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The Boundaries of the Ozark Region
As we survey the region, the Ozarks are bounded as follows (and a good atlas may be necessary to trace the boundaries).
Beginning at the headwaters of the Little Osage River northwest of Old Fort Scott, in southeastern Kansas, the northern edge of the Ozarks region runs along the drainage of the Osage to the Missouri River at Jefferson City, and along the southern bluffs of the Missouri River loess to its confluence with the Mississippi (excluding metropolitan St. Louis).
The eastern boundary is harder to plot. Beginning with the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi, the boundary follows the western bluffs down the Mississippi to Sainte Genevieve, then along the foothills past the confluence of the Whitewater and the Castor to Popular Bluff. Following the foothills into Arkansas, the boundary runs along the western banks of the Little Black and the Black Rivers to Newport, and down the White River, then back up Cypress Bayou toward Lake Conway and across the Arkansas River around Mayflower.
Here many Ozark scholars trace the southern edge along thenorth banks of the Arkansas River to Oklahoma. We have found that the folksways and storytelling traditions extend farther southward, and our view of the regional boundary carries it southwestwardly along the foothills of the Ouachita Mountains following Insterstate 30 from Little Rock to Benton, the area just south of and along U.S. 70 through Hot Springs to DeQueen, and into Oklahoma to Broken Bow.
(continued above right)
The sunny glades resemble the desert Southwest; the cool, spring-fed meadows resemble northern Minnesota bogs; the deep, shaded ravines of the eastern Ozarks are typical of the Appalachian Mountain forests; and the southern river flood plains are linked to the deep South.
— excerpted from the Missouri State Museum, Jefferson City, Missouri.
Taking in the Kiamichi Mountains, the boundary turns northward up the drainage of the Little River.
The western boundary is ill-defined, culturally and geologically. From the bend in the Little the boundary runs northward through Nashoba, Tuskahoma, and up Oklahoma 2, in foothills and up the lakes system of the Neosho (or Grand) River from Old Fort Gibson to the Kansas state line. In Kansas the boundary runs up the Neosho, but seems to travel up Lightning Creek to its headwaters, and across to our starting point near Old Fort Scott. (In Kansas, the prairie way of life predominates west of the Lightning, even though the state road system identifies the Ozark Pioneer Trail out west of that stream).
There is still one tiny island of Ozark culture that is not within these boundaries, but which we have identified through many pleasant visits with the locals. The bluffs area of Illinois, along the eastern bank of the Mississippi, outside the large urban areas, in Madison, St. Clair, Monroe and Randolph Counties proudly maintain some of the old "hill folks" way of life.
— Young, Richard & Judy Dockrey, Ozark Ghost Stories, August House Publishers Inc., 1995.