What is a “baldknobber” I have no idea?
I have not seen all of Missouri. mostly staying in St Louis and Kansas City. Those two cities don’t come across as too southern.
I have been to poor tornado-damaged Joplin which seems more southern, and have never been to Branson. I’m not crazy about country music, but it comes across as southern in the media.
Were the Jesse James gang baldknobbers?
During and after the Civil War, there were all kinds of guerillas roaming the state. Some were unionist, some were confederate, some were just criminals. Some were a blend. Initially, Baldknobbers began in Taney County (where Branson is) as a sort of semi-unionist group to combat confederate partisans. But the notion spread to other counties in S.W. Mo and became more a vigilante outfit. In parts of SW Mo, there are “bald knobs”, which are high hills with no trees at the heights. Pretty good places for bands to meet, as they could see in all directions and their signals could be seen for long distances. Some of the Baldknobbers turned to criminality, some didn’t. Their characteristic forays were at night, and mounted. They wore whole-head masks, often with horns on either side of the head and fancifully decorated. Baldknobbers are treated anything but sympathetically in Harold Bell Wright’s novel “The Shepherd of the Hills”. In Branson there is an outdoor theater where parts of that novel are re-enacted, including a mounted Baldknobber raid. Thousands upon thousands of people attend that every year.
Eventually, they died out as the country gradually pacified and regular law and order was established. But they are part of the history and have never been forgotten.
The James gang people were not Baldknobbers. The James gang was a remnant of confederate irregulars initially from farther north in Mo, that fought during the war, then turned into a kind of guerilla group after the war, raiding unionist sympathizers and organizations and dishing out rough “justice”. They initially gave a lot of their plunder to confederate sympathizers who, at the time, were under very major oppression by occupying Union troops and agents. As a result, they were aided and hidden by the local populace. Eventually, they were pretty much just robbers, but they are still regarded sympathetically in much of the state.
KC and St. Louis are definitely not “southern” cities, though St. Louis still has some of the trappings of its formerly river-southern days and ways. But the accent is its own. KC is “western” in the way that, say, Denver is “western”. Somewhat entertainingly, the major elite social event of the year in KC is the “American Royal”, which is just a big, luxurious cattle and horse show with all sorts of social events connected to it. To my ear, anyway, people in KC have no accent at all, though it may seem so to others.
The “southern” part of Mo begins in the Missouri Valley (sometimes referred to as “Little Dixie”), picks up again along the Mississippi Valley somewhat south of St. Louis, and includes most of the state south of I-70. SE Mo is “Delta country”, very “deep south” southern. South Central and SW Mo are more “southern piedmont”, like southern Appalachia. The Ozarks in the SW sort of blend into the southern plains to the west, and the culture becomes more and more “southern plains” like Oklahoma and North Texas, so the prevailing accent in Joplin, for instance, is closer to that of Tulsa than it is to that of, say, Springfield, (which is more “hill”) even though they’re not far distant from each other. There are a lot of accents, and one can find different accents in towns not ten miles apart. But all local accents are either “hill” (akin to southern Appalachia), “southern”, “southwestern” or a blend of them.
Branson is not just hillbilly music. There are also “Vegas-type” (but highly sanitized) shows there as well. Nationally-known entertainers have their own theaters there, which is a good deal for them because they get to keep the profits themselves. In Silver Dollar City, there are shops with every kind of archaic craft one would ever want to see, from real blacksmithing to intricate quilting to very serious woodworking. Those people are very highly skilled at what they do. Branson is quite entertaining, almost no matter what one’s taste is. (No, I’m not trying to sell you, just explaining)
One very peculiar thing about Mo is the number of German places spotted here and there. St. Louis metro area (not so much the city itself anymore) is full of people of German descent. Along the Missouri river in the east, there are a few towns like Hermann, that are like the Rhineland, including high quality vineyards and winemaking in the German style. Fall is the best time to go to Hermann. Those places, of course, are not southern in any way. If you are in the St. Louis area, Hermann is not very far away.
:thumbsup: The UK is my most favorite place to visit in the world! For some reason I feel happy and safe there. We have visited there 7 times in the last 5 years and I’m planning my next escape!!