History
Drusilla Casson McKellip, my maternal great grandmother, is, without doubt, one of the more colorful characters in my ancestry. I don’t recall when I met her (I was a baby), but if I had possessed greater awareness at the time, I would have given her a high-five. More on that aspect later...
Most long-term residents of Willow Springs know of the "Reservoir," about a mile north of downtown. It is a hidden gem in the crown of our part of the Ozarks nestled between the Highway 60/63 bypass and business route at the north end of Willow Springs. Driving by, you would not know a lake is...
Last week, as I was searching my mind for an article to write, I had a series of thoughts, which in a way felt connected, but with no obvious causal link between them. Were these nudges by a muse?
Facebook posts about Montier. Ozark giraffe houses. Singer Jerry Jeff Walker’s song “Getting’...
One hundred years ago this week, the front page of our local paper carried the news of the completion of the clubhouse at Saratoga Springs.
Around three miles northwest of Willow Springs, near the Pine Grove Community, Big Indian Creek winds through the wooded hills and hollows of northwest...
A walk in the woods after our recent snowfall had me following animal tracks and reminded me of a story by Howell County Gazette editor-publisher Will Zorn, published in 1915.
Zorn wrote of the reappearance of a strange phenomenon, reported in western Howell and eastern Douglas County...
The WSHS Class of 1965 would not have been as lively without identical twins Dan and David Zimmerman. Both were bright students, and between the two, involved in practically everything, from athletics to band. I met them my first summer in Willow Springs in 1959 playing baseball at Booster Field...
For this issue, I’ll take you to the southwest corner of Howell County and a horrific set of lesser-known events that occurred there around February 1894. It was hard to find direct sources for this story, but luckily, other newspapers echoed what local papers wrote. I found this article in The...
As the name implies, the Willow Springs is a small group of springs emanating from a rocky wooded hillside, almost nine miles from the community that took its name in 1869. When the appropriation occurred, the town might just as well have been designated as Alsipsburg, Hickory Top, Harris, or...
Last spring in an article, “Chasing Legends: A Trip to Steelville,” I profiled Willow Springs High School alum Ike Lovan of the class of 1953. The article featured his contributions to the famous SCA championship football teams that won two consecutive Ozark Bowls. Because there is more to his...
In the grip of the Great Depression, many South Central Missouri citizens struggled to survive the 1930s. Farm products were at all-time low prices, government policies such as Prohibition were especially unpopular here in the Ozarks, and a minority of the population turned to crime in response...