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H I S T O R Y
O F H E R E
P a r t 187
By:
James F "Jim" Barrett
Lookin' at a
Valuable Neighbor - Continues - Part IV
Where'd we leave off in our last chat? Oh,
yes! We had gotten to where the little (5'5",
86lb.) Elizabeth P. McDaniel had just bought the
old Ross farm up on Inspiration Point above Roark
Valley, away back in 1926, after she had sold her
banking and milling interests up in Springfield.
You'll, of course, recall that the Rosses, as Old
Matt, Young Matt and Aunt Mollie, were the "stars"
of Harold Bell Wright's world famous book, The
Shepherd of the Hills. That book, published in
1907, along with the Missouri Pacific rail line
that arrived about the same time, brought the first
wave of massive tourism to the Ozarks. Then you'll
also recall that we ended our chat last time when
Elizabeth (Miss Lizzie, to all her new Ozark
friends) had just moved into the somewhat decrepit
Ross cabin, fully intending to bring it back to new
and vigorous life.
Miss Lizzie spent years locating the
original furnishings for her new home in "Matt and
Mollie's" cabin. She had the rotted parts of that
cabin restored and replaced. She cleaned, refitted,
touched up, improved and worked like a trouper.
But, at last, she was ready and she opened the
cabin to the tourist trade. Miss McDaniel was
absolutely determined that she was going to bring
Wright's book, his storied locations and the people
of the Ozarks back to the top of the tourism list
in the Midwest. Once again, led by her enthusiasm,
the people of the Shepherd Country got into the
act. When she opened her cabin to the public,
others pitched in. In 1936, Uncle Ike's home and
his post office were opened to the public. In 1937,
the Jim Lane Cabin likewise opened to the touring
folk. And Pearl (Sparky) Spurlock brought them out
to Inspiration Point and the other sites by the
taxi load, year after year.
Miss Lizzie lived in the restored Ross Cabin
for ten years. Visitors and guests from Springfield
would call upon her and wonder, sometimes openly,
how she could stand to live in such "primitive"
conditions after being raised in her luxurious home
in Springfield. While Miss McDaniel was quite
satisfied with her little home in the Ozark woods,
she did begin to long for some of the niceties she
had surrendered to come and save the Ross
Homestead. So, in 1936, she began the design of her
new home to be built up on the north slope of
Boulder Bald, not so very far from the Ross
Cabin.
The building of her design began and went on
for four years. As it progressed she added some
touches that made her Ozarker friends gap
open-mouthed. From a dug well a hand pump could
raise water to a metal container on the roof. Here,
atop the three story house, the sun shone intensely
on the metal, warming the water, which then came
down pipes by gravity for her dishes and her bath.
An inside bathroom was a marvel to her neighbors,
but one with running hot water was almost
unthinkable.
The home was a far cry indeed from the Ross
Cabin where she had lived for ten years. The walls
were of Sycamore, Walnut and Cherry, brought up
from Arkansas. The house was framed in solid oak,
cut from the trees surrounding Inspiration Point.
She did concede to keeping the rustic look by
beaming the ceilings and covering the exterior with
the selfsame sawn oak, the siding being vertical
board and batten and left unfinished. The pre-Civil
War McDaniel home in Springfield, where she was
raised, furnished the solid mahogany staircases,
the mantles, the doors, windows and a good deal of
marble.
Her house was completed in 1940, and with
some regret, she left the little cabin she had come
to love and moved into her much more grand
quarters. Miss Lizzie lived in her new home for the
last six years of her life. In all of that time,
and in the previous years since she left
Springfield, Ms. McDaniel worked diligently to
bring the attention of the nation back to the
Ozarks, particularly that part idealized by Harold
Bell Wright. She was quite sure, in her active and
dedicated mind, that her new home, the Ross Cabin
and Inspiration Point with its surroundings would
one day become the tourist Mecca for the nation, if
not the world.
As we all know, years and years later, the
revised and much updated Inspiration Point, along
with Branson and many square miles of surrounding
countryside, together with countless theaters,
shows, performers, hotels, motels, Silver Dollar
City, Celebration City, White Water, Lake
Taneycomo, Table Rock Lake and all the other
Central Ozarks attractions did in fact combine to
become one of the most important tourist and bus
destinations in the entire nation. Miss Lizzie's
dream eventually did come true. Though she might
consider nine million tourists each season and the
endless streams of traffic on (the now) 76 Highway
to be more of a nightmare than a pearly bright
dream.
There was a family living in a distant city
that dreamed of coming to the Ozarks one fine day.
They also dreamed of building an outdoor rustic
theater on Inspiration Point and re-enacting the
essential story of Harold Bell Wright's book. In
the years of their dreaming the farm was owned by
Ms. McDaniel, and they had little chance of doing
what they so desired to do. Starting around 1930,
Miss Lizzie had "done" that show often, centered
around her restored "Old Matt's Cabin." She used
local native talent for her actors and thoroughly
entertained and amused small groups of tourists who
were encouraged to come out from Branson to have a
picnic lunch (to be furnished by those coming) and
to enjoy the show. But Ms. McDaniel died in 1946,
as we've indicated. When the distant family got
that news they promptly drove to the Mid Ozarks and
negotiated with the estate to buy her holdings,
including Matt's Cabin, Inspiration Point and Ms.
McDaniel's recently completed fine home.
As long back in history as 1912, the
Shepherd of the Hills story had been produced and
staged by Dr. R. A. Sterling in New Jersey. Much
later on, the Southern Players of Southern Illinois
University, together with the Central Missouri
State College Players, produced the play down on
the river front in Branson. They eventually built a
small but quite respectable show building and
performed there for some time. Eventually, the
building and the show were acquired by the School
of the Ozarks and moved out to their new and
growing campus south and west of Hollister, at
Point Lookout, where the play was staged by
students of S of O for many years.
The distant family we mentioned, Dr. Bruce
Trimble, his wife Mary, and their son Mark Trimble,
bought the Ross farm from Ms. McDaniel's estate in
1946. While they managed to improve the property,
turn Miss Lizzie's home into a museum, and keep the
Ross home as a tourist attraction - clearing for,
building and opening an outdoor theater of their
dream's magnitude proved a trying and time
consuming task. Eleven years later, in 1957, three
years before the theater was completed and ready to
open, Dr. Trimble died, leaving the completion of
his dream to Mark and Mary.
The Ross family sawmill, down in a hollow
below the cabin site, was selected as the focal
point for the show. The ground around it was
leveled for an outdoor stage and the building was
restored and added onto a bit here and there to
make it more suitable for the play's story focus.
As many trees as possible were retained and kept
from harm during the clearing and construction.
There was even one fine tall oak left standing
right squarely in the middle of the seating area -
actually in the wide central aisle. It, too, was to
become a momentary focal point for the show.
When the play was progressing, during a
dramatic moment, one of the actors whipped up his
gun and "killed a painter (panther)" in that very
tree. A stuffed version of that wild animal then
dropped "dead" from the tree, slapping down into
the concrete covered aisle, right in the middle of
the audience. In the dark of night, and with the
belief in the story at a high pitch, it was most
startling! I recall being there one night with my
elderly mother. She very nearly had a heart attack.
But my word, how she loved it! Grandma Pat was one
of the people who actively and avidly encouraged me
to become an Ozark historian. She was fanatically
interested in local history, lore and legend.
Though her ex-railroad detective husband, "Grump,"
thought most of it was pretty boring, if not all a
bunch of hooey. Well, dear reader friends, we've
once again run out of space for our tale. We'll be
back in a couple of weeks to tell you how the
Trimble family got the show up and running and how
they all fared thereafter.
Incidentally, speaking of shows: Our
Wilderness Road Historic Dinner Theater is
temporarily closed for the holiday season. We'll
reopen January the 8th, continuing every Thursday
evening as usual, but at a new time, 7:00 pm
instead of 8:00 pm. Our staff met and discussed the
whole thing and agreed that, during the early-dark
days of winter, we should probably start the show
an hour earlier than in the summer. We've got a lot
of new historical stories to tell you, we'll have
some of your favorite musician friends back to
entertain you - and - we've found some new and
exciting talent to share with you! So, we'll see
you here in the next issue of The Message Tree, and
on our Wilderness Road stage at RT's Family
Restaurant on January the 8th of 2004.
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