A link to this article was sent by Gregory Holman, Branson native and editor of 417 Magazine. The site is dedicated to Taney History.
The River Runs Through It
by Gaye Lisby October/November 1994
I'm perching on the shoreline of the White listening to the voices of time flowing from the belly of the river. Fall has kissed the Ozarks and although it's much too chilly, I dangle my bare feet in the rippling water, listening. I can barely hear the story, the old, old, story which sounds faintly like a song. It fades in and out like sounds from the aged transistor radio I used to hide under my pillow at night as a child.
The story of the Branson region begins. It is whispered, sometimes shouted, often sung and I'm listening to the river tell it to me now.
The White River flowed unimpeded for centuries, carving out its relentless passageway through the mountains. Heralding from Arkansas, it visits Missouri only briefly, then returns to its native land. The Osage borrowed from the White only what they needed and remained proud caretakers of the land until they relinquished their rights in the Osage Treaty of 1808. Ten years later Schoolcraft and his companions explored the tangled shorelines of the unruly water and wrote of its crystalline beauty.
Emigration occurred shortly after and by 1840, Jesse Jennings' census revealed just over 3,000 residents of this harshly magnificent one thousand square miles. Homesteads were hacked from rock and cedar and the river ran through it all. Listen.
Settlers settled and neighbors were neighborly, sometimes more for the necessity of it all rather than in response to Christian commands. Then the war came in 1860.
The river wanted nothing to do with it and told her people who agreed for there wasn't anything to be won or lost by it all here along the shores of the White. But the armies came anyway and took the guileless and ruthless side by side, men and boys, and the river cried in agony with the women and children. Nothing could be done, however, so the river ran through it all. Time marched on and so did some of the Stone and Taney County men and not-so-boys back to their devastated land. They touched the base at the shore of the rippling waterway, yet shuddering at the distant sounds of change. For others were leaving their shattered lives looking for Utopia and yearning for the sounds of the river. Listen.
Autumn's chill is too much. I pull my now blue feet from the water and tuck them underneath me shivering, listening.
Land heretofore unattended, seeming to belong to no one and everyone suddenly spouted a homestead and a stranger. The magnificent tanglewood suddenly seemed much too revealing and those who were born naked and helpless in this wild land felt uncomfortably uncovered. The river clashed with the stubborn rocks in narrow passageways as natives and strangers eyed each other warily. And the river ran through it all.
Then in 1884 the Baldknobbers came. Might and right both took a poke in the nose and neither liked it one bit. Some strangers left and some natives did too while the sounds of the river echoed plaintively in their ears.
Big Nat Kinney was a mighty man, about as right as might could be. But he fell and the earth shook and the people were astonished when they saw their reflections in the White. They didn't like what they were seeing. Listen.
A sound came through the mountains, more like a thunder, a rumble and roar and smoke belched from her smokestack and Progress was here.
She wore fine, fine clothes and had a lovely parasol and a purse which the natives admired and so bit by bit she traded them for their land. And towns were born where they never were meant to be. The river was laid bare and anxiously fretting her future kept climbing out of her banks making a nuisance of herself to the people.
Someone needed a light. The sun and the moon were not enough so the river was powerfully dammed. Part of her became a lake. Commerce shot the rapids and landed in the middle of the lake while the river ran through it all. Listen.
Bell Wright had come and gone and shuddered for what he had done but the floodgates were opened and villages became towns yearning to become cities.
The people loved their river and loved her lake and proudly showed her off like a shiny penny won after a game of marbles in the summer sun. Still the river was growing old and cranky and she sometimes slapped at those she loved. She was dammed again. Listen.
Like a dying woman after a blood transfusion she was energized and became deep and wide and beautiful in her old age. The people hated her and loved her marveling at the great white bandage upon her belly. When she felt better, she sat up to eat at Table Rock.
So did the people. A man came and another city-town was born on the quiet side of the lake. To the East, trout played where catfish once wallowed. But the bass were good no matter how or where you sliced them. And the river ran through it all.
The cave that was once a secret garden was no longer a secret anymore and we were proud of that. Progress was still living in town and had long since put up her parasol and purse for she wanted instead things that looked simply lovely.
The river was much different now because she was twice a lake, then thrice a lake and it was too confusing to all the people. And anyway strangers had come again. The natives wagged their hoary heads and wished they'd just leave money instead. But cities had shattered the strangers' lives and their ears, full of din, yearned for the sounds of the river. Listen.
It was possible now, even probable that the towns would become cities. Then wafting over the leafy hillsides a new sound was heard. This was music like no front porch on a Saturday night. The people loved the new music and the new musicians who were so much like themselves. And the musical strangers touched the blue water of the river-lake and loved her too. More musical strangers came and touched too and the river ran through it all. Listen.
Over the hill then comes a new sound, music-like but with a bit too much clinking. The strangers and the natives their heads wondering. But the sound fades in and out and is too hard to interpret. Listen.
The strangers and the natives often can't tell each other apart clapping each other upon the shoulders and laughing at their children growing. Listen.
A sound nags at the back of their minds but they are full of life and the living of it and the river runs through it all. Listen.
The sound becomes a noise. The noise clinks loudly like heavy coins in a noisy bar. The strangers and the natives are alarmed when suddenly a deluge of new strangers stride along the river-lake in Italian shoes and silk suits with chirping phones. Listen.
The game of marbles is suddenly over. Innocence is gone and speculative strangers up the land like ice cream through a straw. A chill shadow falls over the hillsides. Foreheads become wrinkled overnight as natives and strangers alike try to figure out the rules to this new game they don't want to know how to play. Listen.
But Progress plugs in her radio and television and flops down a newspaper in front of the people. They must play or be played upon. The river wonders that no one touches her waters much now. Listen.
Projects pop like popcorn in a microwave instead of like shoots of tender grass in the warm summer sun. The river-lake hunches her shoulders still not ready for the blow. And boy did she blow! Blow by blow by blow by blow. Then the storm quiets and the strangers, natives, and new strangers stand looking at one another warily. Listen.
The river-lake has weathered the storm like she does so well and the sun hesitantly peeps over the mountains. The people look anew at the water and drawn to her sparkling shores reach down and touch it. And the river runs through it all.
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Gaye Lisby is a College of the Ozarks graduate and author. She wrote "A Spiritual History of the Land of the Osage and Branson"
