Barbara Baird, aka “The Accidental Ozarkian,” has published her first book – a collection of visits to 26 mills in the Missouri Ozarks. “Milling Around: Exploring 26 Mills in the Missouri Ozarks” is a full-color, glossy-covered book that contains descriptions of Baird’s visits to each mill, along with beautiful photographs, illustrated maps and GPS coordinates. Baird’s husband, Jason, provided the photography. His work has been featured in newspapers across Missouri and in national travel and outdoor magazines, accompanying Baird’s written works.
This book, “Milling Around: Exploring 26 Mills in the Missouri Ozarks,” is a result of her endeavors to publish a weekly column titled “The Accidental Ozarkian,” which launched in 2000 from her home office at the “St. James Leader-Journal,” where she was the managing editor. She self-syndicated the column to several Missouri newspapers, and her features also appeared in travel magazines, and in the “St. Louis Post-Dispatch,” “Columbia Tribune” and “Springfield News Leader.” After seven years and 350 columns, she turned her attention to her work at “Women’s Outdoor News,”establishing it as the premiere outdoor publication for women by women writers and videographers.
Baird created a website to feature her past columns, titled “The Accidental Ozarkian,” and occasionally posts a new adventure, a foray in to the world of the Ozarks – often historical or downright quirky. Take, for example, her interview with the “Daffodil Dudes,” two guys who have planted thousands of daffodils along a country road in the Ozarks. On another time, she learned how to “divine” in a graveyard, with three elderly mentors whom she had coffee with in the St. James bakery regularly. She also went fish and frog gigging, caving and more.
Baird said, “At one time, hundreds of water mills populated the Missouri and Arkansas Ozarks. Many of these mills still stand today, and a few get activated for special occasions. I’ve seen Joe Bob O’Neal, the miller of Topaz, open the raceway and grind corn into cornmeal. I’ve been onsite at the Dillard Mill, when the resident miller turned the switch. I can’t even begin to describe the energy that pulsed throughout that old building, as the dust of the ages swirled through the air like fresh hatches on a trout stream. I will never forget those times.”
Baird added, “I could not find a comprehensive guidebook of mills found in the Missouri Ozarks that you can visit in 2024. This is why I felt compelled to write this book.”
“Milling Around: Exploring 26 Mills in the Missouri Ozarks” is available at Amazon in e-book and paperback versions.
