Country Music's New Mecca

Why 5 million people a year spend $1.5 billion in a tiny but tuneful town nestled in the Ozarks

It is 200 miles south of Kansas City, near the center of the U.S. but isolated from everything. You reach it by a two-lane highway that snakes through the Ozark Mountains with nothing but oak trees for company. You round a corner and -- Look! -- there is a line of campers and cars stretching to the horizon, crawling along a five-mile strip of neon lights that flash from theaters, motels and miniature golf courses.

Welcome to Branson, Mo. (pop. 3,706). This hardscrabble town attracts 5 million tourists a year, who drop an estimated $1.5 billion into local pockets. And in...

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