Pippin Place

Pippin Place was a legendary Gasconade River resort in the Missouri Ozarks. With the spread of railroads across the region, urban tourists and affluent sportsmen, long attracted to the Ozarks’ rugged beauty and outdoor recreational opportunities, arrived by rail to engage in a variety of outdoor pursuits. Enterprising entrepreneurs subsequently opened public and private resorts that catered to city dwellers in search of adventure and sport. One of the earliest, John Hooker, employed local guides who took sportsmen out on the Gasconade in Pulaski County. After William C. Jones, a prominent St. Louis judge and attorney, established an outpost popular with fellow members of the city’s summer set, the number of visitors flocking to the area increased, as did the number of resorts. When St. Louis police chief Edmund Creecy bought a farm on the Gasconade in 1909, it signaled the beginning of real estate purchases by urbanites who erected summer bungalows. As Missouri historians Lynn Morrow and Gary Kremer note, “city and rural people worked together to create these environments.” Pippin Place was a prime example of such collaboration.

Located on the Gasconade between Waynesville and Crocker, Pippin Place was named after Pulaski County native Bland Nixon Pippin. As a boy, Pippin would take corn to be ground into meal at Bartlett Mill, a ten-mile journey from his home. While some might have considered this an onerous chore, Pippin saw it as a welcome opportunity to “fish or swim or just daydream about a time when he might own” the site. Upon reaching adulthood, he attended the University of Missouri in Columbia and then obtained a degree in dental medicine from Washington University in St. Louis. Pippin alternated between teaching dentistry at his alma mater and operating his own practice. His income as a dentist enabled him to achieve his dream of owning the mill site. In 1911 Pippin bought forty acres adjacent to Bartlett Mill that came with Bartlett Spring and a dam site. As his son Dru later wrote, “Thus was the beginning of a family-operated vacation resort that lasted until 1969. Acreage was added, changes made, and additions [were] built.”

Using a crew of mostly local labor and a few skilled craftsmen, Pippin oversaw the design and construction of an Arts and Crafts lodge crafted from native stone and locally sourced sycamore and oak. The handsome structure greeted its first guests in 1915. Visitors arrived in Crocker on the Frisco and were transported fifteen miles by livery operators to Pippin Place, where they found rustic but modern accommodations. The resort’s electricity was generated from a dam Pippin constructed at Bartlett Spring. The lodge also featured another notable luxury at that time: indoor plumbing.

As Kremer and Morrow observe, Pippin “blended the past with the present” in creating an appealing resort. When Bartlett Mill burned, he rebuilt it. Over time, Pippin continued to purchase additional acreage and make further updates, spending $50,000 on his entrepreneurial endeavor. During the 1920s, Pippin Place, as the resort was widely known, became a sought-after destination for wealthy St. Louisans. It offered swimming, fishing, and floating on the Gasconade alongside croquet, hiking, horseback riding, and tennis. Bar associations, corporate groups, and urban clubs were among the groups that made excursions there. Although at first it was only open during the summer months, Pippin Place became a year-round destination when Dru and Eva Pippin, Dr. Pippin’s son and daughter-in-law, took over its management in 1925. Dru, who earned a degree in agriculture from the University of Missouri and had worked as a university extension agent, drew on his training to make the resort as self-sustainable as possible. He managed the resort’s livestock and crop production, while Eva oversaw its gardening and canning operations. This self-reliance proved crucial in helping Pippin Place survive the Great Depression. The Pippins also relied on the talents and skills of several key longtime employees, including African American cook John Branham, to keep customers coming back. 

Having initially sought wealthy guests, the Pippins had required references from potential customers, but over time, middle-class prosperity created a new class of clientele. Although the 1930s were lean years, World War II heralded a new era for Pippin Place. In 1940, the US Army began construction on Fort Leonard Wood in Pulaski County, bringing transformative change to the central Missouri Ozarks. Area residents, as well as outsiders, flocked to the new opportunities for employment. When military personnel arrived, Pippin Place and its amenities proved popular among the officers, many of whom elected to stay there when Fort Leonard Wood was still in its infancy. After the close of World War II, Dru Pippin was among the many residents who petitioned the army to grant the fort “permanent status,” which it achieved during the Korean War. Men who had served at Fort Leonard Wood spread the word about Pippin Place, and a new generation of travelers on nearby Route 66 became acquainted with the family-friendly resort.

Dru Pippin was a passionate champion of the Gasconade River and the greater Missouri outdoors. He did not cling to old traditions like gigging and deer-hounding. As Morrow and Kremer note, “Like other cosmopolitan Ozarkians, he reported” fish and game violations to the state. Pippin was appointed to the Missouri Conservation Commission in 1947. The following year he published a classic essay, “Autobiography of the Gasconade River,” in the October issue of the Missouri Conservationist, which helped encourage continued tourism to the area and the resort. Pippin remained at the helm of Pippin Place until 1962 when his wife, Eva, died suddenly of a heart attack. Two years later he sold the resort. The lodge burned in 1984, leaving behind a stone shell of one of the greatest commercial resorts in the central Ozarks.