
that, stuff we think you'll get a kick seeing and
being told about. You know, folks, there's as much
fun and exciting history here in the Mid-Ozarks as
can be found anyplace in America. Honest there is!
The Civil War raged through here, the god awful
Bush Whackers and the unbelievable Bald Knobbers
tore our land apart. The Border Wars spilled over
into the Ozarks. The Iron Clad Oath destroyed law
and order here, letting criminals rage about nearly
unchecked. Bonnie and Clyde had a terrible shoot
out just up the way, near Reeds Spring. They
frequently used the Old Wilderness Road to drive
down to Hot Springs for Rand R. The James Gang
galloped the Old Wilderness Road when the two
brothers came to visit their kin in Lampe. There
was a major massacre just up the way at Ghost Pond.
And on and on and on!
We'll be
telling you all about these people and events, as
well as many others, in our dinner theater at RT's
new (old) restaurant, at the Hillbilly Bowl, in
Kimberling City. So come on down and join us for
many an evening of fun, frolic and good food. Isn't
this exciting? See you dear reader friends in our
mid April special issue.
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Stone
Creek Crossing
