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The Real Ozarks

Posted at June 23, 2006 10:28

By John Robinson

Similarly crooked, the streams and the highways intersect in random fashion. These two conduits, one natural, the other paved, greet each other awkwardly, then meander off in separate directions.

This scenic braid sets the table for a visit back in time. The roads reveal historic gathering spots that give us a peek at our past.

Those gathering spots are the gristmills that flourish in the folds of Ozark County.

The gristmills borrow liberally from nature. They perch upon the stream bank and transform the power of the streams by adapting the art of nature’s most relentless hydraulic engineer, the beaver. The dams and the millraces focus the water’s gravity upon that most impressive human invention, the wheel. The mill wheel turns the shaft that turns the belts that turn the gears that turn the millstone that grinds the grain to grist. But you know that.

The mills reflect a social power, too, at once disconnected yet dependent upon the stream.

Knowing the agony associated with mortars and pestles, generations of Ozark families gladly traveled miles over crooked roads to pay millers to grind their grain. And while they waited, they checked their mail, exchanged gossip, and commiserated about taxes. And they shopped for necessities and niceties and anything else that struck their fancy at these outposts of civilization.

Even today, the mills that survive in Ozark County are still on the edges of civilization. So next time you tire of super-center sameness, hop in our time capsule and drive to what locals call The Real Ozarks.

There is no easy access to the area, by superhighway standards. That’s the charm. Visitors follow the ridges and ravines, much like local ancestors. From the north, many people enter Ozark County on State Route 5, and from the east and west, U.S. Highway 160. To sample the real Ozarks, set aside your state highway map, and scratch deeper into the county to find the Glade Top Trail. Built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, this unpaved route is a National Forest Service Scenic Byway, one of three such delights in Missouri’s Mark Twain National Forest. Unpaved? You shudder. Not to worry. The forest service describes the route along this watershed divide as a two-lane, all-weather gravel road. The twenty-three miles of spectacular views inspire Ava’s Lions Club to host the annual Flaming Fall Review in October. Its seasonal counterpart, the Spring Flowering Tour, approaches the Glade Top Trail from Theodosia.

If you prefer to stick to asphalt, remember that the first paved roads in Ozark County appeared long after city dwellers first strapped into American roller coasters. No matter. Ozark roads offer more thrills. So does the scenery, where few billboards blister the beauty of nature.

Your payback for the trek into this remote region comes in the currency of four mills, no more than a two-song drive from one to the next.

Chances are, you’ve already seen Hodgson Mill. You may not have visited the site where the mill traddles Hodgson Spring, sixteenth largest in the state. More likely, you’ve seen the mill’s likeness on your grocery store’s flour shelf, on packaging that bears the Hodgson name. The old mill doesn’t produce flour anymore. In 1976, that duty migrated to a modern plant ten miles down the road in the county seat of Gainesville. Don’t fret. Modern doesn’t mean the flour has changed. It’s still stone- ground, and they take away nothing, add nothing. The company proclaims “Alva Hodgson would be proud.”

Proud, indeed. For its 119th birthday, his namesake mill received a face lift – really, a foundation lift – completed in 2001 with the help of Amish carpenters from nearby Seymour, who bolstered the sagging structure with giant timbers cut from the hearts of Douglas firs. Now, Lord willin’ and Bryant Creek don’t rise, the mill will stand another 120 years.

Alva Hodgson, Missouri’s preeminent millwright of the nineteenth century, left his fingerprints all over the region. As the crow flies, his 1900 creation, Dawt Mill, sits about four miles from Hodgson. Your drive, thrice the distance, packs more fun than mere flight. Although Dawt is Hodgson Mill’s younger sister, her weather-beaten countenance reflects a century of tempest. The unpainted look adds to her charm and offers an authentic glimpse into the past. Well, it’s nearly authentic. An artificial mill wheel adorns one side of the mill, away from any water. It was added to pacify visitors who insist on seeing a wheel, even though this mill’s power emanates from a turbine beneath the millrace. Despite this useless appendage, the stately old mill towers above the North Fork, one of the Ozarks’ premier floating rivers. The mill dam that spans the river helps categorize two types of canoeists who attempt to paddle over it: fools and survivors. Even expert canoeists prefer to portage around the dam, knowing the structural limitations of a canoe.

The mill still grinds flour using buhrstones, and the property offers creature comforts nearby, including a lodge and a deli.

Unique accommodations await throughout the county, but there’s one item you must bring. Search your father’s closet for that old pair of Big Smith overalls. Your dad’s duds might like to return to a likely source of its stitching, Hodgson or its neighbor, Zanoni Mill. For a time, the mills served in the Big Smith production family, using water power to generate electricity to operate sewing machines.

Zanoni, about four miles downhill from Hodgson, sits on Pine Creek and features Ozark County’s only example of the rare overshot water-wheel mill. It was built in 1940, on the site of a mill that operated as far back as the Civil War. When the mill was in service, a wooden flume captured water from the Zanoni Spring and channeled it down the hill, pouring it on top of the water wheel, hence the term overshot. Nowadays, the mill’s services take the form of weddings and special occasions.

Head north a dozen miles to the original Ozark County seat of Rockbridge. There, on the bank of Spring Creek, the Rockbridge Mill stands resplendent in its red coat of paint. The grounds now encompass a resort, featuring a general store that rose from the ashes of the original store on the site, at the time considered the finest general store in the region. Today, the general store features fine dining, and locals and visitors flock to the restaurant seven days a week. For the last fifty years, a private trout hatchery has spawned interest from a culinary angle. While you’re there, help preserve an icon of American mill culture: Buy your stamps at the Rockbridge Post Office—they’re good throughout the USA.

Unlikely as it seems, there are two flat spots in Ozark County. One is the water surface on Bull Shoals Lake. Well, it’s not perfectly flat—the water is often agitated by the great-great-granddaughters of the Missouri state record walleye, brown trout, yellow perch, striped bass, and largemouth bass. The latter record has stood since John F. Kennedy’s first hundred days.

The other flat spot? Norfork Lake, every bit as remote as Bull Shoals, and the fishing is just as good.

Best I can tell from a review of the Ozark County map, local residents have named sixteen springs, a dozen ridges, twelve knobs, eight hollows, eight caves, five balds, five mountains, two bends, and one sink. There are more than that, of course. After all, a map can hold only so much information.

But who’s counting? The only thing you need to count on is a great time, on a roll in the Real Ozarks.

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