The cabin I think you are talking about was located deep inside Mutton Hollow...the actual Mutton Hollow, not the little theme park that proceeded Branson USA. There were at one time several cabins in the Mutton Hollow neighborhood that were "cast" as cabins lived in by the actual people Harold Bell Wright based characters on for the Shepherd of the Hills book. For instance, there is a "Fiddlin' Jake's" cabin and a "Mandy Ford" cabin in the vicinity. There used to be a "Wash Gibbs" cabin. Also there was a "Jim Lane" cabin that actually was preserved by the Shepherd of the Hills Historical Society, although it has since been torn down. Anyway, I think that cabin in Mutton Hollow allegedly was the cabin lived in by "The Shepherd" at the Mutton Hollow Sheep Ranch mentioned in the book. If you go to the play, the cabin they set fire to in each performance is supposed to be the cabin the Shepherd lived in. The cabin in Mutton Hollow allegedly is the REAL cabin, but since cabins in the neighborhood were used by locals at the turn of the last century to lure tourists to for pictures, refreshments and cheap souvenirs, who knows really if any of them were lived in by people Wright based characters on. In one interview from years ago that Wright gave, he claimed NOT to have based most of the characters on people in the neighborhood except for Old Matt and Aunt Molly and Uncle Ike the Postmaster, and maybe a few others. People who lived in the area and kind of fit the description of a character took that characters personality and developed their little act for the tourist trade, which, as it turned out for Branson was much better money than growing a patch of corn or working in the tomato canning factories.
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The cabin in Mutton Hollow was used in the mid '70s to the mid '80s as a stop over place for the trail rides that wound through Mutton Hollow and originated at the stables in the Mutton Hollow arts and crafts village that proceeded Branson USA theme park. I actually went on one of the short trail rides as a date with a girl I knew back in 1983. However, the trail ride I was on did not go to the cabin. The riders on the extended trail rides used the cabin as a midway point on their trail ride. They would stop and have breakfast on the breakfast rides, or a steak dinner there for the steak rides. After the meal, they would get back on the horses and meander their way back to the stables at Mutton Hollow. Anyway, from your Branson vacations going along Highway 76 westward, you would have seen the cabin while going around Dewey Bald Mountain, and you may have seen some horses and riders down in that vicinity. So what I have explained here about the trail rides to the cabin should answer your question. Thanks for bringing back some fond memories for me, too!
