the Rise and Fall of the Highway Hillbilly

In the public consciousness, the word "Ozark" is loaded with connotations ranging from pastoral serenity to malignant clichés. Like them or not, the stereotypes have been a pocket of regional uniqueness for over a century, a valuable sense of identity. As mass communication and entertainment advance social conformity across America, is our classic Ozarkness doomed to fade?


Hillbilly postcards, a staple of Ozark gas stations


The Arkansas Traveler painting

The history runs long. Square one is the tale of the wayward Arkansas Traveler, a gentleman finding himself a fish out of water among backwards Arkies in the mid-1800s. This story affected 150 years of stereotypes and inventions through song, art, and folklore, setting the tone for interaction between "civilized" America and mountain rural life. The fantasy fueled the hokey charm of mid-century standards like the Snuffy Smith comic strip, Lum and Abner radio show, and Beverly Hillbillies sitcom. For many, the Ozark Mountains represented the real-life home of halcyon hillbilly-ism.


Mickey Mouse at Disneyland? How about a pose with Abner? A snap from the Dogpatch USA writeup at the Arkansas Roadside Travelogue.


Miles from Dogpatch USA, a Li'l Abner-esq caricature still headlines a liquor store on Highway 59.

Ozarks entrepreneurs were happy to indulge. As in popular media, the Ozarks as an industry flourished in mid-century driving culture. On Scenic Highway 7 South of Harrison, Dogpatch USA operated a whole theme park operated based on the outlandishly hick serial Li'l Abner.


Ozarkland near Carthage, Missouri.

Another of the classic Ozarkbahn roadside treasures were the hillbilly knickknack repositories, like the Ozarkland store that still operates on US 71 East of Joplin. Native Ozarkians have often thrived on self-depreciating humor. Some justified, some imagined, all worth a buck. This turned the area into a highway of homespun crafts, souvenirs, and unique stops and sights.


Ozark Valley station off I-44 near Reeds, Missouri.

Unfortunately, the popularity of dowdy mountain kitsch faded. Dogpatch USA shuttered its cedar-shingle shacks in the early 1990s, and the appeal of hill-country eccentricity waned on the whole. Craft fairs and corny Branson shows remain, but the audience is not getting any younger. Many of the knickknack stores are either lightly shopped or boarded up.


No need to replace the sign if there isn't any traffic

What happened? Urbanization and cultural homogenization eradicated much of the real hillbilly lifestyle, while the image itself faded as entertainment left colloquial whimsy in favor of bombastic realism. Fictional hillbillies of radio and television moved from the wooded hollers to the trailer parks, dens of meth use and obesity. The billies of the hills are now absorbed into the wider notion of "rednecks" and "white trash." A Cops-ready double-wide domestic dispute could happen anywhere in America, and the sense of Ozark place and humble virtue is diluted. The contemporary touchstone of the hackneyed, People of Wal-Mart, shows the common portrait of backwards America. Plenty hick, but the benign folksiness is long gone.


Ozark Village near Sarcoxie, Missouri, closed on a weekday. For good?

A young-ish traveling salesman - a button-up salesdouche - once told me in a Tulsa bar that Arkansas was full of corn. I found this disheartening. This was an embarrassment to elementary-grade geography, for one. Worse, it was fully ignorant to the Ozark stereotype pop culture had worked so hard to endow. If the average goon can't get his platitudes right, the Ozarks might as well be no different from the rest of the flyover America. However hokey or contrived, holdouts of regional subculture add a sense of humor and identity we would miss if we abandoned them.

So, are we losing touch with the novelty of rustic old mountain culture? The roadside landscape isn't promising, but it's still worth stoppin' for.