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Natural Heritage

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Where is the center of the Ozarks?

And what is the capital? It's always been a little hard to tell.

In times past, Springfield was referred to as the "Queen City of the Ozarks."

Eureka Springs, that "Siloam of the Afflicted," serves as a cultural counterpoint to the Baptist leanings of its northern neighbor.

These days, I'd give the title to Branson, knowing full-well the kind of arguments that could bring.

But if Branson's the center, then where do you go from there?

Into the hills.

— the editor
Photo above, Balds between Kissee Mills and Taneyville, Missouri. Photo credit: J. Heston (5/5/08)
The so-ancient hills that are "nobody knows how old" seem to wait with a timeless expectancy for the next act in the eons-old drama we call the Ozarks while we, the players, try to straddle the barriers between past and present - struggling to keep one foot firmly in the Ozarkian past and one in the easier-living present.

Betwixt and between, modern Ozarkers are, living on the ragged fringes of our time frame.

And the Ozarks is bewitched. Not even modern highways and bridges and manmade lakes can change that.

If you were born here, and went away, you feel the pull of the hills.

If you have visited, you know that someday you must return.

— Page 13, Rossiter, Phyllis, A Living History of the Ozarks, Pelican Publishing Company Inc., 1992, 2001, 2006.