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In the early 1900s, a quiet Kansas City minister, Harold Bell Wright, made two trips from Galena to Branson on the famous James and White Rivers float. Each time Wright found needed personal healing in the beauty of his surroundings and through visits with new friends met along the way.

A book that he eventually wrote on this healing journey, The Shepherd of the Hills, became an instant best seller as the bucolic portrayal of the Ozarks, quickly finding its way to major cities throughout the United States and Europe.

Wright's life had been one of turmoil. On his own at a young age, due to the early death of his mother and his father's economic misfortunes, he'd worked as a grocery boy, farm hand, and in quarries and factories from New York to Ohio. Then in 1892, at the age of 20, while working as a sign painter, he decided to enter Hirman College in 1892 to study the ministry.

Over the next ten years, Wright suffered from deteriorating health while ministering to congregations in Missouri and Kansas. So in the summer of 1903 he left his family and traveled with a friend to the Ozarks for rest and healing, spending the summer at the home of John and Anna Ross and their son, Charles.

After a summer of rest, Wright was called to serve a congregation in Kansas City, but his health remained poor and he returned to live with the Ross family the following year. While there, he stayed at the Branson Hotel and at a resort in Hollister when not residing with the Ross family.

For months, Wright hiked the countryside, studied the local landscape and observed the people, weaving these experiences into a fictionalized account taking place around the Ross cabin and people of the region. The famous characters Old Matt, Aunt Mollie and Young Matt are said to have been modeled on the Ross family.

In Wright's book, a gentle, religious stranger from the city, the shepherd, comes into their lives. Almost a modern-day Bridges of Madison County, two of Wright's characters, the shepherd's son and the Matthews' daughter, are secret lovers. The girl dies giving birth to a son, Little Pete, after her lover leaves the area.

The Ozarks culture and isolation, effects of lengthened droughts, and problems with the Bald Knobbers all made Wright's book good reading, with most of his characters fashioned from composites of people who lived in nearby Mutton Hollow, on Compton's Ridge, or at the village of Notch.

The Shepherd of the Hills became a magnet, drawing multitudes of curious visitors to Roark Creek and the upper White River; by the spring of 1909, excited souvenir hunters began pulling apart the log walls of the Ross home.

To protect their cabin, Ross found renters who also served meals to hungry hikers and soon tourist businesses in the area began to take advantage of interest in the book and characters. A boat and resort on Branson's river front were named Sammy Lane, after the book's leading female; and other Wright characters were quickly memorialized through street, hotel, and restaurant names that include "Aunt Mollie's Restaurant," the "Shepherd of the Hills Expressway," and "old Matt's Motel."

Tourists kept flooding into the Ozarks solely because of Wright's book, looking for pieces of the Shepherd's story and for the characters, to the growing annoyance of native Ozarkans. Wright, upset and apologetic over the uproar, even tried writing a public letter to slow down reaction to the book, to little benefit -- the lid was off the pot!

Many of today's Branson visitors visit the country church at the edge of Branson, a trading post museum, and take an elevator to the top of a 225-foot tower to view the 360-degree panorama from one of the highest points in the Ozarks.

Wright's epic story is told summer nights in an outdoor drama that touches on the love, loss, power, hardship, and the true meaning of life. Over 80 Branson actors and actresses, 40 horses, a flock of sheep, several guns and rifles, an actual burning log cabin, and a vintage 1908 DeWitt automobile have made the live action performance legend.

(How did Wright's book fare in the publishing world? His own royalty records indicated total sales of 1,091,309, launching one of the most stunning success stories in American writing history, writes Larry Tagg in Storyteller to America. The Shepherd of the Hills Farm has continued selling hard-bound copies by Grosset and Dunlap and by the early 21st century sales passed two million.)

Still, what attracted Andy Williams, Mel Tillis, and so many other internationally known stars to this little town in the Ozarks, where investors have underwritten multi-million dollar theatres, restaurants, golf courses and a multitude of tourist attractions? There is still more to the Branson, Missouri story.

Next: Part 3 -- Branson's First Entertainers Braved Cold Breezes Off Lake Taneycomo

Keywords: Branson, Ozarks, Shepherd of the Hills, Harold Bell Wright, Moon River Theatre

About the Author
Susan Klopfer, Mount Pleasant, IA, USA
sklopfer542@yahoo.com