'Quiet living and fast fishing'.....Rockbridge celebrates 70 years

Rockbridge Rainbow Trout and Game Ranch is marking its 70th birthday next week, celebrating seven decades as a cherished Ozarks hideaway that's enjoyed continued success while overcoming a crazy mix of challenges and calamities through the years.

  The resort started in 1954 in one of Ozark County's oldest communities when Lile and Edith Amyx, with Lile's brother Clay Amyx and his wife India, bought the picturesque village of Rockbridge with the idea of turning it into a remote respite where fishermen could stay in quiet comfort and fish for locally raised trout in the crystal-clear waters of Spring Creek. The purchase included a stately old grist mill, country store and post office, church, bank – and a colorful history.  

The story of the village

The first village of Rockbridge developed in the 1830s where early pioneers settled near the junction of Bryant Creek and Spring Creek a few miles southeast of the resort's present location. Ozark County, as originally created, was much bigger than it is today and included most of today's Douglas County and about a third of present-day Howell County. That original Rockbridge, near the center of that super-size county, was designated as Ozark County's seat of justice. The county's first post office opened there in 1842. 

In 1853, the Missouri legislature approved the construction of the first state road to serve Ozark County. It ran from Wright County through Rockbridge to the state line near Udall. 

Little is known about that first county seat because, according to the book "History of Ozark County, 1841-1991," only one of the county's official record books survived three different fires that burned the "log cabin courthouses" at old Rockbridge. Then came the Civil War, when the village was completely wiped out in a guerrilla raid.  

The Rockbridge post office was closed during the war years and reopened in 1868 a few miles away, re-establishing the village in a new location – a picturesque valley alongside Spring Creek, where the Rockbridge Rainbow Trout and Game Ranch operates today. The county seat moved to Gainesville after Ozark County was reduced in size in 1857 and Rockbridge was no longer in the county's center. 

The little village thrived in its new location and eventually included several structures that still stood when the Amyxes bought the site in 1954. Those structures included the mill that Ohio native B. V. Morris rebuilt in 1892, improving an earlier mill that had operated on the "new" Rockbridge site since 1868. 

Next, in 1895, Morris constructed a two-story general mercantile store at Rockbridge; the upstairs was used as a community meeting room, and the post office operated out of the store, with Morris as postmaster. That large building replaced an earlier, smaller store that had burned in 1894 – "on the same night the store was robbed," according to a story about Rockbridge's history in the Aug. 25, 1960, edition of the Ozark County Times. 

That was the same year, 1895, when Sidney and Edgie Amyx (parents of resort founder Lile Amyx and grandparents of current resort owner Ray Amyx) were married at Rockbridge. They settled on the ridge above the little village, homesteading land that now carries the driveway leading from N Highway to the resort's lodge and headquarters. Sidney and Edgie had six sons and a daughter. Their son Ralph was born in 1907, and the old homestead is now the site of the resort's Ralph's Ridge guest condos. 

Also in 1895, Morris rebuilt the original log-and-stone dam that impounds the Spring Creek mill pond; he used rock from a nearby quarry. In the Times' 1960 story about Rockbridge, B. V. Morris' daughter-in-law, Lyda Morris, said that on the day the last rock was laid, "the town band played a serenade on the dam, and a dance was held in the hall over the Morris store to celebrate the occasion." Two people reportedly "danced a jig" on top of the newly rebuilt dam.

After rebuilding the mill in 1892, Morris repeatedly expanded it and brought in additional machinery, eventually making it capable of producing 50 barrels of white "patent" flour a day, sold with the Gold Dust and Our Family labels. It also continued "custom grinding" for local customers, turning out traditional corn meal and "graham" flour. 

Rockbridge also boasted a sawmill, a lumber-planing mill and a cotton gin that could turn out seven bales of cotton lint per day – "all powered by the four large springs that rise in the lake above the dam," according to the Ozark County history book. 

In 1903, Morris and John Edwards opened the Rockbridge Bank, which operated until it closed in 1933, "when so many small banks disappeared throughout the country," the Times story said. During the 1920s, the little bank was robbed twice. Both times, the thief was apprehended, and the stolen money was recovered. 

When B. V. Morris died in 1918 at age 70, his obituary, published in a Springfield newspaper, said, "he gave away thousands of dollars in money and merchandise . . . and was respected and loved by all who knew him. He was one of the oldest merchants in the southwest and one of the most successful." After B.V.'s death, his son, Frank, operated the mill while his wife, Lyda, ran the store and served as postmaster. 

Years passed. Gradually, commerce slowed in Rockbridge as modernization replaced the old, water-powered ways. Frank Morris continued to operate the Rockbridge mill until he died in January 1947, and then his son, William, tried to keep it going, but the mill closed in 1948. 

The resort's website, rockbridgemo.com, sets the scene: "The world changed, and Rockbridge was almost abandoned. Only the post office remained to mark the existence of this once bustling community. "

The Amyx era begins

Lile Amyx, whose parents, Sid and Edgie Amyx, had homesteaded the ridge on the north side of Rockbridge, married West Plains native Edith Gillette in 1935 in Waynesville, near Fort Leonard Wood, where Lile was working as a government accountant during World War II. After the war, the Amyxes moved back to Ozark County, while Lile worked as a logger, helping clear land ahead of the impoundment of Bull Shoals Lake. 

In 1946, he and Edith, with their three children – Susan, 8; Edward, 4; and Ray, 2 – moved into the former Rockbridge home of John Edwards, who had founded the Rockbridge bank with B. V. Morris in 1903. Lile operated a sawmill a few miles north in Douglas County and logged the land that is now part of Bryant Creek State Park. The Amyx kids attended the one-room Lower Brixey School about a mile away from their home. Later, they endured a sometimes two-hour, one-way bus ride over the unpaved country roads to attend Gainesville High School. The route extended over a wide area, collecting students, and "we were the first ones on, last ones off," Ray recalled. 

The Amyx kids' bus driver was their grandfather's half-brother, World War I veteran Sigel Amyx.  

The family's white, two-story farmhouse overlooked Spring Creek about a quarter mile south of the Rockbridge mill, which was in its last two years of operation when the Amyxes moved there. After the mill closed in 1948, and with the store just about empty except for the post office, it must have seemed a lot like living in a ghost town. 

But Lile and Edith, along with Lile's brother and sister-in-law, Clay and India, recognized the potential of the beautiful place. In 1954, they negotiated with Lyda Morris, Frank's widow, to buy the land and buildings that made up the village: mill, store, bank, church and two houses, including Lyda's house on the hill overlooking the store. Lyda retired as Rockbridge postmaster that year, and Edith was appointed in her place. Edith held the position 30 years, until she retired in 1984.

'Fast fishing and quiet living'

It's one thing to dream of creating a remote, hidden-away resort for trout fisherman. It's another to do the work and survive the setbacks – and there were a lot of them in those early years. "If you look back at what we first built, you can tell we didn't know what we were doing," says current owner Ray Amyx, Lile and Edith's son. 

He uses "we" to describe the family's challenges during the resort's early years because, even though he was only 10 when the Amyxes bought Rockbridge, everyone worked hard, including the kids. He and his older siblings, Edd and Susan, helped wherever they were needed. His first jobs, he said, were to "help raise the fish. I fed the fish, hatched the fish, picked eggs." Later he helped with grass-mowing and other outdoor tasks. 

The Amyxes learned to raise trout by trial and error – and, at first, there were lots of errors. The ponds and raceways they built for trout-raising went through several variations before the Amyxes finally learned what the trout needed to survive, Ray said.

Meanwhile, he quips, they also learned about "all the diseases trout can have – and the many different ways a trout can commit suicide." 

Despite all the challenges, they opened for business in the summer of 1954, with two cabins that could accommodate four overnight guests. Many of those guests fell in love with the beautiful setting and the friendly hosts who welcomed them to the trout ranch, and they returned to Rockbridge year after year. Today, a wall of memorial plaques inside the old mill commemorates dozens of families who have been guests at Rockbridge through multiple generations.

Two of the resort's first guests, Fred and Sally Hermann of St. Louis, came in 1954 with friends Dick and Christy Hawes – and then came back with their family every summer afterward until their deaths in 2011 (Sally, at age 84) and 2016 (Fred, at 90). The Hermanns' descendants have continued the annual tradition of gathering at Rockbridge and were back there last week, celebrating 70 years of summertime visits. (See related story, page A2.)

In the resort's earliest years, Edith Amyx oversaw much of its day-to-day operation. Co-owners Clay and India Amyx lived in West Plains, where Clay maintained a dental practice. 

And, to bring in additional income, Lile worked in Gainesville at the Ford dealership owned by his brother, Ralph. 

Those first years of operation were difficult, not only because of all the problems related to raising trout, but also because money was tight and communication with the outside world was limited. Telephone service had not yet reached that part of Ozark County when the Rainbow Trout and Game Ranch opened.

That's right. No phone.

There wasn't much money for advertising, either, except for occasional one-inch classified ads in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and a few other city newspapers. The ad said, "Rainbow Trout Ranch: Ozarks' finest trout fishing, full accommodations in unspoiled territory, as nature created. Historical water mill. Write for information. Rockbridge, Mo."

Those who happened to hear about the new attraction tucked back in the hills of Ozark County had to write a letter asking for details or call Clay Amyx's dental office in West Plains. Then Clay, or an assistant, would contact Edith at Rockbridge via two-way radio to relay the information.

It seems incredible that any business could succeed when faced with such handicaps, but the Amyxes believed in their dream and kept going. 

Word-of-mouth was the resort's most powerful publicity. Ray Amyx says some of the resort's earliest guests came here to fish in the area's two newly impounded lakes, Bull Shoals and Norfork. "A lot of time people would be at the lake fishing. Maybe the bite wasn't as good as they'd hoped, and someone would say to them, 'If you're on your way back to St. Louis, you can stop at Rockbridge and catch some trout,'" he said.  

Those who did then went home to St. Louis, or wherever they lived, and talked about Rockbridge. As word spread, Rainbow Trout and Game Ranch gradually developed a reputation as an appealing place where guests could fish, dine and relax in a remote and beautiful place. It was worth the drive from far-off cities, guests told their friends and neighbors. 

The Amyxes' hard work and determination paid off. Six years after the business opened, the Ozark County Times published a Rockbridge story in its Aug. 25, 1960, edition, noting, among other things, that,"What was once the village store, with its exterior carefully preserved, now houses the modern cafe, handsome lounge and the old post office installations which date from the 1880s."

By then, the Rainbow Trout and Game Ranch was more than a resort catering to fishermen. It was also selling live trout, delivered by aerated tanker truck, to customers throughout the Midwest and southern states. The Times reported, "Chicago and Texas have been two of the best customers." Lile Amyx told the newspaper the resort had sold "over 60,000 pounds of live trout" the previous year.

In a Jan. 24, 1965, story, Memphis (Tenn.) Commercial-Appeal outdoor columnist Henry Reynolds wrote about Rockbridge and its increasingly famous trout. "Amyx trout don't come cheap, but they are hardy and with the right kind of care will live for days and days in tanks," Reynolds said, adding that Rockbridge supplied "a large brewery in San Antonio, Texas, with trout for its fishing tanks" and noted that other "big accounts" were supplied as far away as El Paso and "throughout the Mid-West, including Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and parts of Michigan."

Five years later, in an April 12, 1970, column, Reynolds again wrote about Rockbridge: "Fast fishing and quiet living. Those are trademarks of a little settlement high in the Ozarks called Rockbridge, Mo. I spent two days there this past week and came away feeling like a new man. No telephone, radio or television in your cabin. Plenty of good food. Beautiful mountain scenery. And rainbow trout fishing you write home about."

A devastating tragedy 

Delivering the live trout became one of the jobs the Amyx brothers, Edd and Ray, took on after they graduated from high school (Edd in 1959, Ray in 1962). It was on one of those trips that a devastating tragedy occurred. 

The two young men had delivered a load of live trout in Dickson, Tennessee, on July 19, 1966, and were ready to return home to Ozark County when Edd, then 24, was accidentally electrocuted. The Times, in its July 21 edition, reported that Edd had "walked under a guy wire supporting a power line pole and reached up and grasped the wire" as he ducked under it. "The guy wire on the high line pole was anchored to a rock and not into the ground and had somehow become charged with electricity. He died instantly," the Times reported

Edd had married Karen Enloe the previous year, and their daughter, DeEdra, was 8 months old when he died.

The Amyx family's grief was shared not only by their local friends and relatives but also by their far-flung community of loyal Rockbridge guests who had become their friends. With broken hearts, the Amyxes continued the demanding work of operating Rainbow Trout and Game Ranch.

Progress – and disaster

As their business grew, Lile and Edith bought out Clay and India's share of the trout ranch and became its sole owners. They expanded the resort with new lodging facilities and additional acreage. The old store became known as the "lodge," and its popular cafe, with "the county's best commercial kitchen," according to a Times story, served the resort's guests as well as local residents and day-trippers. 

With the resort's success seemingly secured, Ray stepped away from the family business and worked as an over-the-road truck driver for several years, transporting freight and produce nationwide. He and his first wife, the former Sandra Luna, had divorced, but Sandra continued to live at Rockbridge with their daughter, Alicia, and she worked alongside Edith to help manage the restaurant and front desk in the lodge. After Edith retired as Rockbridge postmaster in 1984, Sandra was appointed to the job. (The U.S. Postal Service closed the Rockbridge post office, Ozark County's first and oldest, in 2015.)

In 1985, Ray rejoined the family business, helping his parents run the thriving resort. His help was important that November when heavy rains caused Spring Creek to flood, overtopping the rearing ponds. It was a setback, but business continued as usual. By then, Rainbow Trout and Game Ranch had developed a large and loyal clientele, with guests coming from throughout the Midwest – and beyond – and making reservations years in advance. 

The resort's tradition was to close during January and February, although the post office continued to operate inside the lodge. That was the case in January 1986, when Lile and Edith traveled to Texas for a combination business and vacation trip during the winter break. On Friday night, Jan. 25, a month before the resort would reopen for the season, nearby resident Nathaniel Beard was driving on N Highway about 8:50 p.m. and saw flames shooting 30 to 40 feet into the night sky. The old store was on fire. 

Ray remembers standing on the hillside above the store, watching it burn. The Times story reporting the fire said flames "raced through the antique structure, built with pine lumber cut from the virgin forests in the Rockbridge area." 

When the Wasola and Eastern Douglas County Volunteer Fire Departments arrived, "the building was an inferno," the Times reported "All that survived were the stones of the foundation and the post office's records, which were in a fireproof safe. Investigators could find no clue to the origin of the fire, which was so hot it twisted steel beams." 

Lile and Edith hurried home from Texas and immediately announced that they would rebuild and the resort would reopen in late February, as usual. A month later, in its Feb. 28 edition, the Springfield News-Leader carried a photo of Lile standing in the cleared fire site, saying reconstruction of the building had started and was expected to be completed by May 1.

Meanwhile, the resort headquarters was reestablished in the old bank building, and the house up the hill from the old store became the temporary kitchen and dining room.

Besides the loss of the structure, the biggest problem after the fire was that the reservations book had been destroyed. They didn't know when or which guests were coming – and many guests had made reservations years in advance. The Amyxes placed ads in midwestern newspapers, saying the Rockbridge store had burned, and those with reservations should "Call Edith." 

A few years before her death in 2022, Ray's sister, Susan Ault, told the Times what happened next. Almost everyone got word of the fire and called in to confirm their reservations, Susan said. But inevitably, on busy weekends, "someone who hadn't heard about the fire would show up, and there wouldn't be any place for them," Susan said. Whenever that happened, Edith did what she always did when unexpected guests showed up, she said. "She would bring them home, and they would stay with us," she said. 

Lile and Edith

In the 1990s, as Lile and Edith were heading into their 80s, Edith developed kidney disease. Her health deteriorated until she needed regular dialysis treatments. Reluctantly, she and Lile moved to Springfield to make it easier to receive those treatments, which continued five and a half years until her death at age 84 on April 8, 1999.

While his parents lived in Springfield, Ray said, Lile came back to Rockbridge every weekend to visit with the guests, many of them his old friends, and to inspect the changes Ray had made while he was gone. Ray laughs as he recalls how hard it was for his dad to admit some of the changes were good ideas. 

Lile died Aug. 2, 2001, in Springfield, three weeks before his 91st birthday.  

A new century for an old mill

Ray believes some of the oldest timbers in the Rockbridge mill are from the original structure that was built on the site in 1868 and was rebuilt by Morris in 1892. That means the beloved old mill that was built in the 1800s and got a new life in the 1900s is still anchoring the little village in the 2000s – a third century for an enduring landmark.

Guiding the family business into that new century, Ray Amyx has worked to maintain the resort's oldest structures and modernize its behind-the-scenes foundation while being careful to keep the charm and unique character that keeps guests coming back to Rockbridge. 

For example, he's tweaked the resort's official name to reflect what everyone has always called it. Instead of being Rainbow Trout and Game Ranch, it's now officially Rockbridge Rainbow Trout and Game Ranch. And while the earliest guests communicated with Edith indirectly by radio or through mailed letters, anyone in the world can now learn about the resort instantly through its powerful rockbridgemo.com website.

Rockbridge is now open year-round, except for five days at Christmastime, and more lodging has been added in the last couple of decades. The resort now totals 11 houses and 29 motel-style rooms that can accommodate a total of around 140 guests. Activities have been added too, including shooting sports (sporting clays and five-stand) and hiking trails that wind through the timbered hillsides. For a while, the resort offered upland hunting and horseback riding. 

An RV park and campground have been added for the convenience of the resort's 80-plus employees. Rockbridge has two daily shifts of kitchen and wait staffs and a trout hatchery staff overseen by Chris Goodman and Daniel Inkley. Longtime employee Teresa Welch works in housekeeping, and her daughter-in-law, Lonnie Welch, manages the front desk, and, in the back of the lodge, four talented "fishmongers" continue to amaze guests with their fast fish-cleaning abilities. Dillon Hawkins, Dawson Brown, Tyler Wright and Darren Lesh accept guests' trout catches and, in 30 seconds or so, trim out boneless fillets that are ready to be bagged and taken home. In 2016, a video of Dillon filleting trout that was posted on the magazine Field & Stream magazine's website garnered millions of views.  

Ray says a lot of the resort's newest ideas have come from employee Kristi Mings, who's credited with thinking up holiday-themed, family-friendly events that range from December "breakfast with Santa" gatherings in the lodge to Fourth of July celebrations that fill the grounds with vendors, games, fund-raising food sales for local volunteer fire departments and fireworks displays at night. 

Next week, the resort celebrates its 70th anniversary with a week of special daily events (see page B6). 

New ideas for resort activities have also come from Ray's wife Genny, who works alongside him in the resort's general management. He and Genny live on property adjoining the resort with their son, Edward, 7, and Genny's daughters, Kendra, 13, and Katelyn Allen, 17. (Like Ray and his siblings did, the kids ride a bus to attend school in Gainesville, and they're still the first ones on and the last ones off. But now the ride is a little shorter – "only" 90 minutes or so. Genny drives them to school most days so they don't have to meet the bus at 6:30 a.m., but they usually ride the bus home.) Ray's daughter Alicia lives with her husband, Gideon Winrod, near Caulfield. Ray's granddaughter, Darian Clayton, also lives near Caulfield with her husband, Kyle, and their four daughters. 

While new ideas are important to Rockbridge, Ray believes one of the resort's most enduring appeals is a factor that's carried over from its 1954 beginning. There are no phones, no internet and no cell phone access in any of the resort's guest houses and rooms. "I think a lot of people come on account of that," Ray said. "They don't want cell phone service while they're here. They come to get away from it."

To prove his point, he notes that a pay-phone landline that hung on the wall of the lodge was removed by the phone company several years ago because it was rarely used. 

Wifi internet access is available in the lodge and in the mill, and guests may choose to enable wifi calling on their cell phones while they're in either place – but most don't, Ray said. 

Another thing that remains unchanged, although it's greatly reduced because of the difficulty involved, is the transporting of live trout to a few select venues, including Johnny Morris' Dogwood Canyon attraction south of Branson. It's a little easier to ship Rockbridge trout fillets, and they're served in restaurants far and near, including Morris' Big Cedar Lodge and at The Crossing restaurant in St. Louis. 

Still overcoming 

Visitors to today's Rockbridge enjoy the same fun fishing, fine dining and friendly hospitality in the same beautiful setting that has attracted guests for 70 years. There are few reminders of the challenges the Amyxes overcome to get the business started, or the fire that could have ended it in 1986.

There are reminders, however, of the most recent setbacks. Few will forget how Rockbridge, along with the rest of the country, all but closed during the recent covid pandemic. And if you know where to look, you can see remnants of the disastrous 2017 flood that might have been the end for a less determined enterprise. 

"It washed us away," Ray said, recalling the storm that brought as much as 14 inches of overnight rain to some areas during the last weekend in April of that year. Area streams and rivers rose to historic levels, and, on the nearby Bryant and North Fork of the White River, houses were demolished by the rushing floodwaters.

At Rockbridge, cabins that had been recently renovated were flooded, a 5,000-gallon propane tank disappeared downstream and the basement of the lodge filled with water, destroying the HVAC system. Guests were alerted to the rising floodwater and moved to higher facilities, but one visitor who ignored a warning to move his car had to watch as the convertible was washed away. 

Spring Creek rose to unprecedented heights and flowed through the lower levels of the three-story mill, leaving the old building "tilted to the east," Ray said. Worst of all, "we lost all our fish and all our ponds," Ray said, remembering how his sister Susan stood beside him, looking out at the rearing ponds the day after the water stopped rising and told him quietly, "You're done, Ray." 

For that one moment, Ray thought she might be right. But then, maybe as he was remembering other disasters the family had weathered, he got a call from Marvin Emerson, owner of Crystal Lake Fisheries in Ava. 

"Whatever you need, Ray," his friend and fellow trout-farmer told him. "Whatever you need."

Although the trout fishing was curtailed for a while, until it could be restored with Emerson's help, Rockbridge's restaurant reopened at noon the next day, and the resort resumed fairly normal operations. 

Now, seven years after the flood, and 70 years since its start, the old resort continues to thrive in the village tucked back in the Ozarks hills, a testament to the hard work of the Amyx family and also to the devotion of generations of guests.