1961 Ozark Breakaway: The Year McDonald County Seceded from Missouri

by Pa Rock

Former Resident of McDonald Territory 

I had the very good fortune to grow up in the 1950's and 60's in the bustling little tourist community of Noel, Missouri, a town located on the scenic Elk River in McDonald County, the southwest corner county of the state.  Noel had the river, with its swimming and fishing, a nice campground,  a stretch of highway that took drivers and their nervous passengers beneath immense overhanging limestone bluffs, a dancehall that drew visitors multiple states, and several small cabin courts and motels for tourists.

My parents owned one of those cabin courts, and my sister and I grew up working around tourists, making new friends from exotic places like Kansas City, Tulsa, and Henrietta, Texas, and spending our free afternoons - after the cabin court work was done - boating, fishing, and swimming in the Elk River as it flowed lazily along its banks next to our backyard.

Growing up in a tourist community was a terrific experience that brought a lot of diversity and cultural enrichment into my life, and I have always felt that those early experiences of working and being around summer people gave me the self-assurance and gumption to step on out into the world as I got older.

Noel was different from other little communities in that it occasionally made news on a national level.  In 1938 Hollywood came to town for the McDonald County filming of the movie "Jesse James,"  and stars Henry Fonda, Tyrone Power, and Nancy Kelly all lived in Noel during the filming.  In the 1940's singer Kate Smith talked about Noel, "The Christmas City," on her radio program, and in 1969, as the tourist business was on the wane, a train exploded in the center of town late one August night destroying many homes and making national headlines.

One other time that Noel made the news was in 1961 when the small Ozark town that depended on tourism for much of its annual income was suddenly set on its heels by a double blow from the state when it rerouted Highway 71, a major US north-south traffic artery, away from Noel without prior notice - and then soon after when the state left Noel and much of McDonald County off of its official tourist guide.  People got angry, and then they started to get organized.   Soon a "secession" movement materialized in which representatives from the county formally began an effort to separate McDonald County from the rest of the state.

The secession brought a lot of headlines!

Dwight Pogue, a Noel native who was in high school at the time of the secession, has just published a very fine book which offers a comprehensive view of Noel's past along with a detailed history and analysis of the movement which spawned McDonald Territory and brought the bright lights of the press to bear on that unique corner of the Ozarks for most of 1961.  Dwight's father, Ralph Pogue, was the publisher and editor of the local newspaper and a prominent figure in the secession movement.

Pogue's book, 1961 Ozark Breakaway:  The Year McDonald County Seceded from Missouri,  offers a well researched narrative of the events leading up to the secession, and his account is supplemented with an incredible amount of press clippings, photographs, and even maps from the year of the Ozark rebellion - much of which came from his father's bountiful archives.

For those who lived in or remember Noel during its tourist heyday, Dwight Pogue's chronicling of the McDonald County secession will bring smiles and fond memories - and for others who just want to explore this unique chapter of Ozark history, Pogue's book is now the definitive source.

I have my copy and I am enjoying it immensely!