from Bluffs...Presbyterian Hill in Hollister overlooking train trussel. Note: now 65 bypass or other bridges.




Train trussel up close.





Train trussel looking from Branson to Hollister, partially washed out in 1916. It would wash out again in 43 and 45. As you drive through that trussel today, just ponder how high the water would get each spring and why Table Rock Dam was so important.





View looking downstream, Branson on left; note no bridge of any kind




Crossing White River at Branson.... part of the ole Hensley place.







See Branson depot in back right. Thus picture includes where the HIlton and Convention Center would be today as well as a part of lower downtown Branson. Picture could be taken not far from the Post Office or even further away, perhaps where the old Chuck's RV still remains.




Wow, Coon Creek bridge across from Branson going up to Mt. Branson looks a lot different. Note Main Street Bridge in background. Also note: all the trees.




A more modern 30s view of the Coon Creek Bridge.





Besides having a different name, Lake Taneycomo Drive, Lakeshore Drive looks a little different as well.





Looking down Main street at old bridge. Note: people on the bridge. The bridge was first constructed in 1913 as a wagon bridge. Automobiles were rare. The '45 flood washed it from its bindings. Reinforced steel-concreted arched Taneycomo Bridge had been built by 1931, and fearfully by some, is still is use today. In 1970 the bypass bridge was added. 






Branson on left. Now there is a bridge. Note: Roark Creek entering now Taneycomo Lake in the background.






Commerical Street looking south. The river would be down to the left. Things have changed a bit.








The ground seems to slope towards the river to the right. Would this be the view from the other end of the street, looking back north? Note: if that is the Commercial Hotel, then this is where the fire starts that destroys the newly incorporated city of Branson in 1912.




The Malone Hotel (renamed the White River Hotel in 1937) during the 1927 Flood.




27 flood. See train depot. Man, the White/Taneycomo could still flood.









Main Street Bridge high water 1916. See depot in upper middle.




Main Street Bridge from Sammy Lane Resort. Portions of stairwell on bluff can still be seen today.





A closer view of steps up Mt. Branson. They can be seen across from the Landing's fountains today.




Apparently the Main Street Bridge still existed through 1941. See it in the distant background at the bottom of the hill. Note the trees, cars and horse-drawn wagon. Eventually, it would be the 45 flood that would tear the bridge from its bindings.






A Brief Timeline...

A severe drought strikes the area in 1902. 

1903, Branson is be a lumber hub for the manufacture of railroad ties. The land is stripped of its timber. Railroads apparently are still big and how one will eventually get to Branson. 

The railroad blasts through the hills, coming down from Marionville and is completed to Branson in 1906. Current depot dates to 1905.

Wright's novel, Shepherd of the Hills, about life in and around Mutton Hollow and Dewey Bald, just west of Branson (on the other end of the strip) is written while on many visits to the Ozarks from the 1890s to early 1900s, is published in 1907 and comes to the Ozarks the next year. 

Branson incorporated in April 1912 with 1200 residents, but then burns down in August and is immediately rebuilt. 

White River Powersite Dam is completed in 1913 forming Lake Taneycomo (short for Taney County Missouri). 

Current Taneycomo Bridge was completed in 1931. 

History...

Before 1906, the principal towns of isolated Taney County, Missouri, were in the center of the county, where the best lands, best farms, most of the people, and most of the commerce were-Forsyth (the county seat), Taneyville, and Kirbyville. 

The principal wagon road ran there from Springfield at the north, to Harrison, Arkansas and beyond at the south. 

Hollister was a village across White River from the future site of Branson. Hollister was far enough up Turkey Creek to avoid the frequent floods, and was on the same side of the river as the Forsyth-Harrison, Arkansas road. So Hollister was the trade center for the western part of the county. No good freighting ford existed over the river to connect the road from Forsyth to where Branson would someday be--a serious difficulty.

The railroad instantly reversed the situation, leaving Forsyth the more isolated place. The first bridge over the upper White was constructed between Hollister and Branson, making them service towns on opposite sides of the river for their respective neighborhoods, as well as for rail traffic along the line between Missouri and Arkansas. Hollister was redesigned by the railroad to serve a high-class railroad tourist clientele. The bridge connected Hollister with such clientele in Springfield, Kansas City, St. Louis, and beyond.

Branson was railhead for construction of Powersite Dam (built 1911-1913) downstream at Forsyth. Supplies for constructing the dam were off-loaded at Branson, then floated to the dam site by boat. 

...Two events following in quick succession added new dimensions to tourism: the publication in 1907 of Harold Bell Wright's The Shepherd of the Hills, set just west of Branson; and the filling of Lake Taneycomo in 1913, the first artificial reservoir in the central part of the United States. Tourists came by rail to fish and swim in Taneycomo's warm waters and to visit Shepherd of the Hills sites. Branson had entered its first tourist era. One could now get there, quickly, comfortably, inexpensively.

But not by auto--at least, not easily. The roads were terrible, impossible, urban motorists might say. The auto routes from Springfield were a patchwork of roads, typical of inter-county routes in the Ozarks. They proceeded south, one through Ozark, another through Nixa, thence on to Highlandville, plunging off the Springfield Plain into the steep and rugged jumble of ridges and hollows that characterize the White River Hills. The road clung to the high ground and the winding ridges as much as possible. The farther south one proceeded, the tighter the curves became.

"That road [from Springfield to Branson] would make a preacher swear !" exclaimed Smith Brookhart III, recalling his journey over the route in the 1950s and '60s. Brookhart, president of Branson's Ozark Mountain Bank, said in a recent interview, "I believe it was 63 miles on the old road. You could pass on exactly 400 yards in the whole stretch. If you got behind an ox-cart or truck you settled in for the trip."