Sunset at Elephant Rocks State Park, Missouri
Photo by M. Curtis
Alley Springs Mill along the Ozark National Scenic Riverways
Photo by M. Curtis
Sunrise on Lake Tanycomo in Branson, Missouri
Photo by M. Curtis
Sunset at Elephant Rocks State Park, Missouri
Photo by M. Curtis
Alley Springs Mill along the Ozark National Scenic Riverways
Photo by M. Curtis
Sunrise on Lake Tanycomo in Branson, Missouri
Photo by M. Curtis
Arcansas. Aux arcs. Ozarks. The place name has its historic origins in the language the Native Illini peoples of the Mississippi River Valley used to refer to their southern neighbors who dwelled in the lands where the Arkansas River empties into the Mississippi. It was borrowed and adapted by French and British colonial settlers in the mid-eighteenth century as they sought names for their outposts in the region. In the early 1800s, a mapping expedition conducted by representatives of an infant nation, the United States, applied the designation “Ozark Mountains” to the highlands stretching north and west of the Arkansas-Mississippi confluence. By the early twentieth century, the physical boundaries of the formal Ozarks, at least in cartographic terms, had been reduced to the highlands north of the Arkansas River.
Today, the physical Ozarks is generally recognized as a geographic region stretching across portions of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Illinois that is known for its distinct blend of karst and caves, springs and streams, hills and hollers, forests and fields. The cultural Ozarks is a human region built from the ever-changing cultural practices and traditions of the peoples who have and continue to inhabit this beautiful yet demanding and fragile terrain.
The two—the physical and the cultural—are deeply, inextricably intertwined. A history of isolation and seclusion, coexisting, often in tension, with migration in and out of the region, has and continues to shape the human landscape of the Ozarks. The enduring presence of First Nations peoples, the traces of French and Spanish colonization, the contributions of Scots-Irish, Germans, enslaved Africans and their descendants, urbanization, industrialization, tourism, and the arrival of refugees, migrants, and laborers from places as diverse as Vietnam, Laos, the Marshall Islands, Cuba, Mexico, and Central America all come together today to create a place that is far more complex and heterogeneous than it is often given credit for in the popular imagination—a place with plentiful examples and models of persistence, innovation, and transformation.
We invite you to join us at the 2023 Smithsonian Folklife Festival where we will dig deep and explore this unique North American region and the varied groups who call it home.
Ozarkers create community across sacred and secular spaces by coming together in times of joy and in times of pain. Food is a constant companion, whether front and center at a pie supper or on the sideboard of a weekly music jam. This fellowship hones baking techniques and song repertories, passing on traditional knowledge and making room for innovation.
Storytelling and music are vital tools in the Ozarks for both everyday interactions and more cyclical celebrations and gatherings. Music showcases, festivals, and theme parks play a large role in presenting a picture of Ozarks culture to locals and outsiders. The region is replete with virtuosic musicians who come to workshop their talents while maintaining outsized influence on the national music scene. These spaces create synergistic spaces where traditional artists can convene, share their practice, and make a living from their art form.
The Ozarks is home to a palimpsest of pathways that build on each other, from the mountain bike trails that follow the old gravel tracks of abandoned railways to the legendary Route 66 and Natchitoches Trace that connect historic and present-day communities. It is a place that has been characterized by the movement of peoples in and out of the region since First Nations like the Osage and Quapaw moved through seasonally between the forest and plains. This continuous zone of confluence is home to diverse communities of resettled refugees and new immigrants from around the globe.
The Ozarks’ evocative landscape contains karst topography such as caves and ridges, connected by a vast system of rivers and lakes. These elevations support unique medicinal plants and foraged finds such as the black walnut and morel mushroom. Success in this growing space is often hard won, but lessons in plant knowledge create community and directly support an array of material culture and foodways.
