Over 50 Years ago, the Ozark Mountain® Smokehouse started with a smoked turkey...

In the mid-thirties, Roy Sharp was served a smoked turkey at a party. He found it dry and salty and claimed to his wife later that although he'd never smoked a turkey he thought if he ever did he could easily beat that. He didn't have the opportunity until he retired to the Ozark Mountains and began experimenting.

Over a period of four years he developed the recipe that we use today with herbs and spices in the cure, smoking the meat with green hickory wood. The fame of Roy's ' recipe spread and friends would say, "Roy, next time you do a turkey, please do another one for me." To meet the demand, a large turkey smoker was put in the barn. This new smoker caught fire and the barn burned down.

In 1946 a small smokehouse was built and the Ozark Mountain Smokehouse was launched as a business.

Roy's son, Frank, and his wife Sara, became actively involved, and to this day they operate the Smokehouse on the site of the Sharp farm on the northern slope of Mount Kessler.