by sarah | Apr 28, 2026 | This is the Ozarks
Nobody mourns a highway. Except this one. One hundred years ago, Route 66 was stitched together from dirt paths and farm roads by the communities it would connect. Town by town. Mile by mile. Designed to run through the front door of every place it touched. Not around...
by sarah | Apr 28, 2026 | This is the Ozarks
This is what’s at the bottom of the Lake of the Ozarks. Linn Creek, Missouri. A courthouse. A hotel. A lumber yard. A grocery store where men gathered on a sunny afternoon the way people do in a town where everyone knows you. For nearly a hundred years, families had...
by sarah | Apr 28, 2026 | This is the Ozarks
Few people in the Ozarks know his name. But he helped build this nation. Jacob Blickensderfer came to the Ozarks to retire. He planted an orchard, built a mansion with an astronomical dome, and put down roots the way a man does when he intends to stay. But before the...
by sarah | Apr 28, 2026 | This is the Ozarks
By six in the evening, the whole town was gone. Sunday, April 18, 1880. Marshfield, Missouri. It was a clear spring day. The cyclone came through in less than a minute. Nearly a hundred people were killed. All but 15 buildings were leveled. The courthouse became a...
by sarah | Apr 28, 2026 | This is the Ozarks
By the time he was fourteen, Richard Parks Bland was completely alone in the world. His father died when he was seven. His mother died when he was fourteen. No family to fall back on. No one to smooth the road ahead. Just a boy on his own in a world that didn’t slow...
by sarah | Apr 28, 2026 | This is the Ozarks
Growing up in the Ozarks teaches you something about what truly matters. Nearly a century ago, a boy from Neosho, Missouri, grew up watching the people of the Ozarks. The farmer down the road turning his field. The preacher raising his voice to a crowd. The men in...
