Remember the stars
You loved yesterday?
Where did they go?
Did they all pass away?…
Branson’s the place
They can always be found
— The Simpsons
2002 Emmy nominated song
In another episode Bart and friends steal a car for a road trip. They get to Branson (where one marquee says Up With White People) and group‘s bully insists they see The Andy Williams Show.
Back before the turn of the Century state leadership saw Branson saving Missouri: millions of tourists a year bringing billions to pump the economy. The tremendous expense of carving a four-lane divided expressway, U. S. Highway 65, through some of the steepest mountains in the state attested to Jefferson City’s commitment to Branson.
Well, Andy Williams, Boxcar Willy and Glen Cambell are dead. Most of the big theatres stand empty.
Visiting for a long weekend, we went with friends to the Legends show – impersonations of Toby Keith, the Blues Brothers, Lainey Wilson and Elvis in an hour and fifty-six minutes. They gave a good show (the Blues Brothers especially) but at the main Saturday night performance with the Sales Tax Holiday Weekend filling the roads just 135 of us found the 900 seat theatre.
Another sign of change: I only saw one tourist bus – it was outside the Golden Coral on Saturday evening.
The lakes about Branson remain worth the trip. And stores are still there. We passed one Trump merch store, saw signs for another and then drove by the Trump Outlet. (We didn’t pass it but I you can still get flags, bumper stickers and other items commemorating America’s second revolutionary war.)
In other words, Banson survives yet the dream of it becoming an Ozark Las Vegas faded away.
I did notice a few troubling signs…
Most all the support staff (ushers, snack bar folk and such) at the theatre were way, way older than me.
Even on a Saturday night a large restaurant could only use about two-thirds of their tables due to a lack of staff.
At our resort the friendly, hard-working maids all spoke Creole on their walkie talkies.
The local free paper had a quarter page ad asking tourists to share their leftovers —
WAIT! Don’t throw that out!
Leftovers for Locals…created to collect leftover items from the Missouri Tri-Lakes area vacationing guests…
The ad lists 20 food pantries, six hot meal programs and 15 Blessing Boxes (small by the road displays where the needy can get a few non-perishable things) which benefit local families.
In other words, tourism has not brought widespread benefit to most southwest Missouri working families.
And, The Simpsons hasn’t parodied Branson in decades.
Glenn Koenen
Header image licensed under the Creative Commons license and modified to support the nature of the article and the format of this content.
