Visitors Center
Beautiful dioramas that portray Missouri Ozark flora and fauna in three seasons greet customers who enter the Burgers' Smokehouse plant through the Visitor's Center covered bridge doorway. The idea came from a museum of natural history in Poplar Bluff, MO., known as Call of the Wild, that has wildlife from all over world in natural settings.
Originally, the Burger family planned for its dioramas to show life on the farm – butchering day, making sorghum, rendering lard, old-time crafts, etc. Bad idea, they finally realized, as there is no way to portray butchering in a pleasing manner. So, they decided to go for the seasons because the old-time curing method was dictated by the weather when there was no electricity to create artificial temperatures. Butchering and curing, therefore, were done in the cold of winter to keep the meat from spoiling. In the airy days of spring the hams would dry and the summer heat would age them, bringing out the distinctive flavor.
The next job was to find someone capable of creating the dioramas. The
Call of the Wild seemed a good starting point. The owner, a Burgers’ customer, recommended an artisan named George Marchand, who had worked at his own museum. Marchand was 70 years old and about ready to retire. However, he had a protégé, Terry Chase, whom he was grooming to use his molds and, eventually, to carry on his work. Chase, a young man, in his 20’s, had done only one project but he signed on for the job.
A lot of components for the project were done in a new, small studio that Chase established in Cedar Creek, Mo., near Forsythe, but the rest of the work had to be done on site. A small trailer, owned by Bob Keil, was pulled onto the ground of the Bueker family home, adjacent to the plant to serve as a home for Chase and his assistant, George Baldwin, while they did the actual construction. The trailer might have been small but the Burger hospitality was expansive. “Aunt” Margaret Bueker and her sister, Natalia Burger, who lived in the big house, looked after the young men, cooking for them and even doing their laundry. Terry and Margaret, who is the only living first generation family member, remain good friends. He attended her 100th birthday party in June 2002.
It is probable that no one realized how long it would take to complete the project. Ground was broken in February of 1975 and the Visitor’s Center opened on Easter Sunday, 1980.
(The entrance to Burgers’ Visitor’s Center is by way of a covered bridge replica. Inside are dioramas, which depict the Ozark seasons, family memorabilia, and a snack bar/retail sales area.)
The Ozark scenery and native wildlife are realistically depicted in the winter and spring dioramas that are just inside the door as one enters the center. Water runs through the creek beds of all the exhibits, pushed along by a wooden water wheel.
(The springtime diorama features Dogwood blooms in a wooded area.)
(A snowy landscape depicts the wintertime in the Ozarks.)
(A working water wheel moves water through the three dioramas).
“We didn’t have the budget to do the fall diorama the way we wanted,” Burger explains. Therefore, the next section provides a glimpse of life on a Missouri farm in earlier years. Among the items on view are tools and instruments used for preserving meats; pictures of family members curing hams; lye soap made by Aunt Margaret and a door and rafters from the house she and her parents lived in prior to 1912.
Welcoming the visitor to this portion of the center is “Slim” a robotic figure perched near the ceiling as if in a barn loft. “Howdy! Welcome to Burgers’ Smokehouse,” is the friendly greeting at the beginning of his spiel. Slim not only looks the way most people think a Hillbilly should but he, also, speaks with a definite drawl. That is, most of the time he does. What must be remembered is that Slim has been giving the same speech for 22 years. Sometimes his voice just peters out. When this happens he has to depend on the skill of some of the plant’s electronic gurus. Slim was still speechless when this was written because no one had the time to come to his aid.
Family pictures, trophies won by family members in country ham competitions, letters from customers and other memorabilia are in the next section. Dominating the area, however, is the large, two-and-a-half-story high summertime diorama, the second tallest in the United States, at the time it was created. It captures the viewer’s interest with its size and artistry. Chase, the artist responsible, still has his Cedar Creek studio but now he and 50 employees do work all over the world.
(The summertime diorama is two stories tall, the second tallest in the country at the time it was built.)
The next area includes a receptionist desk, a shop for purchasing any Burger Product, and a deli for immediate enjoyment of Burger wares. Nearby is the Good Ole Days Theatre where one may watch a video of a plant tour narrated by family members.
(The Good Ole Days Theatre, where visitors can watch a video about the ham plant, is adjacent to the snack bar.)
Burgers’ Smokehouse is located on Highway 87, three miles south of the junction of Highway 50 and 87 in California, Mo. A left turn leads one up a tree-lined road to the company office and Visitor’s Center.