Stopover: Galena, MO

Here's an Ozarkbahn truism: small towns often harbor great marvels. That's the case with Galena, Missouri, a particularly scenic plat of the Ozark Mountains near Table Rock Lake and nearby tourist mecca Branson.

[Galena, MO, on Google Maps]

Galena's local notoriety began a century ago as bucolic float-trip destination for those who could afford to vacation by train and the emerging automobile. Located on the James River, the town's most visible trade still seems to be catering to fishing and canoeing enthusiasts. Galena does possess one macabre footnote in history: the site of the last public execution in America. In 1937, the county courts tried and hanged Roscoe "Red" Jackson, an Ozarks native and transient worker convicted of shooting a traveling salesman. Gawkers flocked to the town square, a spectacle residents remembered with a mix of disgust and awe. The whole affair sounds like a pain in the neck to me.


Today, civic pride and upkeep remains evident around the Galena town square. Years of re-purposing fail to hide a neato bungalow-style service station down the street.

For road-going sightseers, Galena's one bona fide curiosity is its Art Deco highway bridge shaped like a Y. Opened in 1927, it spans the James River between the town proper and what is now Highway 248, an artery of local commerce and travel dating back to the 1800s. The bridge was split at the end to aid drivers turning onto the curvy highway perched on the bluffs opposite Galena. Given the tepid braking and handling abilities of pre-war autos, the unique design was well-appreciated and enthusiastically received.


The Galena Y-Bridge is one of the more elegant and purposeful public works in the Ozarks.

Hundreds of people crowded the town for the dedication of the Y-bridge. Such an occasion might not stir the same excitement today, but it makes one appreciate a time when the general public was still captivated by the potential of the open road. The liberating notion of mobility and romance of motor-tourism are fully taken for granted today, with cars widely regarded as appliances to isolate the journey rather than enhance it.


The Y-Bridge dedication, as shown on Bridgehunter.com. The narrow 1910 steel bridge it replaced can seen in the background.

The Y-bridge was still a marvel in the early twentieth century based on practical reasons, as well. Accessibility was the historic challenge of the Ozarks, where steep valleys made river crossings a temperamental enterprise at the mercy of seasonal flooding. The proliferation of automobiles in the 1920s loosened state and federal road funding in Missouri, fostering a flurry of bridge construction in the area. At 764 feet long, the Galena structure was one of the larger undertakings in the Ozarks for the time, and a major asset to the town's tourist trade.


Modernity on the March. Concrete pylons remain from a narrow 1910 steel bridge that the Y-Bridge replaced. Turn your gaze 180 degrees, and the newer roadway bridge built in the 1980s can be seen. Despite its age and closure, the Y-bridge remains open to pleasant pedestrian views.

Ultimately, the Great Depression, steady rise of Branson, and attraction of surrounding lakes diverted the attention of many visitors away from the James River's banks. The Y-bridge now rests on the National Register of Historic Places, and Galena has survived time and floods to show pedestrians where progressive inspiration meets natural beauty.

Stopover: Springdale, AR

The Old Wire Project was bound to go South at some point. After touring the history and sights of Benton County in far Northwest Arkansas, let's cross the border into Washington County below and visit the working Ozarkbahner's town, Springdale. A backbone of local industry, the town has sometimes been painted as less than cosmopolitan. Any negative assessments are unfair, as we'll find any blue-collar connotations have only added to the uniqueness and color of the Ozarks.

[Google Maps: Springdale, AR]


Downtown Springdale

Sure, we have to get an easy one out of the way: a few parts of town smell. Springdale is home to Tyson Foods, the largest meat producer in America. Sometimes the scores of processing plants and grain silos in town share their aroma with their local neighborhoods, a fact we shared frequently at my high school one town over. You might call it an odor, but I call it character. Monumental character.


Pictures of Springdales's giant poultry and many more are available from the Debra Jane's Roadside Architecture web site (left) and Jim's Big Things page (right)

A six-foot chicken and turkey guard the entrance to 4-State Poultry Supply on Robinson Avenue, and the Allen Canning Company on Thompson has a Popeye statue that is a regular fascination of drunken pranksters. Toot, toot. Also, the previously mentioned Funland putt-putt T-Rex watches over Highway 412 just East of town. Two thousand years from now, archaeologists will be making some awkward assumptions about Springdale.

[Google Street View of 4-State Poultry Supply]


Antique egg incubator, Hispanic flavor, pious roots

We can't joke too much, though. The Old Wire Road corridor has been been paved with gold for a few titans of business. Chicken farmer John Tyson sired a Depression-era hatchery into huge wealth, and neighbors Sam Walton of Wal*Mart fame and trucking moguls Harvey Jones and J.B. Hunt laughed all the way to the bank along with him. Their thriving international business has earned Springdale one of the most prolific expressions of cultural diversity in mid-America. How about the largest concentration of Marshallese outside the Marshall Islands? Latin America is best represented, creating a Pan-American dynamic that blends Bible Belt sensibility with a young and entrepreneurial Hispanic culture.



One of my favorite local ventures is the Pontiac Coffee House on Thompson Street. It occupies the former Charlesworth Pontiac (later, Steve Smith GMC-Jeep) building, a model post-war mid-century dealership from an architectural standpoint. The Pontiac offers coffee, smoothies, baked goods, gifts, and even a church inside. For enterprising Ozarkbahners, the real prize is their preservation of automobilia, like the 1954 Pontiac convertible in the former showroom.



For many years, Charlesworth was also a American Motor Company franchise, pedaling wonderfully oddball big-three alternatives like the Rambler, Pacer, and Matador. Their display case contains cool articles from the era of Internationals, Renaults, Eagles, and so many forgotten and unloved AMC marques from America's motoring past. I mean, they have an original toy AMC Gremlin on display. Hallowed ground.



The Pontiac isn't Springdale's only exhibition of throwback horsepower. The Arkansas and Missouri Railroad is headquartered downtown, and runs a fleet of locomotives from ALCO, a manufacturer that did not survive the 1960s. Among railroading buffs, their operation would be akin to a taxi company or delivery service doing business with a pool of AMC Ramblers. The A&M headquarters is a rolling museum where ALCO diesel-electric units from all over North America are scavenged for parts and restored for service, making it a curiosity for all manner of gearheads.


Downtown signage

For the guardians of a wider-ranging history, Shiloh Museum of Ozark History is right down the street from the A&M Railroad. The museum resides next to an old alignment of the Old Wire Road that runs parallel to the of the town's modern namesake, Spring Creek. The town was originally named Shiloh, a popular Biblical place name appropriate for the Baptist farmers who settled the area near the spring-fed stream.


Outdoors on the Shiloh Museum grounds

Townsfolk adopted the name of Springdale in 1872 because the US Post Office reported another town in Arkansas had already snaked "Shiloh." Wow, what name-snaking jerks. That is just one of the many episodes of local and regional history found at Shiloh Museum. Period dwellings and farming showcased on museum grounds nicely complement the wealth of information inside.




A sampling of Shiloh Museum exhibits

Why do we like Springdale? It's Anytown, Ozarks, USA. For almost 200 years, the Old Wire Road has brought a class of hard-working people to the town in search of opportunity. They built a history of self-starters, and there's a visible sense of pride in rooted in this industriousness. Take a closer look at Springdale, because there may be more to the story than you think.

Stopover: Neosho, MO

After the bustle of Main Street America fled to suburban strip malls and big-box retailers, some towns fought back. One of the best downtown revivals in the Ozarks is being led by Neosho, Missouri.

[Neosho, MO, on Google Maps]



I stumbled through historic Neosho by accident, driving in my usual pattern of navigation by impulse, rather than by GPS. Sometimes wandering Ozarkland just means discovering chicken houses you haven't seen before. This time, it was a genuine reward and surprise, a bit of a treasure.



Neosho has a welcome Ozark vibe from native stone used heavily throughout the downtown area and local neighborhoods. Nearby hills and limestone springs provide a pleasant backdrop, as well. Circling city blocks on foot, I spotted buildings in the style of Victorian, Art Deco, International, cottage, mid-century kitsch, and Spanish design. Neosho packs a lot of scenery and architectural details in a relatively short walk.



The centerpiece of downtown is the Newton County Courthouse, a Depression-era Works Progress Administration project. It's fantastically Art Deco, with ornate scales of justice over entryways and "Justice is Truth in Action" carved into the stonework. The recently renovated "Civic" is also a beautifully restored Deco landmark.



The most inspiring aspect of the "Flowerbox City" is that there is a concerned effort to maintain the charm of its downtown district through private investment and public assistance. Despite the town's small size and likely economic woes, plenty of attention has been paid to the particulars. Public building upkeep, landscaping, streetlights, and sidewalks show civic pride in abundance.



What do you finding rusting in the weeds of most small towns? Tractors and old pick'em up trucks? Try a Volvo PV544. Oh, and that's a Corvette Stingray in the shop behind it. I had a Gearhead moment.



If discovered, Neosho would have the multifarious structure and charm to rival downtown efforts in Eureka Springs and Fayetteville, Arkansas. Let's hope it gets found out.