Bear Grease - Ep. 243: Ozarkian Martyr - Eva “Granny” Henderson

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

In this episode, Clay Newcomb shines a deeper light on the land acquisition for the Buffalo National River in 1972, including a rare glimpse of the woman who was the face of the resistance, none other than icon of the Buffalo River, Eva Barnes "Granny" Henderson. In an original recording, "Granny" describes life on the Buff'lo in her own words, including a historical-turned-modern conversation with her granddaughter, Jane Kilgore. The discussion goes on with accounts of pressure and intimidation tactics used on landowners to force them to vacate their property.   Misty Langdon of the Remnants Project and Dr. Brooks Blevins return and provide context on the surrounding events that transpired to keep the river from being dammed, while at the same time affecting so many lives.  Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Youtube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. She put a face on it that nobody else could put a face on. If they were going to do that to a little old woman who never did anything to hurt anybody who only helped people, you know, if they would do that to her, they'd just do it to anybody. And in our culture, the one thing you don't do is trample around on older folks. That's a real good way to get a really bad reputation.

Today we'll learn the personal story of a true Ozark legend as we listen to bits and pieces of a historic interview with Ava Barnes Henderson from 1974, who was one of the last private landowner holdouts in the 95,000-acre Buffalo National River in Arkansas. She didn't want to sell. It's a fascinating biopiece as we continue to explore this American doctrine of utilitarian conservation, the greatest good for the greatest news. number and the injustice of it at times. On the last episode, we learned about the political state of America and how it informed the battle for the Buffalo River and the Ozarks between the pro-dam, pro-park, and pro-leave-us-alone landowners. Today, we'll hear words like communism, martyrdom, and displacement, which are unexpected

themes in a conversation about a beautiful stretch of pristine river. But we're telling a side of this story that's rarely told. and hang around to the dead gum plot twist at the end when we'll learn there are people trying to redesignate the river's standing with the National Park. It's very complicated, folks, and I really doubt that you're going to want to miss this one. She lived three months after they moved out of. They moved her out. Three months.

Yes, she did. She died at 87. She spent one night in her new house that they built her, and then my brother Howard took her to his house, which was just up the field from him. where she was where they built her house she lived three months what do you make of that i make it they took her life away from her the eva barnes henderson interview credits that we're about to hear go to texas tech university's southwest collections special collections library courtesy of jane

killgore my name is clay newcomb and this is the bear grease podcast where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight and unlikely places and where will tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF gear, American-made, purpose-built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. You were born around here. Where were we born? I was born right down this river about in below. And just a little prudge. When was that?

1892. 1892. Then your parents moved up here? Yeah. My daddy home stood up there, but well, it joins Gertie out there. Oh, yeah, by Compton? Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And I was just 14 months old. My dad died, because I don't know. Uh-huh. Yeah. What were your parents' names? My mother was a Buchanan. That's right. Yeah.

You see, now your mother was the great niece. Nice. Of President Buchanan. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. My dear bear, Greece, brothers and sisters, you have just been granted access behind the cultural veil and to the very heart of the Ozarks,

a place that few get to hear or see. That was the voice of Eva Henderson, known to her community as Ev. And since her global debut in National Geographic in March 19, She's been known to the world as Granny Henderson. She would become an Ozarkian legend. The incredible portraits of her on her Newton County, Arkansas farm with her cattle, hogs, and chickens and dogs, taken when she was 85 years old,

would become iconic emblems of standing against government intrusion, self-sufficiency, and the gritty, backwood's way of life on the Buffalo River. This interview took place on July 22nd, 1974. And like Memphis is proud of Elvis, and Illinois is proud of Abe Lincoln, in Arkansas, we're proud of Granny Henderson. In a way, she was a martyr. You would be a great, great niece, wouldn't you?

Yeah. Did you keep up with the presidents in your youth and through your life? Well, I used to him. Yeah. Did you have a favorite through the years? Well, I don't know. We all thought pretty well about Roosevelt. Yeah. Do you remember Teddy Roosevelt? That's what I'm talking about.

Oh, that's the way you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah, he must have been quite a guy. Yeah. I find it interesting that Granny Henderson's favorite president was Teddy Roosevelt, one of the core authors of the doctrine of utilitarian conservation. The greatest good for the great. greatest number. Here's more from Ev Henderson. And you married a Henderson? Yeah. Yeah, Henderson. Where'd you live after you married down

here? Well, yeah. My mother bought this place when I was 13. Yeah. So my husband looked and for the sooner about two years after we were married. We moved down this place. The Henderson farm bisected by the Buffalo River was 167 acres just upriver from what they call the goat bluff, which is on an inside bend as the river sweep south, carved from ancient sandstone and limestone towering 350 feet above the water. The park and most outsiders call it the big bluff. Ev's mother Ira bought the land in 1905. Eve married Frank Henderson when she was 16 in 1909, and they moved on to the land two years later and built a house around 1913. She would live there until the spring of 1979. I was thrilled when I learned that there was actual audio of Granny Henderson.

And aside from the roosters, the quality is pretty good. The interviewer is Dwight Pitt Cathley, a respected historian for the National Park Service. and the interview is an hour and 15 minutes long. It's truly fascinating. And in the Ozarks, we don't apologize for roosters making incredible rackets. The interview continues and directly, you can hear the rumble of a motor getting closer and closer,

and there's an impromptu visitor that shows up. You got some visitors? Yeah. Yeah. How you do it? And just sitting here, how are you? All right. It's Ev's granddaughter, 29-year-old Jane Kilgore.

Hiller's brother, his wife, is coming down here, going down that stuffhole camp for a night or two. I was going where they can get some water. She's asked her grandmother where a spring is to get water. It was a Sunday afternoon, and there's a group of them going camping. Granny gets fired up as she gives instructions to the spring. You can hear her voice change. Now, I tell you, and you know where that spring is over there? Grandma, I hunted for that and honey for that.

Well, I tell you, Jane. You go right over at that the Ford, you know, honey, at that second Ford. Yeah. You go right down the edge of the creek on the far side. Mm-hmm. And you can't keep them finding. Well, we had all up down that creek back and I never could find it. I told Hillard, I said, and I forgot where that spring's in.

Well, when you want to hunt for it, I'll go with you over there for a while. Well. The impromptu moment ends with Granny offering to help find the spring after the interview. The reason the National Park historian was interviewing her was that on March 1, 1972, the government had authorized the formation of the Buffalo National River, known as America's first national river. The land her family had owned since 1905 was quickly en route to being owned by the United States government, by whatever means necessary.

Eva Henderson would be the last private holdout in the whole 95,000-acre national park. That's why a National Geographic came. Her husband Frank worked in the logwoods, and Ev worked on the farm. They essentially were subsistence farmers living not much different than the first white pioneers who came to this region in the 1830s.

They never had running water, electricity, or a phone. Frank bought his first truck in the 1950s, but he died in 1956. Ev never learned to drive a car and remained on her remote farm as a widow for 23 years until 1979. But she would be close to family. Just down the river, Ev's only daughter, Arby, lived with her husband and children. One of those children was Jane Kilgore. She's the one who asked about the spring. She was 29 years old in that audio clip. Today, Jane Kilgore is 76, and I'd like to introduce you to her. My whole life have heard about your grandmother. So what year were you born? I was born in 48. I was born down there at my own home place,

down. Yeah. How long did you live there? Until I was 13. You'll have to figure out the difference there. We moved to Compton Point was 13. The park brought us up too. Now, did y'all move because the park bought your land? Yes. Jane has invited me into her home. She lives high on the mountain now, above the river, on what some say is the prettiest farm in Newton County. Her home is tidy and comfortable and full of pictures of family. She made a coconut cream pie when she heard that I was coming by. About a dozen white-tail racks. four of which are shoulder-mounted, adorned the walls of her living room. The big eight-point in the center, her late husband, Hillard, killed.

But the other three shoulder-mount bucks are Janes. I'm trying to pry from her everything I can about her life on the river and her grandmother. I asked her what her childhood was like. She answered quickly. Wonderful. No electricity. We had running water, and we spent a lot of time with grandma. And my sister did.

How far did she live from you? Probably half a mile. You know where that big flat rock is? Just down the creek from that, yeah. I mean, you knew your grandmother well. Oh, yes, yes. My grandpa, Frank, her husband's name, Frank Henderson, I helped him pick his tobacco patch.

He chewed tobacco, and we'd have picked the worms off of it, and then I'd have him twist it when we cut it off. We twisted it and then hung in the barn. And I remember that so well. Yeah. He gave me a little heifer calf. What was your grandmother like? Very tough woman. There'll never be another woman as tough as she was. I'm just not saying that because she's by grandma. She was.

She lived three months after they moved out of, they moved her out. Three months. Yes, she did. She died at 87. She lived three months. She spent one night in her new house that they built her. And then my brother Howard took her to his house, which was just up the field from him, where she was, where they built her house. She lived three months. What do you make of that? I make it they took her life away from her.

I said earlier that Granny was a martyr, and that's really the way that we view her. The river nationalized in 72, but she was able to hold out into the spring of 79 when she sold to the park. They had built her a modern house, and as the crow flies, it was only 2.8 miles away. And she spent one night in her new house,

and told her son that she couldn't do it. So she moved in with him. Within three months, on July 10, 1979, Granny Henderson passed away. I asked Jane how she was able to stay there seven years after the area was designated in National Park. She had her lawyer, and she thought it as long as she could. I think they were pretty lenient with her,

I mean, in a way, but then they were people over them too, see. And she didn't talk about it too much. She just said, I will leave when I get ready. Well, no, you won't, you know. But she did. She fought, I think that's the reason it was so long. They, in a way, felt sorry for her and didn't want to do it, but there were people in Washington, D.C.,

giving them a limited amount of time to do what they had to do, you know. and I don't know all about how the government worked in that way, but I think that had a lot to do with it. She kept telling him she wasn't going. She told him she wasn't leaving, and she ran one off that came down and talked to her more that she didn't recognize him because it was a different one than what had been there before. And she said, you might as well hit the trail. That's what she told me.

Oh, bye. He's something else. Oh, she was something else. Granny was not a wealthy woman. but you know many people like her saved every penny they ever made. I suspect that's how she could afford a local lawyer to fight against the behemoth of the National Park Service. Many sold right away, but not Granny Henderson. I suspect it did buy her some time, but that's about it.

I asked Jane about the house the park built her. Yeah, they built her a house with electric, running water, a washer dryer inside bathroom she never knew nothing about stuff like that she didn't know how to start a washer dryer

she worked in the creek on the rubboard yeah yeah I feel like they just I feel like she would have lived a lot longer she was 87

and I always held it against them because how much longer would she have lived and she would have lived a happy life she might have lived

to be a hundred I don't know and she would have she would have lived longer before she did yes But no, grandma was a, she was a tough woman. I wish I would have paid more attention because we were just,

me and Rosie played the creek most of the time if we weren't working. She had a lot of old Indian remedies for like snake bites, bee stings, whatever, you know, just being kids, we didn't pay a lot of attention to her. Yeah. I know of three times she got copperhead bed and she never even went to the doctor. Is that right? That's right.

That's absolutely right. Yes. And for getting seed tics and stuff on her, she would tie kerosene rag around her ankles. She'd never get any tics or triggers on her. I don't know what she did for the snake bites. I remember she told me one time that she mixed up turpentine and sugar and stove sut for a cut. Now that would stop the bleeding. But as far as the snake bites, I don't know what she did, but I know of three times she got her headbed.

And she killed them and thrown them in with the hos and they ate them. I remember. I remember, oh, yeah, I'll never forget my grandma. That's a pretty gangster move to feed the copperhead that just bit you to the hogs, and then whip up an herbal remedy avoiding the lines at the ER. If you want to get Clay Newcomb's attention, tell me how many times you've been bitten by venomous snakes, unless you're just fooling around like Brent was when he got bit. But the number of times you've been bit is a direct correlation to your exposure to gritty,

close to the land living. And if Granny was out of her bed, she was in some serious snake country. As I sit with my back to these four big Ozark bucks on the wall, Jane pulls out the March 1977 issue of National Geographic. I'm flipping through the pages

looking at the incredible images of Granny on her farm. Tell me about when National Geographic came and did that piece on her. I didn't know anything about that until I got that through the mail. I didn't know anything about them even, you know. She had lots of company that she didn't say too much about it to anybody. So she was in National Geographic, which in the 70s was probably even bigger than it is today. I mean a premier

print magazine. Right. She was in National Geographic and never told, just didn't think it was that big a deal. Right. No. But when they first started coming down and talking to her about where she lived. I guess it's some park people out. She said there were some strange people come down here and she said, I answered some of their questions and some of them I told it wasn't in their business. But I thought that was such good. Have you saw this? Oh, I have. I have. Yeah. I hunted, hunted for that. Well, look at all the hat in a tote in my closet. That is, that's the really famous picture of her right there. It is. She's something. She was something else. Yeah. tough. She was

ever met 4 foot 7 and she would get up on top of a 5 gallon bucket and drive wooden post with a sledge hammer. They didn't have T-posts back then. She was tough. She carried the water from Buffalo and she had her some big tubs

down there by the fans. She carried water from Buffalo. Carried the water to her cows in that tub. Did she always wear that camouflage hat like that? Oh yes. Oh yes. On the time we ever sitting with that is when she's getting ready to go to bed.

She wore that specific camouflage. Yes, yes, sir. Do you still have that? No, I know. No. The sad thing of it is is when I go back down to her old home place, all the windows are out, the roofs falling in, the park service was supposed to keep that up as a historical site. Yeah.

It's pitiful. I wonder why they're not keeping it up. I don't know. Granny Henderson always wore an old school camo patterned bonnet, and that ended kind of on a downer, Note, you see, Granny's house is still standing. It's a several mile hike or mule ride down there, but it's just a matter of time before the earth reclaims it. I do know that the park has done some work on it since she left,

but the family isn't too happy about it. And I do know that there's currently a group called the Buffalo River Partners trying to raise money to help restore Granny's house. And since we started researching for this podcast, the park has publicly stated new interest in maintaining the historic structures. But some say it's a day late and a dollar short. I've visited Granny's old home place many times. As we hear this emotional story of Granny giving up her land,

it's important to understand that the park did give every landowner the right of a life estate, which means they could live there until they died, and upon the death of the deed holder, the land would go into the possession of the park. It was kind of confusing when I learned that, because I'd have thought she would have taken them up on that deal. But for where she lived, the life estates had heavy restrictions on livestock and land use that she couldn't tolerate. And, as I understand it, after a long battle,

and her being the last one on the river, all her neighbors and family had moved away. the family thought it was best that she should sell and move. She'd held out for so long. But even with this option of the life estate, it didn't soften the sting of the cold, stiff arm of the government. To an unbiased observer, it might be easy to say, well, that's fair.

If they want to make a park for our nation to enjoy, at least they gave the option for folks to live there until they died. Then it's their choice. Well, it wasn't their choice. and the other option would have been the government never coming to buy your land. In the upper part of the Buffalo River watershed sits the small community of Boxley. In a 1972, it contained 27 occupied homes and approximately 80 people. And in the original National Park Service survey documentation in 1961,

they noted Boxley and suggested a private use zone stating, quote, areas possessing high agricultural values such as those around Boxley and along Richland Creek might be protected by acquiring partial rights or scenic easements only. End of quote. Boxley was also along a prominent roadway into the park. And so Boxley was given kind of a special unique deal. But Granny's place was truly in the backwoods and wasn't in a private use zone. They would follow through with this in the 1972 legislation, and it meant that the land at Boxley could remain in private ownership, quote, except for the rights purchased by the government to prevent unsightly changes in the pastoral setting.

End of quote. People could remain living there, but they couldn't as much as dig a hole in the ground without the park's permission. This is still enacted today, and many of the families in Boxley Valley still live there, and it's beautiful. Unfortunately, most of the 90,000 acres of private land acquired weren't in the private land use zones. And even with all this looking really good on paper, what many of the locals say and what isn't written in the books by the park service is that people were bullied and intimidated by the park and they were unorganized and unclear on communicating the new land acquisition laws. and you've got to remember. This was way before the internet, and some folks like Granny didn't even have phones. You'll remember Misty Langdon from the last episode.

She's kind of a grassroots spokesperson for the locals and runs the remnant project designed to document the history of Newton County. People like her are really important and gutsy. She invited me to her home, which is a gorgeous, multi-generational cattle farm. and if you really want to hear how people feel you go and talk to Misty you know Ev Henderson everybody calls her Granny Henderson she was treated pretty pretty terribly you know as an older person a lot of the you know just the hatred and the you know

furor at the park was because of the treatment of her she put a face on it that that nobody else could put a face on. If they were going to do that to a little old woman who never, you know, did anything to hurt anybody who only helped people, you know, if they would do that to her, they'd just do it to anybody. And in our culture, the one thing you don't do is trample around on older folks. That's a real good way to get a really bad reputation. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps Game Calls and

building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts now i'm going to tell you i love mine because it's easy to use i'm not going to go i'm not going to win a turkey calling contest it's just not going to happen but when i run this call i get the sounds that gobblers are looking for i have a great turkey hunting track record if you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods they're not going to win calling contests right that's who i listen to i can make those sounds on my cut I also hunt with Phelps's cut and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelps Game Calls.com.

I think you'll be glad you did and you'll find out that the Steve Rinella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. People hurt. People are still so hurt. There are so many families that I do.

deal with and I'll call them up and say, hey, I thought you might have some pictures or some documents that you want to share with the Remnants Project and do you want to tell me a few stories about growing up? You bet. Come on, honey. But when you would get around and I knew to wait, I knew to get what I, I knew to save the the park question for last, that is a subject. That would be like if somebody in your family had some deep, dark,

secret and you didn't want anybody to know and you were outing them publicly on the town square. That's the attitude that they have about talking about the park. It's just too dark, too bad of a scenario. It's just, we're just erasing that from. It's too painful, I think, is one. It was, I think it was probably one of the most painful periods for people here because everybody was scared. I asked my mom when all this came about.

how do we keep our land? How did we not lose a bunch of land being taken? The land that we're on right now, is it border the park? Yeah, and about three quarters of our land is all surrounded by park. They are our neighbor. And most of the time, we're really good neighbors with one another, you know. But with mom, when the town hall meeting and stuff got called and for the redesignation stuff, and that's jumping a little head.

But she came to me and she said, she kind of had to be. tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat. And she said, you're going to keep fooling around until you get this place took from us because the park is liable to not like you doing this and take them. And I said, Mama, I don't think the park, you know, I think the park is done with their, you know, acquisition, land acquisition. And I think we're all right. But 50 years later, she is still absolutely terrified. Yeah, it shows her attitude. Yeah. It's that fear. She grew up thinking that these people had ultimate sovereign power and could just kind of do what they wanted. And that is exactly what happened.

They did have sovereign power. And they did do whatever they wanted as far as land. So how did your original statement was how did we keep this land? Because it's three sides bordered by a national park. And as I understand it, I mean, it was kind of, I mean, they were just drawing lines on a map just to say where this park was. Right. And I mean, they could have done whatever they wanted. Exactly.

they prayed that was it our family had no political pool there were some families in Boxley that had some political allies and I think that helped but for us it was Coy Velines was a preacher

and so many people around here knew him that's my great grandfather and I reckon it was prayer and fasting you know it was on their face you know praying non-stop. But it was that imminent of a threat? Yes. They took it serious like that and felt like it was so far beyond their control. Right. There was nothing they could do.

I know for me it kind of felt like if a tornado's coming through the house and you all huddle up and you start praying and buddy you mean business. I kind of, that's the image that I had in my mind. I thought the analogy of praying that a tornado wouldn't hit your home was a good descriptor. You get a sense of the helplessness, the fear, the random nature of the threat. It may hit us or skip us, but it's beyond our power. The shape of geographic boundaries are interesting data points that often indicate the type of authority that the boundary drawer had. Typically, indigenous peoples had boundaries based on rivers, mountains, valleys, and natural features, and even historical use patterns, which are rarely straight lines.

The last couple thousand years, governments, and specifically colonizers, began drawing straight boundaries, meaning someone from somewhere else who didn't understand the way this place works, wanting to keep things simple, was drawing the geometric boundaries. This is highly simplified, but I think you get the point. And for the record, we tried to get the National Park Service to be on this podcast, but they declined the interview. We tried local and national channels, and they said it was a funding issue. Whatever the reason, I can't help but think that it was a strategic error. And it's a shame because the vast majority of people that work for the National Park Service are wonderful, hardworking, well-meaning people. And here I am trying to interpret their laws and their laws. story, and I'm certain that I've got some of their side of the story wrong. It's possible.

But this story is intentionally focused on the people who haven't had much of a voice in this now 50-year process. And this is no way designed to be a hit piece on our national parks, because I am a fan and a partaker. After the park was established in 72, the biggest shock in the community came when the first people were served, papers requiring them to sell. Word of the encounter spread like wildfire. Here's Misty on the perception of the park's process of acquisition of land. It was just so underhanded. And then the amounts that they would give people were all over the board.

One person might get something that seemed like a fair price. And then somebody else like Roy Keaton would absolutely get nothing. And I mean, Roy and Katie, per me, Keaton, they had some of the harshest treatment that I know of in our area. Going through the notes and the transcripts and everything that I have seen, I don't know how anybody made it out of that without a shooting. I mean, it was mean. Kay House is a lifelong resident of the Buffalo River. Her family homesteaded here early and never left. She remembers when the Keaton family Misty just spoke about,

reserves papers, and the acquisition of their land. My first memory of when the Park Service came in and took over, we had a little grocery store there in Ponca. It's where a trailer's sitting now. But my first memory was whenever they came in and they took it, Roy Keaton's. property, which is the property up at Lost Valley. That was my first memory because the U.S. marshals came in that night, stopped there at the store and ask about, you know, where Roy Keaton

lived. That was my first real memory. I mean, all the talk and everything that was going to. What did you, how did you feel about that? I scared to death. I mean, you know, we just You just couldn't imagine things like that happening around here, you know, because it was such a quite family-oriented place to live. And all of a sudden everybody was like, this is real. Yeah, right. That's, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that's the very first real action that was taken. How did the people that you knew respond to that?

Furious. Really? Yeah. I mean, they were very, very upset at the time. Yeah. The community was scared and it's hard to blame them. There's actually a recorded interview with Roy and Katie Keaton. In the early 1980s, the Park Service, recognizing an issue and in effort to restore and build relationships with the community,

commissioned an outreach to gather oral history from the people who sold land. The Keetons lived in Boxley Valley in the residential zone. I listened to the entire interview, which is over two hours, and unfortunately, the audio quality isn't great, especially when they talk about the park. But the Keaton's described in detail how things transpired. Here's Misty reading just a small part of that transcript. This is Katie and Roy Keaton being interviewed by the Center for Ozark Studies June the 9th of 83. and the interviewer says, when did you first hear about the park?

Katie answered, well, we've heard a long time about the park, but we never did hear a thing that they'd want to take our house until they brought us the papers, really. They never confronted you? Oh, no, nothing. Never said nothing.

Until this U.S. Marshal that night walked in and with a whole bunch of papers. Gave me a set, and he is set, and my son and his wife. We each got a whole bunch of papers. Said we were living on government property. They gave us 90 days to get off. He said, had you heard about them taking other people's land?

They hadn't taken anybody's land over there at that time. We was the first ones that they moved in on. Did you ever see this plan in the paper or anything like that? No. Did you ever hear of any meetings? They didn't have any over in here. Nothing until after they took our place and then the people got to getting together. Do you think people saw what happened to you and got together?

And Katie answered, yeah. Did they give you specific reasons to why you had to leave your land? They said they were going to take that land for everybody to enjoy and not just us. I thought it was, and then they have redacted something there. Well, what did you do? We tried to fight. Yeah, we had to go to court to get our money. They wouldn't give us nothing until after they gave us the 90 days to do something.

We didn't get a penny of money until after the 90 days was up. So they had to leave. They had to fund themselves to go live somewhere else. Their move, they repurchase, everything. And earlier in this interview, the house that they're interviewing them in, and she said, this ain't no home where they're at now. So they spent the later years of their life with her saying, this ain't no home.

And they said, we tried to fight. We had to take them to court to get our money. They didn't give us nothing. Was it a fair price? No, we had to take them to court. And then, of course, after that, the attorney takes half of it. So we still didn't get very much after that. Was the law they used to get your land more specific than eminent domain?

I don't remember. They said they had right to do it, and that was it. The judge told us that. They have the right to take it at any time they wanted, but they didn't have the right to tell you how much they're going to pay for it. That was up to the jury, you know. And they took them to court. And I don't remember what they were given at first.

I know it was paltry. They won $163,000 settlement from court. I mean, that kind of goes to show how small of an amount. Because in the 80s, $163,000 would be a pretty good windfall. And that was making up the gap. You know, that was making up what they was. That was making up the fair price that they didn't get. When they went back to court, they said you owe them another 160.

Exactly. Oh, gosh. So they must have just paid them. Nothing. Nothing. Here's the bottom line. On paper in the halls of Congress reading public law 92-237, which instituted the National River, which detailed how land would be acquired.

I've read it. It looks tolerable, just unfortunate for the landowners. but on the ground in the backwoods of Arkansas in the early 1970s, it wasn't pretty. And I can't even begin to tell on this podcast all these stories. I mean, I'm just cherry picking a couple. And I'm sure, as stories do, some of them get exaggerated in the community over the years, but where there is smoke, there's fire. And in this case, the fire was visible to everyone.

I want to talk to Dr. Brooks Blevins, a prolific author, friend of this podcast, and an authority in Ozark history. I've got a peculiar question as it relates to the time period and the long arm of this freedom-loving American government and the word communism. Yeah, there's a sentence in your essay where it says, there were those who condemn the creation of our national rivers as communism. That's interesting. Can you explain why people would have thought that? Well, you think about the era when this happens. You get the Buffalo National River in 72.

We're in the Cold War. And it's natural that a lot of people would have seen any kind of big government intrusion in the everyday lives of people and in the property rights. of Americans as a communistic type move. And I've seen, not just with the Buffalo story, but this is such a vast story

that takes in so much of the of the U.S. story from the mid-20th century. I've seen lots of letters to congressmen and senators and stuff where they bring up the C-word. It's communism. And so it would have been a natural reaction

for a lot of people, especially a lot of conservative people who put a lot of value in the primacy of property rights. This is also the era when you're starting to have kind of the infant movement of the hard right of kind of ultra-conservative people. And if you go back to kind of the beginnings of the libertarian movement and stuff like that, a lot of those folks, if property rights is not at the top, it's on the Mount Rushmore of rights of Americans that are or should be inviolable. For those people, this becomes a property rights issue. Is there a justification?

Is there enough of an American national interest in creating the Buffalo National River to justify the taking of private property from the citizens? can you make a case that there's a constitutional justification for that? Of course, it holds up under our laws, but there were a lot of people who saw this as getting close to kind of breaching that constitutional directive that we live under. The commies, I knew it. And now I want to turn the throttle up just a bit.

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is an easy to use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. If you remember in the first episode, I mentioned Dr. Neil Compton who's considered the father of the Buffalo National Park, kind of like John Muir is of Yosemite.

And after talking with the people here, I'm feeling conflicted about this man who is so influential in turning this into a national park. I want to ask Dr. Blevins about it, and I'll trust what he tells me. Until I started doing this research, the name Neil Compton would have, in my mind, not knowing a lot about the Buffalo River,

but I would have said he's the guy that saved the Buffalo River. I would have said he's a hero. When you get over into Newton County, he is not a hero. I'm struggling to try to decide if he's a hero or a villain, but I'm kind of conflicted because it feels like Ozark Society minimized this marginal disenfranchised group of people, did not hear them, and just kind of did what you.

what they wanted to do. And in Compton's book, you see, you see little threads of that. And one thing that stood out to me in his book, which was a great book, he did a great job. He was a good writer. But his reports to the world was that basically this 135 miles of river was uninhabited. He said it's basically uninhabited. You know, given the illusion that these people, they want to leave. And not to put words in his mouth, but just the idea that I have as I read that and then know also what was going on behind the scenes as he was saying, these folks don't have any power.

These folks don't have any pull. They don't know what they've got. In a way, and maybe this is villainizing him too much, but I'd be willing to step on the line to say, you know, almost just saying these people don't deserve. They don't know what they've got and they don't deserve it. And that's probably pretty harsh. What do you think about that? Am I being too hard on him? Well, I think Neil Compton, I think he realized, now, you don't see this in his book.

The book stops in 1972. The battle has been won. We've nationalized the river. The rest of the story goes untold, the land acquisition and all that kind of stuff after 1972. But even in that book, I can fish out evidence that Compton realized. that one of the things that most fascinated him in those early days, and he says this in his book,

was these little farmsteads and the people who lived in that ballet. That was fascinating to him. It was that human community there that to him would have seemed like they were living 50 years behind the times. And they might have been, probably would have been compared to somebody from New York or Chicago or something like that, and maybe even to somebody from Bentonville. So would your perception of it wouldn't be like what I just described?

No, part of it would be. I think Compton would have had a more conflicted attitude on what eventually happened. Because we don't really know. He never really talks about the loss of land of a lot of these people that he knew personally. Yeah. I mean, that's not part of, you know, his book, The Battle for the Buffalo. And maybe why it's not part of the book, it may have been something a little too difficult, too personal to deal with. But I think by and large, the group of people he represented the recreational

canoeists and, you know, people and campers and stuff like that, I don't think you're wrong in saying that they probably approached the people of the Buffalo Valley with a kind of a condescending outsider attitude that these people, they don't know what they have. And therefore, they can't take care of it the way that the government could take care of it. And a lot of that, again, goes back to self-interest. If you're a canoeist from Kansas City, your interest is making sure that river stays undammed and that you have access to it. If the National Park Service takes it over, you're going to have even more seamless access.

So for them, definitely that's in their self-interest to favor that and to argue the greatest good for the for the greatest number and we humans have a powerful capacity to rationalize whatever it is that we want yeah into being something that almost seems altruistic i never knew dr compton nor his family and i hope that this segment isn't interpreted as personally disparaging however i think the point is that it's not black and white and i'd like to correct something that I said in that segment. Not everybody and Newton County dislikes Compton, because today the region is full of new people who wouldn't be there without his influence. There is little doubt to the people on the river. Compton was an elite, politically connected outsider.

And when the dams were defeated, they could have just walked away. More on that later. In the foreword of Compton's book written by a man named Ken Smith, a very well-respected man, my eyebrows raised when I read this statement, and I quote, from the book, from the forward, other battles were being fought and won in the 60s to create or expand national parks, in Arizona's Grand Canyon, among California's redwoods, Washington's Cascades. In each case, the Buffalo River and all the rest, the battle has been between those who saw the area's natural resources to be used for material gain, often to the benefit of local interest, and those who saw the resources as having intangible, even spiritual benefits, with park advocates usually living outside the immediate area. In simplest terms, locals versus outside. Siders, exploitors versus preservationist.

End of quote. Hmm. That's an interesting quote. And I'll give the man the benefit of the doubt because he was partly talking about those who are wanting to damn the river. But were Granny and Misty's families, local exploiters, looking for material gain by simply wanting to stay on their own land? Without a doubt, Dr. Korn. Compton appreciated at some level the rural Ozarkian people, so different from him that he encountered in his early trips to the Buffalo. In his book, he gave one of the best description

of the Ozark people that I've heard, and I'd like to read what he wrote. I quote from his book, this journey to the unknown Buffalo did, however, and plant the seed of interest in our native land so that for me, then on, honest comparison was sought between our rivers, forest, mountains, and prairies, and those in other parts of America and the world. And for our people, a feeling not so much of pride, but of sympathy and understanding for their unpretentious manner, their honest approach to the uncertainties of life, and their wry and whimsical method of expression, and their tried and true moral values. End of quote. That was incredibly good insight and writing, but I hadn't forgotten that those commies still took Granny's land.

And again, in Dr. Compton's defense, there were vocal landowners on the river who wanted the river damned, and some who wanted the park. In the book, he cites Homer Blythe, who had 723 acres on the river, and he said that the river dried up each summer wasn't worthy of a park and should be damned. Larry Potter owned 1,500 acres and six miles a river. frontage on the lower buffalo and supported damning 100%. In 1969, Orfea Dutti, a lifelong Boxley resident, went to Washington to petition for the National Park. But her land was in the residential zone.

But many people who were deeply connected to the land didn't want it dammed or a park. Here's Dr. Blevins. If that was not a national river, I probably wouldn't know that much about it. You know, I wouldn't have gone over there and hiked and seen the bluffs. And with our water law, you know, I guess you could still float it, but it would all be private land, you know, inside the high water mark. But so here I am, someone who's partaking to the Buffalo River, taking pride in the Buffalo River, take it, love it.

But then now when I hear the story, I don't know if I should be mad or should be happy or should just be, man, the human existence is pretty conflicted. It's the great gray area that most history, at least most interesting history, falls into. It's one of these things where our own individual perspectives is a lot of times will dictate how we view this story. And the vast, vast majority of people in the world, and even in the White River Valley and even in Newton County, don't have any connection with that little strip of land along the Buffalo River. And we're more likely to view that in that sort of outsider black and white way. Well, this was this was 100% a good thing nationalizing the river and not damming the river.

But that's what, you know, that's what makes this such an intriguing stories. There are other elements to this that remind us that, you know, most of these stories are not just simple. They're not black and white. Yeah. Good and bad stories. and Neil Compton is, you know, he's not all good and he's not all bad. And it's hard to figure out what to do with some of these characters. Right in the middle of this conversation on ethics,

I want to step back in time for a minute on to Granny Henderson's porch and hear her tell about the best dog she ever owned. That's right. But first you'll hear her refer to her favorite gun. So it's killed a lot of bombers. Yeah, I guess you need a good gun out here, don't you? Oh. I've carried that for a many, many miles.

Yeah? Used to have a dog. He looked quite a bit like Bobby color. And he was a real squirrel dog. And where he was, he was good about the stock, what he knows, but he never, he wasn't a natural heel. There's some dogs, you know, just don't never just go to the heel. It's the best dog I ever owned or ever will, of course.

Never expected. But I wouldn't take $1,000 for Bobby. He watches at night. Thing of moves, not move, for what he'll let you know it. And a good dog's worth a lot after these varmonds. Yeah, especially out here. Yeah.

You need a good dog. Yeah. Sure do. Bobby is the dog that was sitting right there with him. He's in several of the photos in National Geographic. But she said she wouldn't take $1,000 for him, which in 74 was a lot. But the best dog she ever owned was that squirrel dog healer. I want to ask Jane Kilgore what her grandmother would have thought about this park.

So, I mean, she would have been against this area becoming a national park. Oh, absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Yes. As where most people on the river. Right. Just past her house down there, you go across, there's the Gem Bluff, go across the creek. That's where we had our cane patches and corn patches over there.

Now there's not even a, you can't tell where we, it's just a big bank of sand and rocks. Do you ever go down there? Oh, yeah. To your old home place. What is it, is it nostalgic for you to go there? I mean, is it make you sad? Does it make you happy? I'm proud I live in a place where I've got electricity now, but you know, I told Hillard one time my husband, I said, I wouldn't mind me back down there.

He said, about the time you couldn't turn the TV on or you change your mind. Yeah. But then we were sad when they moved us out there. Yeah, we were. Yeah. Granny was again in the park, and I think we already knew that. And Jane's old home place, half a mile from Granny's, is still standing today too. Yeah.

But I would like to be able to drive back down there and just, you know, spend the night and out of the chin bluff. Would you have felt like they minimize the locals, just kind of walked over people that they felt like they could? Right. Oh, yeah, I know they had. Yeah, and they don't pay attention to the tourists. They like the tourists to be down there. I think it just became a tourist attraction. And people go down there and look at my old home place or my grandma's and it don't mean anything to them.

And I even called Washington, D.C. one time. My mother had crippled arthritis. She lived to be 96. She, we would take her in a raft down the old home place. When she was able, she got to where she wasn't. So I asked one of the park riders about taking her on the full-willer. And he said, you can't do that. And I said, well, why not?

She's the only one left that's homesteaded. And she can't ride, put her on a mule. I said, she's 96-year-old. She's crippled with arthritis. She can't ride a mule. And so he gave me the number of Washington, D.C., and I called. And I said, well, if I take her anyway? And I said, you'll get a ticket.

Okay. But I was going to chance it and take her on the full-wheeler. Who used to be the park rancher down here, the real nice guy? Huh? Yeah, yeah. He told me, he said, if it was up to me, Ms. Kilcourt, I would tell you, go right ahead and take her. But he said, now they're big wigs ahead of me, so I can't tell you. that because I'd get in trouble. I'd lose my job.

Yeah. But I was, I almost took her once to just chance it because she wanted to go. Yeah. They don't care. They don't care if you're, if you have lots of memories down there and want to go back. They don't care. Yeah. No, the more

people that runs up down the river and drinks beer and throws it in the river and that's what they like. No, I don't like them. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just like my grandma, plain spoken. I don't, no, I don't like them. It's clear to see that Jane has a unique and personal connection to the Buffalo River.

And she's one of those people that feels like they've had something taken that they can't get back. But don't get the wrong idea about her. She's not a victim. She's lived a wonderful life full of hard work and joy and family. She's deeply respected in her community. And I have incredible respect for Jane Kilgore. I'd have probably drove that four-wheeler down there for. I want to get back to Dr. Blevins for a big question, and it's this,

did they have to nationalize the river to completely save it from being damned? If they had just walked away, would the place have stayed in private hands? And then really, the bigger question is, would that have been the best thing? If the Buffalo River nationalization law hadn't been passed in 72, if we'd waited another year or another two years, it never would have happened. There would be no Buffalo National River. This happened right on the cusp or right at the very end of what we might call the New Deal Coalition or like the progressive New Deal Coalition of American History and American Policy. politics, this long era, at least from the 30s through the 60s, where there was this kind of consensus. I mean, there was always political division, but there was this kind of consensus,

whether you were on the right or the left, whether you were a Republican or Democrat, that the government had a right and even a responsibility to plan things out. You know, planning was a big, that was a big catch word in the 20th century, that there were university-trained, technocrats and experts who knew better how the world should work than your average Joe. And for roughly a generation or more, that's how our national government operated. We went from the New Deal into World War II and into the Cold War after that. And it's during that era that you have this great era of dam building. It's really from the 30s into the 60s and a little bit into the 70s.

And by the end of the 60s, that political philosophy is starting to go away. And it's doing it. Vietnam is exposing some of the weaknesses of our government. There are people on both the right and the left who are beginning to distrust things that the federal government does. There's the civil rights movement which stirs a lot of people on the right side of the political spectrum. You've got a lot of things that are chipping away at this traditional kind of Teflon government that we had,

that whatever the government did must be right. And this explodes in the 70s, and by the end of the 70s, this isn't going to go anymore. So if it hadn't happened right then, you don't think it would. And the reason I say that, at the very moment that this Buffalo stuff is being finalized in 71 and early. early 72 at that very moment there's an effort in in the state of Missouri to enact a statewide

scenic rivers program and it's over 800 miles of of rivers they're going to be part of this would have been part of this state scenic rivers program there was this massive uproar I mean just this grassroots anti-government uproar that just just takes over in it's all in the Ozarks it's all in the Missouri Ozarks. It's a statewide system, but it goes away. That fight ends in 71, and I think that was a signal of what was going on nationally. Like the states were saying, we don't want the federal government coming in here. Well, or just any government. Right. Right. But at the same time, they're fighting in Missouri. People are fighting against, you know, in 68, the federal government passes the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

And this is something separate from the Buffalo and Ozark National Scenic Riverways, but there are a bunch of rivers around the nation that are classified as federal wild or scenic rivers. And by the 70s, it gets harder and harder to get rivers designated as wild and scenic rivers because people don't want it anymore. They see it as a federal, a lot of them dismiss it as a federal land grab or it's just federal intrusion. It's just people who are, again, are, you know, that, that, that.

old motto that might as well have existed, leave us alone. That becomes kind of the motto. Wow, that is really interesting. It would have been hard to predict, but the 30-year dam building era of the Army Corps of Engineers was ending, and it's likely the Buffalo River dams would have never happened if the park people had also gone away. But as we get to the end of this story, I'm terribly conflicted because I love the Buffalo National River. I do enjoy that it is public land. And if it was still private, I doubt I'd know much about it. I've got a question for Misty.

Is it hard to see the bigger picture when you're right in the middle of it? It's not for me. And I feel kind of like a traitor when I even say that I'm glad that it's protected in some way. But I am. I'm glad that we do have some protections of it. If not, it would be nothing but condos and strip malls already. I feel like that the thing that they were trying their hardest to protect the river from is where we're at now, that we're at a tipping point where, well, we could do, we could make a lot of money if we added, if we changed the park and we did this, this, this, and this. and then we're right back to the beginning of, you know, commercialization of the river. And that's the part that really, and that's the part that makes me furious.

What I haven't told you yet is that last year there was talk of redesignating the park from a national river to a national park and preserve. The details of the change are substantial and complicated, but it comes at the heels of a statewide tourism push in Arkansas and many people in Newton County view it as a repeat of what happened in 72, which is outside influences essentially commercializing the river through the redesignation, which would recruit more people to come here,

and in the name of economic development of the state, get them to spend more money in Arkansas. Because if we're going to protect this from the people who loved it, as much as they loved their family and that was everything to them that land was all they had besides their family if we're going to take that from them and preserve it let's do that you treated everybody awful you ought to be ashamed of that but that's done and gone let's let's go from where we're at let's try to be good neighbors to one another I feel like that we're I feel like I'm a pretty good neighbor to the park and I try to be but that thing

of turning it into what you're trying to avoid it turning into. I think in my simplest form of what I'm against about the river is a bunch of rich people, corporations,

politicians who are wanting to come in and turn our federally protected public land into something that just fits their business model. that is infuriating to me. If you want to give it back to somebody,

line up the descendants of the people who you took it from and let them have it and let them farm it. If you're done protecting it and worrying about water quality and this and that, and I don't think that the park is. I do not think at all. I think that the park is doing the best that they can do right now. They are under budget.

They are under staff. And I have a lot of friends that work at the park. And I like a lot of people that are there. And I think they are good, good people. But I think that they are protecting it the best that they can with the budgeting that they've got. Some sources say the redesignation would bring more federal money. Others say additional funding is no guarantee. But without a doubt, it would bring more people.

And that's good if you're a merchant, speculator, or a politician. It's not good if you're trying to raise a family here. There's a strong case to be made that many of the families will be gentrified out of this area when land values just get too high, taxes too high, and the pressure to sell too great. Our board of directors here in Newton County came together and we took all of the information that was available on this issue and through a deep insight and really looking at at every potential twist and curve of what we're hearing. We came to the conclusion that there is no benefit and no advantage anywhere that we could see

for agriculture, for the people of Newton camel, and for our way of life under this pose change in designation. With murmurs spreading about the redesignation, last fall, Misty called a public meeting in the small town of Jasper, which has a population of 500. And over 1,100 people showed up, and all but about seven of them were against the redesignation. That little clip you just heard was one of the board of directors of the local farm bureau. There was another meeting down the river with almost the exact same results. The overarching theme of the community was, leave us alone.

We made our peace with the world. 50 years ago, and that's enough for one community. I want to listen to one last clip from the historic Granny Henderson interview as she expresses her doctrine on hard and old times. And yeah, the roosters are still there. Did the depression have much of an effect down in here of the 30s? No, the 30s. The 30s, what I said is come up the hill today.

I was turning that water. I said, shoot, we keep a holl and holl and holl and about the heat and what we're going to do. Some of them says, well, we don't know what we're going to do. And I said, we'll do just like we did. Somebody said, never, they didn't have this going to do. It's cattle are going down, hogs going down. And I said, do just like we did in the 30s. Yeah.

I said, the bigger cow and our cow, I've got on this place, I guess. We sold some of $7 a piece. I'll be done. Glad to get it. Yeah. Yeah. And you didn't have money to stamp a letter by, and you only took two cents while. And I've heard so many say, oh, I wish we could live all the days back.

I don't want to see them in the 30s. Yeah. Time was too, too pinchy. In 1974, times were hard, especially for her. And she said, we'll do just like we did. She'd been through a lot of hard stuff. And then she ended by saying that times. is pinchy.

I think I know what she meant by that, but I'm not entirely sure. In this next and final clip, it's the only time in the whole interview that she addresses that the park is trying to buy her land. And remember, from this moment, she'll hold out for another five years

until the spring of 1979. And in this clip, she really doesn't give us much. Well, having lived so many years by her, What stands out in your mind in the years past? Is there anything that any period of time or the people or the way of life down here that stands out more than any others? Well, I don't know.

Yeah. It's part of the life will have been over and part of it. Yeah, well, that's like... That's like you want to live it all here, you know? Yeah. Wouldn't want to go in here anymore? I just spend the rest of the days here's anywhere else. Yeah, well, I don't do.

And it's peaceable. It is. People don't mind you, no. I may have me a house bill that's the clock takes it because it has me to get out. The interview with Granny Henderson kind of leaves me wanting more. But even at the end, in the heat of the land battle, she was kind. The park would build her that house, and she would leave the land that her mother bought in 1905. She'd spend one night in the new place before moving in with her grandson.

She'd only lived there three months before passing away on July 10, 1979. From what her family says was of a broken heart. At the end of this story, I remained deeply conflicted. is my heart holy sides with the landowners whose roots ran deep in this land. And they have lost something that they'll never get back. However, I don't think the National Park Service or Neil Compton were bad people. And in many ways, they are both heroes. This is a celebration that this river isn't damned and is protected as is in perpetuity.

My conclusion is that this mortal realm just isn't fair. and a person would do well to deal humbly with the circumstances they're dealt and pray for wisdom to know when to fight for that which can be one, when to compromise, and even when to sell. And I think the message is clear that this redesignation of the river is not something that's good for that community. I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Greece and Brent's This Country Life podcast.

Please let us know what you think of these episodes, Remember, you can email us at beargrease at themediter.com. You can't wait to talk to everybody on the render next week, and we're going to try to put together a way to give money to help restore Granny Henderson's house. Stay tuned for that. First Lights Fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends.

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