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How did Branson, Missouri, become a leading destination for family entertainment?
That’s one of the questions answered by this book that tells the stories of the families who built Branson into a magnet that attracts 8 million visitors a year.
 How did Branson, Missouri, become a leading destination for family entertainment?
That’s one of the questions answered by this book that tells the stories of the families who built Branson into a magnet that attracts 8 million visitors a year.
The author is Arline Chandler, a writer who lives in the foothills of the Ozarks, has been published in many magazines, including RV Life, and writes a travel blog at rvlife.com. She knows Branson well, having interviewed some of the town’s leading figures over a 30-year period.
Chandler traces the town’s beginnings as a tourist draw to the opening of Missouri’s deepest cavern, the Marble Cave, in 1894 and the publication of a best-selling novel, “The Shepherd of the Hills,” in 1907. Tourists came to the area to see the cave and then to visit the setting for the novel, and attend an outdoor play based on the novel.
Chandler writes about the families that developed these attractions into the Silver Dollar City theme park and the Shepherd of the Hills entertainment complex. And she shows how other local families built theaters featuring country music and hillbilly comedy until by the 1990s Branson was claiming the title of “Live Music Show Capital of America.”
Well-known entertainers such as Andy Williams, Roy Clark and Mel Tillis joined a parade of artists who found a home in Branson, but, as Chandler points out, the backbone of entertainment in Branson today remains the shows created by local families.
The Heart of Branson, with a foreword by the city’s mayor, is published by The History Press of Charleston, South Carolina, and has a cover price of $19.99. For information, visit historypress.net.
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