Bear Grease - Ep. 245: Render - All About "Granny"

Episode Date: August 28, 2024

On this episode of the Bear Grease Render, Clay Newcomb and the Render Crew—Misty Newcomb, Brent Reaves, and Josh "Landbridge" Spielmaker, are joined by distinguished guests, Misty Langdon of the Remnants Project, Lake Pickle of OnX, and Kyle Plunkett of the Ozark Podcast, as they discuss Ozark legend Eva "Granny" Barnes Henderson's life and legacy on the Buff'lo. There's even a little friendly competition as everyone plays a game of "Granny" Henderson Trivia. And, hear more about the proposed re-designation of The Buffalo National River to a national park. If you would like to help restore and preserve historic structures on the Buffalo National River, please visit https://bnrpartners.org/joindonate to donate to the Buffalo National River Partners and support all they do. Be sure to watch the Bear Grease Render on the MeatEater's Podcast Network YouTube channel. If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] 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.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware Gear at firstlight.com. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called the Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper, and look behind the scenes of the actual Bear Grease podcast. Presented by FHF Gear, American Made, Purpose Built, Hunting and Fishing Gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore.

Brent's nose is, he's got an oversized nose. He ordered an oversized one. I can smell stuff tomorrow. Man, hey, I've been looking forward to this particular render for a while. I really have because, as Misty will tell you, I like beg people to tell me, you know, just to like talk to me about the podcast. And she gets tired of it. Josh has to talk to me about the podcast because it's his job. So I call him between hours of eight and five and can talk to him.

But if it's like, if it's later, he's like, well, Clay, maybe I'll talk to you tomorrow about it. So I'm glad you're all here. So we can talk about this episode with Granny Henderson. We have some very distinguished guests. We have aligned everybody today's. Brenner crew guests. It's the exploiters. versus the preservationists.

Hey, we're on the good guys. The outsiders. Wait, wait a minute. Now, I don't know if y'all in this context are the outsiders or not, but in the locals. But, no, that kind of just happened on its own. We have Lake Pickle

all the way from the Great State of Mississippi. You are our unbiased, like, outsider. Officially he's the outsider. Yeah, I'm 10 out of 10 an outsider in this situation. Because you never heard this story before. No, yeah, I went into it completely because, yeah, I had nothing to base it off up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I want to hear your thoughts.

And then we have Kyle Plunkett. Yes, sir. So good to have you from the Ozark podcast. I'm moderately biased. Moderately biased. Yeah. I think that's fair. And I wanted to invite you because I first heard Misty, who I'm about to introduce, on your podcast.

And so anyway, you guys had done some stuff on the, redesignation of the river. And so good to have you, man. Appreciate it. And now tell us about your podcast. What do you want to know? Little plug. Little plug?

Just, yeah, yeah. Well, a couple of years ago, we were, Kyle Veet and I were really getting into bow hunting and bear hunting and fishing and realized that all of the media and all the tactics were not for here. And so that kind of kicked us into this whole world of trying to figure out how to kill big deer and how to kill big bear and how to catch big fish in the, Ozarks and one thing led to another and we started uncovering the history and the people and the conservation and the stories and realized the Ozarks are way more than just a pretty place to

recreate in it's a really really amazing place to live and a really really amazing place to come from so we're both I think we're sixth and seventh generation Ozarkers so like years and years of family heritage in this area all that kind of stuff and so we interview guests who talk about the Ozarks pretty much anything we find interesting we go find somebody talk to We can interview them. You guys are doing a good job. I appreciate it. But we don't want anybody to move here.

So stay where you're at. This is a terrible place. Good to have you, Kyle. Thanks. Misty Langdon. You're really the guest of honor, Misty. Well. True story. True story.

Be careful. You'll let it go to my head. No. So Misty was on the, was on the, on the, a feature guest on Baggers. Both episodes. Josh is really jealous of people that are. feature guests on Bear Gris because he never has been. No. Still?

Never. His mustache has. But he hasn't been. My mustache has a T-shirt, but I've never been on a podcast. To be a feature, to be a feature guest means that you like have like, you know, a fairly substantial contribution to the, to the, to an episode. Clay hasn't figured out what I can contribute yet. But, but Misty was.

So you were on both of them. You were on both episodes. And I told this to Misty beforehand. I want to hear any place I got it wrong, any place that there's any, you know. You brought that list, right? The story needs some fixing. That's a ring of paper. Yeah.

She has a few things, I'm sure. But in my wife, Misty, will tell you that you were the person I was most, I was most like, man, I hope Missy is okay with this. It's true. It's true. Maybe you think I'm the meanest? No, I just, I just tell. Long as you're not too afraid of me. Yeah, maybe that's it.

He's scared of girls named Misty. There is a lot of Misty power. There's a lot of Misty power. There's not many of us either. No, there's not. No, but Misty's from Newton County. And so she has a lot of real personal connections to this story, big time personal connections. And so it's great to have you.

Thank you for coming. Thanks for having me. And then I have all these folks. I have my lovely wife, Dr. Misty Newcomb, great to have you. Thank you for being here. Josh Lambridge, spillmaker. Brent Reeves, man. I just want to say that this render better be good because it's going to be hard to live up to the last one.

Yeah. You guys did a great job. Yeah, we did. We did. Of course we did. You did a great job without me. Yep. We should make a habit of that.

Hey, just kidding. I would love to not be here sometimes. We would. Okay. everybody in we're in so you left off one guest

oh Tim I'm not sure if on the video he can't figure out whether or not he wants to be here Tim the squirrel dog let me tell you a quick story about Tim the squirrel dog since we're all here

this dog was bought at the same time as another squirrel dog of similar lineage you'll like this because you're a dog man Okay. Brent, you're a dog, man.

And the other dog was way better, like way more natural ability to the point that we had to keep her up. You know, kind of had to enter up because she would run off and hunt and she would be gone. This lazy dog stayed around the house and, like, worked its way into becoming, like, the favorite dog in our family. Well, worked its way and becoming an actual member of the family. Yeah, you're out. But because of this dog's, the dog never goes in the pen. Because of its exposure to squirrels around here, this dog is a really good squirrel dog. Way to go, Tim.

Did you see his ears from his word? Almost as good as like the Michael Jordan dog. And that's an exaggeration. But for me, the Michael Jordan dog I had. So the take home is that exposure and practice. Like that dog knows what a squirrel is thinking right now. Like he knows if that squirrel that lives over there will be down at 4.30 to eat, you know, horse apples out of that Bodark over there. Tess is like Michael Jordan.

Tons of ability, great nose, great instinct, great tree power, great drive. So exposure can almost match up with just like natural talent. Oh, yeah. And that's where Brent comes in. Because Brent has no natural talent. Just a lot of experience. Yeah, but I beat all those charges. There's the moral of the story, anybody can succeed.

That's right. If he can do it, anybody can do it. Yeah, that's right. That's right. No, I had to give Tim a plug there. But you didn't name him LeBron. So you've got Michael Jordan and LeBron. Yeah, just there you go.

There you go. So Phelps is coming out with a new deer call. That's a great segue. Yeah. Left turn. Talking about Michael Jordan. Yeah. No, this is, so last year we came out with the Acorn Grunner, spelled the correct way,

A-K-E-R-N, Acrean Grunner. And it's the first call in the market that's an inhale, exhale, bleat and grunt call. Or buck grunt call. I love a bleat call, like the old Primos can. I mean, he's called in so many deer. A lot of guys just carry a grunt call. This has an inhale, exhale. you can adjust the reeds, you flip it, and the call is opposite.

Like, there's one way where when you blow and it's a grunt and you suck and it's a fawn bleat or dough bleat, you flip it and you blow and it's a bleat and you suck and it's a grunt call, the tones are slightly different. But I constantly am using a bleat call and don't want to carry two calls. And so anyway, this is the Aikram Pro, and it's from Phelps, and it's an acrylic call and you can you know like totally adjustable so anyway these are coming out like real soon the acorn pro the acorn pro fancy you want some free marketing on that one there clay yeah i have to give it to you no no i'm telling you it's free i used your your wooden acorn oh yeah but the one yeah i was one of

the guys that you got on the it's limited you got to get it quick and i was like then i'm buying it's happening yeah and i used it to to call up that big ozark buck i killed last year oh did you really You grinded that there. I heard him down on the ledge and was bleating at him. I mean, it was like peak, right was starting. He sounded like a train coming through the woods. And he turned and came right up the hill. Really?

You bleated at him. I did. You didn't grind at him. See, I think that that's a... He didn't know which end of the call he had. No, I was so nervous. That may have happened. I was just breathing through it.

See what was going to happen. Let's see what happens. Oh, we got a bleat. He turned and came right up. I mean, his opening rifle day. I mean, perfect. Oh, that's good. That's cool.

plug. I saw it is a good deer. How big was that deer? 13 points, 163 inches. Dang, that's a big deer. That's the biggest deer I've ever killed. I remember that one from Instagram. Yeah. It kind of made its round. This is like, this is weird. I never posted something on social media and everybody's clapping like, you did a good job killing that thing. I appreciate it. Yeah. Oh, that's great. That's fun. Funny story about Akerne, just to, you know, since I saw it spelled out there, this, I guess in the last two weeks, Wordle, the New York Times game. Yeah. had the word of the day, like the first word was Akern. Or I don't play the game.

No. Really? Yeah. Oh, Akern was the word. And everybody. Not A-K-E-R-N. No, A-C-O-R-N. Okay.

But Clay's niece couldn't get it, even though she knew what the word was. She kept spelling it, A-K-E-R-N. And everybody, we got so many messages that day, like, your favorite word. That's funny. And everybody else, there's a family thread where Clay's aunts and his mom, they all play. They all play it together. and they were like, it's Clay's favorite word, and everybody was like, Akron,

and his niece couldn't get it right. She could spell it right, AKERN. We're educating a whole generation. That's great. One direction. Sounds like it. One direction.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, man, I think enough with all the baloney. We need to talk about this episode. This episode to me is like, at this point, And I get excited about every episode. Like anyone that I'm doing is something that I'm like really interested in.

And so in a given time period, you would be like, hey, Clay, what are you thinking about? And I'll be like, man, we just, I'm doing the most interesting research I've ever done in my life. And I'll talk about the episode that I'm working on. But this one is different. This one, I told Misty just a little bit ago that in the original Bear Grease list, of potential episodes that I did before the podcast ever started. That was one of the exercises that we did. It's like, okay, you're going to start a podcast?

Okay, mock out episodes. And all it was was a title, but I wanted to do an episode on Granny Henderson, and that was four years ago. And I really didn't know much about her at that time. I just knew what probably a lot of Arkansasans know. It's just that, you know, she lived on the Buffalo. She had to leave. You know, I didn't know much, but I knew that that was a good story.

And then the way that this all came about, and I just told Misty this just a little bit ago, was I hadn't quite figured out the angle on it. And it wasn't even on my mind, actually, but I was riding mules with Justin House, a friend of mine, friend of Misty's over on the Buffalo River. And just me and him were riding that day. and for eight miles down the river, he was telling me stories of all the different home places. And he knows it exceptionally well. Justin's a pretty young guy. I think he's like 26 or something. And man, he knew just like every story, every home place, every little detail of who owned the land that is now the Buffalo National River.

So we're riding through, you know, just big woods. And it's like, well, there's a home place there. and he'd take me up and show me a barn or a footing of a house or this or a smokehouse. And I came home that night and I told my daughter River, who's on the last episode, I said, man, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I started telling him about the river and she said, you need to make a podcast about that. And immediately did, started. Some of these episodes were doing, like the preparation really is a year in the making, honestly.

like and not that I research something for a year but the next episode that's a series that's going to come out I read the first book about that over a year ago and it just kind of stews this one like came up quick but it'd been brewing for a long time and and I was able to to get in contact with the right people one of which was Misty and then Misty helped me get in touch with Jane Kilgore, who is Granny Henderson's granddaughter. And then just all the pieces fell in. And I say all that to say,

this episode to me is kind of like core. I feel like I love some of these that, I don't know, they just, I've been trying to figure out what it is. I really like about certain stories, but this one's close to the top of the list. list, I think. Yep.

But what's a good way to start talking about this? Misty? Dr. Misty? Okay, thanks for the help. I remember that National Geographic. Yeah, do you really? My grandfather had all my life he had a subscription to National Geographic that was given to him for Christmas every year by my uncle, his son. and I'd love to get it.

And my grandfather would, he was not highly educated formally, but very well educated, very well read man, very smart man. And he would read a National Geographic from cover to cover or anything that he could pick up and read. If it was a popular mechanic's or the instructions on how to build something, he read everything. And I tried to emulate that and read that. And I can remember that in us talking, and there was that National Geographic and another one that highlighted some stuff from where we were from in Bradley County.

I remember talking to him about those, but that was one of them that I remember. I don't remember, I didn't remember Granny Henderson's name. I remember that from later on in life learning about it. But in 77, I would have been 11 years old, and I remember that story. It's amazing photographs. Yeah. I think they did a great job kind of capturing who she was. was and her lifestyle just by that handful of photographs.

Yeah, that portrait's the very famous one, isn't it? Yeah, it's a good one. Now, Misty, have you seen the other, there's other photos, I think, from this photo shoot that weren't in this magazine? I've seen a few that I think Jane had let me look at probably when I was a kid at church, but she'd let me see a few. I have a few that she let me copy, and some of them have. have the National Geographic stamp on the back.

And then there's some others. Blair Dietering did a book called Down the Compton Road. And it highlighted her, it highlighted Ev and all of her neighbors. It's a really good. Did I give you that one, Clay, and White House? I think I've got it right. I think it's there on the bottom. And that's a black and white copy.

Yeah, yeah. But it's got all of her neighbors in it. And it's a really good. Yeah, that's a neat book. Yeah. Gertie Stederman, you just passed her. That was Ev's best friend. And there are a couple of oral history recordings that have the two of them together.

Oh, really? Those are really fascinating. We're wearing her camo, little camo hat. Cammo hat. Yeah. Like a little Jones hat? What do you call them? You know, side note, my grandpa Boyd, he always wore camouflage.

I mean, it was constant. That's all he ever wore. That was his uniform, unless he went to church. And then it was breeches and a button-up shirt. But I still have some of his cover. that are the old pattern, the old camo before they started getting the cool. You know, back in the day, that was pretty progressive, though. That camo probably first came out in the 60s and 70s.

So granny, they'd be like granny wearing like bottom land or first like cash. She's got conversees on. I mean, that's also pretty cool. I guarantee you somebody gave her that hat, and I'd love to know who gave it to her. I asked Jane if they still had that and she said they didn't. Austin Williams is a great grandson of Ev. And he called me after the first episode landed. And he said that when he was a little boy, he would take her shirt that's in one of the pictures that they have of her two kindergarten to show and tell.

And he showed all the kids at school. So anytime they would have a show and tell that he would bring something of his grandmas. I thought that was really a sweet gesture. That is cool. on blood trails the stories don't end when the hunt is over they just get darker I've seen something in the road I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed and there was a full of blood

oh my god he doesn't have a hit blood trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors where the terrain is unforgiving the evidence is scarce and the truth gets buried under brush and silence indications were he should be right there But he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper. From cold case files to whispered suspicions,

from remote mountains to frozen backwards. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers.

Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, IHeart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Josh, are we gonna play some trivia? Yeah.

Okay. We kind of have a ringer. We kind of have a ringer. Here's the questions. Do you want to do them? You want me to do them. Yeah, I'll do them. You already know the answers?

Okay. You don't get to be. It's not fair. The way this is going to work is how about we just do the first person to give us to cheating I can stay out of it

I can't have a ringer I love trivia I don't single the two of us out though I think I think Misty's fair game okay let's do it because it's a now you didn't put the answers on here

Josh no you knew the answers no I don't I've already forgot the answer that one we'll ask Misty that would be part of the game is Clay has to answer it too

yeah there you go Oh, well, I, I, I, that's easy for you to say. Josh, I have to talk about this layer. Okay. All right. So the first person that blurted out gets the point. The person who wins gets something very special.

You may want to turn me down because I'm fixing to get real loud. Okay. First question. How tall was Granny Henderson? 4-7. 4-7. 4-7. I said it first.

I said it before. him for sure. I was, the way Misty like to say that, that was it, she knows. Well,

I think she might have got it wrong. I think she's, according to Jane Kilgore. According to Jane Kilgore, Granny was four foot seven. Then we go by Jane. Okay.

I'm telling you. I said it for. Four foot seven. I was sure you said it before me. She said before it, right? Make pickle first. The mustache speaks.

Oh my goodness. Roll the tape back. This thing is rigged. Who do you say? Brent. Brent. Brant Reeves. To have it.

Outsted by the cameraman. That's a biased judge. He doesn't even know how to say compass. True. Okay. Question number two. What was Granny's Indian remedy for stopping bleeding? Oh, it was.

Turfidine and sugar. And sugar. I didn't know about the sugar. I got two out of three. I don't know if that counts. I got two for three. I did not know that one of those. Did you get it right?

Yes. So what was it? Sugar, soot, and turpentine. That's right. He's right. Scores 2 to 0. So much for me being a ringer. Yeah.

Oh, I knew these questions are pretty specific. I think Brent has some insider information. I can't believe I got too right. Fits Us versus Dale with this. Well, Brent does have an incredible memory. Yeah, he does. He probably could gauge your height from that picture in a magazine. Yeah, that's how tall she is right here.

You have answers written on the inside of that. Yeah. Okay. Question number three. How big was? 167 acres. Oh, what was going on here? How big was Granny Henderson's farm?

I think it's 167 acres. I was going to say 720 acres. I was going to say 167. You were going to say 167. Yeah, because it was a little over the 160 that everybody used to get when they would do the Homestead Act. everybody kind of would get 160, but it was a little bit more than that. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was 167. It's what we said in the episode.

Yeah. And that was for the records that I found, 167 acres. Next question. Now, there may have been something I got wrong. Was their farm bisected by the river? Did they own land on the other side of the river too? I don't know. Okay.

I know that they owned, I know that one side of their place, the river goes right, you know, right along it. And I would think that they probably had to forward it. I mean, that's a Jane question. Yeah, well, it was, my understanding was that it was bisected, but it's possible I got that mixed up with Jane's family's farm because their farm, they had stuff on the other, they had like crops and gardens on the other side of the river,

said the cross the river to go to their garden. And that was really, really common because landlines, didn't really mean a lot back then. That land was so unused and a lot of people considered it worthless. It was really cheap land in certain places. It was pretty rugged out there. It is so rugged. I mean, people think they're going to go there and farm.

You can't crop, you know, you can't row crop or anything there. But people would take up somebody else's homestead and just worked the land. And when those people came back, any improvements or anything that they had made, the people that had built it, they would get paid for it from the landowner. just move off. Yeah. And they called it floating. They would float from one place to the other.

Floating the Buffalo River. Just use what, right. But use what was just lay in, you know, fallow. They would take it up and work it. And then when the people that owned it come back, if they ever came back, they would just, you know, scoot over, give it back. It's so interesting to me that what years ago when people were making a living off the land was very non-valuble land, now has very.

value basically because of recreation. I mean, that's the story all over the country. I mean, all this mountain land around here and the Appalachians, I mean, you couldn't give it away, you know, 75 years ago. A lot of people did give it away. I talked to one fellow, and he said that his, I think when he bought it, it was $12 an acre, and that wasn't back in the 20s or the 30s. You know, it was maybe the 50s, but a lot of people moved when they started seeing that a

living could be made without literally killing yourself. The people that wanted an easier life, they moved off. A lot of people went to Kansas City, but then the ones that wanted to farm and stayed, you know, they just, they stayed and it was rough, but the land wasn't worth much. And now, you know, it's insane. If you try to buy land in Newton County, you'll find out it's not $12 an acre anymore. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Question number four.

What year and what relationship? Okay, what year was, don't blurt out the answer until I'm done with the question, because this is a two-part question. What? And you can't answer, Josh. I can't. I mean, you already know the question. The only reason I know is because I listen to the podcast. Nobody told me the answer.

Okay, two-part question, don't answer until I slap the table. Okay. Until you bleat. What year did was the land purchased that Granny Henderson ended up selling to the park and what family member bought it? 1999. He hadn't slapped the table yet. It's 1903 and her mama.

He said 1905. And her mom. 1905. 1905 was correct. 1905 and her mom. What did you say? 1903. Oh.

And her mama. That's the first time she looked at it was 1903. Now, Missy, did you, did you, the dates, I heard a lot of different dates on, but from based on the interview with Granny when she said her mother bought it 1905, she was, she was, granny was married when she was 16 years old. And so I did the math, which would have been like, oh, 1909 or something, because she was born in 1892. I don't remember her actual birthday, or I didn't ever know that. And then they moved on to that land two years after she was married. 1905. Did you?

Two years after she, oh, her and Frank moved back onto that? Was that what she took over where her mother had lost? The sequence was her mother bought it in 1905 when Granny was 13. Right. Three years later, 1908, she was married. to Frank when she was 16. Right. And she said in the interview that two years after they got married,

they moved on to that 167 acres. It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't move either in with her mother or build another house. I don't know when her mother passed, but people, you know, multi-generational families were common, very common. Right. So it wouldn't surprise me at all if they hadn't moved in with her mother.

And I'm just spitball in here. I'm not sure. But that goes back to that thing of people kind of taking up land. They may have moved. There's no telling where they may have been living. They may have been living in a weaning house that was just right close and then moved in with her. I'm just not sure. Well, because I read in a lot of the books said that she built that house in 1905, which, I mean, based on what Granny said, I don't think that, I think, I don't think these people are doing their research.

anyway. That's pretty common, too, to get different stories. You know, you really have to, dealing with things this far back, you really have to do a lot of digging. You might even talk to the family and get two different stories. Well, or maybe I'm wrong, and the house was built in 1905, and they didn't move into it until 1913. Because by my calculations, 1913 is when they would have moved on to that land, her and Frank. Her family owned it since then so five. I would think that the park service would probably be a really good place to look

because when they did a lot of the inventory and the allocation for the home sites, they did their research on that. So they may very well have a date built. I know in the 90s they did some work on it and did a kind of a revamp. I've seen the photos of that through the park archives. And so in the 90s were the last time. they had done, you know, real substantial work on it. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Last question. What's the score? Branch three and he's got one. Three to one. Missy zero.

Come on, guys. A lot of zeros. Okay. Well, they actually may be a couple of other questions after this. Okay. This is a two-part question. Don't answer until you hear the grunt. Two-part question.

Don't answer it. Which president was Granny Henderson, related to what year did he become president bomp oh snap and

what relation was granny to this president great niece Buchanan 1864 oh lord okay we'll extract we'll extract

the Buchanan was a granny's mother the great niece no I think I think Ev was I think she was the great niece. Maybe her daughter or her mother was maybe the niece. I think Granny said, I don't know, you may be nice.

I think Granny said her mother was the great-le-le-le-le-le- President Buchanan. That's great. She would have been the great-great-niece, and it was Buchanan, but I can't tell you the year. Yeah, I don't know. So who got that one right? I think we all did. The one person who just answered two for three got.

But you said great-niece. And I was one year off on his presidency. Wow. Oh, for real? Is it 65? He was after Lincoln. I said 1862, didn't I? You said 1864.

Oh, I was way more than one year. Okay, great job, guys. Brent, you win. Congratulations. You get something. You're going to get something really special. Here we go. Lake, you were unfamiliar with this story.

What were your impressions? I was about as conflicted as a human could be at the end of it. I mean, because obviously, I mean, it's stuff that you hit on yourself in that podcast, right? It's like, obviously we see the value in national parks, especially working for, you know, on-X and being just really, you know, very, a big supporter of public access, right? But then there's the whole side with all those people that lost their homes and granny's story, and you just can't help but sympathize with them. and I guess where my head was, it's like you just wish there, even if a happy medium was possible, I don't think there was one.

But there's definitely things in there that you just could have been handled differently. Like I think probably one of the most, like, where I felt the most sympathy, or was the story about when the woman wanted to go back to her old home place just to see it and she was 96 and they were like. They wanted her to ride a mule. Yeah. That was one of my favorite parts when Jane said she can't ride a mule. She's 96. Have you seen the photos of them taking her down the river in a raft? No, now I saw your video of taking Jane.

They used to take Arby, Jane's mother, the one you were referencing. They took her and they would put, she was so frail and so cold. They would put a beanbag in the middle of a raft and make a big nest for her. And she was a frail little tiny woman. And they would just set her in there. And I've seen photos of them all hanging off the stuff. side of the raft and then there's a little Arby in the middle. Oh, you're doing. And that's how they would take her to see your family.

See, and just the human side of you is like, I understand that that's the rule, but just make an exception, man. You know, you just did. But that's how, yeah, the end of that podcast, it was just like, I, it's just a tough one. Conflicting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, we've said it like the, the national, the idea for national parks and setting aside beautiful, pristine wild places in America. It was really American genius. Like if you just look back at all the things that our government has done,

that we now are like, thank God they did that. That's one of them. But the conflicted part is that it costs people something. And that's really the core of this whole story is that the things that we love cost somebody a lot. and yeah there's really no answer I mean it's not like we can go back and give the land back or even that would be a good idea

I mean that's probably not a good idea everybody can agree that sometimes somebody has to take one for the team unless you're the guy that's taking it yeah yeah this when it's hard to it's hard to understand that and I spent a lot of time years ago up there

in that area. Just enjoying not just the scenery, but the land. We'd camp and we'd make tea from a spring right there beside us. Where was that? And you think, man, I'm so glad to be here. And now I'll think back after hearing this story,

even being somewhat familiar with it over the years, now I think they had gum. You know, maybe I was in somebody's pasture or I was in somebody else's barn lot. You were. 100% I was. And you just think there's always, there's always been somebody there before you. And how that came about is what is the biggest problem.

And we talked about that on the last render when Claibot was, when you wouldn't hear, was, it's hard to think about something, someplace that you enjoy so much without now thinking about how it was before and how it came about. You can't think about how good it was without thinking how bad it was for somebody else. I can't. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and then, and then, I mean, this thing can keep rolling back, too, to the displacement of Native Americans. Sure. I mean,

you know, we said that too. You know, they wasn't the first folks there. And the last Native Americans had it before we get there. They wasn't the first. Somebody else got it. They got it from somebody else.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so the thing could just like keep, keep rolling back. Kyle, what stood out to you, man? There towards the end you were talking about

if the timing had been a little bit different. It didn't seem like the dam was coming. That got pushed back. Did we really have to make it a national river? That stood out to me because I don't think I'd ever heard that. Right. You know, I was familiar with the story of the Buffalo growing up, floating the Buffalo and around it.

I was kind of in the early eras of the safe. the buffalo stuff with the pig farms and the you know we're getting water quality is bad and all of that so i knew it as a this is a the gym of arkansas the crown jewel got to save it from getting ruined by tourist or beer cans or hog feces whatever else that was a problem so i had this idea that it was this um pristine perfect kind of hallowed ground right where it's always been arkansas's crown jewel we've always kind of deserved to have it's what puts our state on the map a little bit So we enjoy it. We're supposed to enjoy it, that kind of thing.

And didn't realize that there was any conflict around it until we went and talked with Misty last fall about the potential redesignation. And I will probably talk about that here in a bit. But the redesignation and kind of the fight to change it to something different and all of that and what that could mean for the river. And so I've just, for the last year or so I've been thinking on it in the Buffalo River, but did not know that fact that there was a potential that it wasn't going to become a national river. in the first place, which that just has a lot of implications. Well, the, now, Misty, did you know, did you know that? Would you ever heard that sequence like that if they, because the, the, save the Buffalo people, a big part of their, what they said was that we're saving it from being damned

and to do that, we have to turn it into a national park. From my research, and that this is, and I'm not talking about academic research, just talking to folks. The word on the street is that we were about two decades out away from it being damned. So for 20 years, we didn't mean everybody thought, well, that mess is over. The dam and mess is over. And we're just going to keep going the way that we're going. And everybody would talk about a park, but we all just thought it was talked because the dam didn't materialize. So why would the park materialize. But we always thought it was about 20 years past dammon.

So that threat was gone. By the 70s? Yeah. By 72. Actually, by the, some people say decades, but I honestly, I think by the 60s, that's, for me, that's my cutoff. I feel like that by the 60s, they kind of knew that nothing was going to happen. And I think that that push had kind of backed off and there were more conservationists.

And they didn't want to damn. certain places because of that. I think maybe they learned a little bit. Maybe they didn't. But for me, I always feel like by the 60s, that was kind of over. Now, you can find stuff I'm sure to prove me wrong. But as far as the locals go, that's kind of what I've always been taught and heard. Yeah, yeah.

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 Ronella cut is an easy to use cut for beginning callers

who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. What did for the people that would have heard the name, Dr. Neil Compton, do you think I treated him fairly? For my

Myself, my family, and growing up, I always had kind of, that he was kind of the boogeyman, you know, in our community. However, I get to talk to all kinds of people, and I was talking to a neighbor of mine, and she's not a generational local, but she is local. They were some of the back to the landers, and they were from the Fayetteville area, and she said that Dr. Compton took care of her grandfather, and he met her. somewhere, I don't know at a market or something, and he spoke to her and she introduced herself and he said the last name and he said her grandfather's name and he remembered caring for him and this had been years ago and it meant so much to her. And I think that goes to all the things that we've talked about in this series, whether it's the Park Service, whether it's Neil Compton, whether it's the locals, whatever. You can't do black and white. There's a lot of gray in there.

there's a lot of really good people that do things that I'm going to think is bad, and there's a lot of really bad people that are every now and then going to have a good day. And you have to look at it not as somebody's a total villain or somebody's a total hero. You've got to kind of wait around in that middle ground a little bit. Yeah. Well, it was the first time that I would have – well, I would have just known Neil Compton as kind of the father of the Buffalo River, which, you know, in his book, the foreword of his book, Ken Smith said like John Muir is of Yosemite.

And when he said that, I was like, ah, I get it. That's kind of the way I viewed him. And then, yeah, all this story kind of put him in a little different light. And I really went out of my way to not villainize the guy. Right. Because there are people that, like, are to this day in this area, like students of Neil Compton, you know, just like his environmental. and kind of his conservation legacy and the Ozark Society is still an organization as I understand it that's still going on today.

But I did, I don't know, it was interesting going to Newton County and hearing people, like you said, like it was kind of the boogeyman. Yeah. And yeah, that foreword that I read when it said where Ken Smith said all over. the United States, there are conservation, where parks are being designated and whatnot. It's always the same. It's the locals, which he called exploiters, and the outsiders, which he called preservationists and people who have, see the land as like a spiritual, you know, place of renewal. And like, clearly he was an outsider and they were coming to this place. and basically calling anybody that didn't want to preserve it as a local exploiter

trying to have like personal gain. Well, in order to gain traction, you have to have a bad guy. And you have to have the guy in the black hat and the guy in the white hat that's going to come and save the day. And so you kind of have to have somebody that you're wanting to, if the popular opinion is going to be, we need to do this at this cost, you've got to make somebody the bad guy. Somebody's got to lose.

Well, it didn't seem like there was a guy in a white hat in this situation. Well, I think the foreword of Battle for the Buffalo may suggest that a lot of people thought there was a guy in a white hat. Yeah, I mean, I think at that time, those people would have thought the government were their guy in the white hat. Right. The government would protect them. Right. Or, if I can interject, just knowing some of the history, it feels like there's the bad guys, the core of engineers, even if it wasn't going to be.

They wanted to have it. Even if there wasn't a threat, but it seems like they carry the threat enough just to keep the story going. So you have the core of engineers are the bad guy. Then you have Dr. Neil Compton for everybody who's not on the Buffalo, but in the greater Arkansas area is like, that's a good guy. He's the hero. Which is the majority of the population.

Yeah. And then the people who are caught up in it, I mean, they were posed as they're the ignorant hillbillies who don't know what they have. Right. And can't manage what they have. Yeah. They're the, in the Robin Hood story. they're the ones who are, they need the help kind of thing.

And like, it's easy to tell a story that way and not let it be complicated as it should be. That's my problem with the whole narrative. And even some of the quotes that Clay read me from the book, again, I don't think he's a terrible person. But I think it's very easy to discount people and to label them as exploitors. When you think about a woman like Granny Henderson who's staying till the very end and because of her connection to the land because of her connection

to the place it's very difficult to say she's an exploiter it's very difficult to say to describe her in those terms and it's almost

like they didn't see the way that the land was used as a preservation of the land as a connection to the land it's they just didn't see them at all

and I think that's too common a story in all of this in that dam building era which was also an area in this country when they were making a ton of national parks, man,

you just better hope that your place isn't in the crosshairs. Because there was no room for, I don't know, it's just one of those things. It really, as I boil the story down, it literally is just the cost of living in a nation that is, that has what we have.

I mean, it's like there was, there's no gray area. I mean, they didn't leave granny a spot in, the National Park because she was a wonderful, nice lady, you know, and they just couldn't do that. And it's just one of those conundrums. Well, it's not unlike the interstate system either.

You know, when you start thinking of eminent domain throughout the United States, you know, you're always at the whim of somebody else wanting what you have or your area. Not so much just coming and taking your belongings, but your land. So if you fall in, you know, in the crosshairs, of somebody's project, that's a precarious place to be. Yeah. Well, how bad is it that those folks were actually the epitome of what the American dream is? Exactly.

They were settled in a place that they were taking care of and living and taken care of their family and doing exactly the thing of Westford expansion of what the government said, this is a good thing for y'all to do. Go out here and settle these places that are supposedly uninhabitable. And then they go out there and they do that. And then they stay there and they're successful to doing it. Regardless of the level of success, they're still there and they're doing it. And they're taking care of the self and they're raising kids and cows and they're doing what they're supposed to do.

And they come in and say, well, you did a great job, but you're exploiting the land. Get off. Yeah. Get labeled as an exploiter after all that. Yeah. That was the toughest pill for me to swallow. Yeah. Misty, I'm going to ask you the same.

thing I asked these two guys you've already chimed in. Is that me? Oh, it's okay. Is it me? Who is it? It might be somebody we need to talk to. I can't even find my phone. Is it me?

I think it is me. No, it's me. And I can't find it. That's all right. That's all right. Hello? Hello? No, we're not going to talk to.

That was, I probably shouldn't say who that was. That's all right. Misty, when you, like I said, when I made this podcast and put it out to the world, I was like, man, I hope Misty's okay with this. What did you think? Any criticisms? Anything I got wrong that you'd like to talk about or just or what impact, what you liked? I think it came together really well.

I think it told Ev's story so that people could put a face on the displacement with her being the very last person. I mean, that goes to show you how determined she was to stay. You know, if she could have eeked out some more time she would have. Let me stop here right there. Forgive me for being a hog here on the host. Was she the last person? I contradicted myself because at one time I said like the latter. In the process of the several weeks I had, towards the end, I found that,

I thought I read that she was one of the last. It's my understanding she was the last. Okay. And that was in, and I could be wrong, especially because I only deal kind of with my area. I don't know a lot about the middle and the lower river. Okay. Upper river is kind of, matter of fact, I don't even know a lot about the hasty carver area. Okay.

You know, I'm more upriver. We all kind of tend to our own. I've got a friend. I've never floated even past Carver ever in my life. And they were like, good Lord, what kind of representative of the buffalo are you? But we tend to our own. I don't get out of my territory. Well, to me, it's always been said that she was the last.

Yeah. But then when I was doing the research, I read where maybe there was some other people way down river that were still there when she was there. But they certainly, I couldn't just find a definitive answer. So I didn't know if you knew. So, okay. I don't know exactly. for asking you that. No, that's...

Continue on with... The only thing that I wish I had done better was give a more rounded opinion of the park from my own opinion. I gave you a lot of what I hear because of the work that I do with the Remnants Project, I interview families who tell me their displacement stories. Right, right.

And then all of my community already knows these stories. There's a lot of people that are just now hearing them and learning about them. But for our people, we know them. real well. And I think that I should have, you know, let you know how my dad worked for the park and how in the 90s that was such a tight group of workers there. The whole park worked together and they were just a huge part of our community. You know, they went to our schools, our churches. I babysat for every park ranger, I think, that ever lived at Steele Creek and my mom before me.

And my greatest wish for the park would be that the Buffalo National River could be funded in all of the national parks and park properties could be funded by Congress and afford to run in the way and maintain what they have. That would be a dream coming true because we're not going to get that. Nobody's getting their land back. We don't even think that's a notion. But I think for people like Sunny Boy, Willard. Willard Blines. That if they just tended it a little better, well, they can't tend it if they don't have the funds for it. And so, you know, I'm the last person that's going to say they're anti-park because they're my neighbors.

We have a pretty good relationship with them, I feel like. And I think there are some of the best people that I know that work at the park still to this day. But you can't expect people to work for nothing. You know, people have a job and they get paid for it. And when they cut back so much of the facilities, you know, the access areas, things like that, that they just can't maintain because they don't have funding, that's something that the country as a nation, that's something we need to address. But I think that would make people feel a little bit better if it looked more like it used to.

or if the locals felt like that they were tending to it, you know, letting something go into, you know, a dismal state, that's hard for local people to tolerate. You know, they want to see it looking. And you're particularly talking about the historic structures. The structures. Some of them are just not like falling down. Right. And even at Ev Henderson's place, I don't know when you, I don't know if you've seen photos or not, but right now all you've got pretty much is the house and then there's the seller. And then there's the trail that goes along back.

When I was a kid, the whole front yard of hers that went, I don't know how many acres, it was all still cleared off. And the park kept it cleared off. They mowed it. That was part of my dad's job. And they had the big fruit trees were all still there. We would ride our horses up and get, you know, pears and things off of the trees. And so it was well tended as a, it looked like a farmstead still. It wasn't just the house.

And I think that that kind of man. management lended itself to a better view from the locals than things falling into ruin. So it's all grown up now. Well, there's a photo. I put it on my Instagram of Granny on her porch and you could see off into a big meadow. You can see the bluffs on the river on the other side of the river. And today, when you stand on that porch, I'll probably post a video of me and Willard Blinds at that house. Oh, yeah, I just look like woods.

You could see six feet. Oh, no, it's immediate. It's just, yeah, growing up. Yeah. And when you look at some of the books of, and I can't remember which one it is, I think it's one by Neil Compton. It talks about the pastoral views and the pastoral areas of the river. Well, those are no more because they're not maintained.

That doesn't take very long for stuff to get woolly. Did that become part of the mission to just let nature reclaim it? It was a part of the, technically that is, is that wilderness with the capital of W? It is wilderness. It is in the wilderness area. However, it depends on which superintendent you have. Superintendents can make sweeping changes within a park. And I wasn't aware of that until we lost our last superintendent because I was asking about the new one and, you know, trying to be trying to.

Yes. Yeah. And I've heard. through the grapevine that she has got kind of a place in her administration for the historic places, that she is maybe bringing somebody on board that deals specifically with that, and any maintenance or maintaining goes through that employee. So I think that's a great effort. But depending on which superintendent was in charge, would kind of depend on how things looked.

And when my dad worked there and when that was maintained, I believe it was Jack Lan. hand was the superintendent at that point. And there were things done that maybe the next superintendent didn't like it managed that way. But I know a lot of people wanted it to be to look just like it did when everybody left. And for a long time, it did. We have aerial photos that prove, you know, how long it took for things to grow up. But when it did, you know, it's just green bars. It's a pretty interesting study on succession. plants in this region. Yes, it is. Like how things regrow.

A lot of cedar groves that used to be pastures where the eastern red cedar would grow up. Misty, what was your favorite part? Oh, my favorite part. Man, I really enjoyed hearing Jane Kilgore talk about her grandma. I loved how you had that recording of her showing up in the 70s, asking where the spring was. then you fast forward and you hear a voice now. Isn't that cool? That was super cool.

You were the first one that before I listened to the episode, you, you were like, Jane shows up. Yeah. And that's, that was the, you know, I've got several audio, I've got several audios of Ev. And that was the one I wanted to give you because I was trying to get you in with Jane. And so, yeah, it worked out really good. But I thought that was really sweet to hear it because I don't remember her. Jane's young voice.

Yeah. You know, as you grow up, you just forget how people sound, and it was really nice to hear her young voice. I didn't mean to interrupt you. No, that's fine. That's just, that was my favorite part. And just everything about Jane Kilgoy, you know, she's a character. You didn't really talk about it, but she's a big hunter.

Yeah. I mean, she's a, she's a, she's a character. She's, and you can kind of see that same, that same thing in Granny Henderson and her. Yeah. And I love it. Did, uh, I made note of it in the podcast, but I always, listening stuff like this. So Granny is sitting there talking to a National Park Service employee or, you know, historian. She's probably in a pretty uncomfortable situation.

She didn't seem uncomfortable, but just if you're being interviewed and there was a video camera, what I learned is that that interview was videoed. And so she's, she's probably talking in like her most proper voice. And then when Jane comes up, He's like, I'll tell you, Jane, down there on the creek. You can hunt it and we can find it and you cross the four. You know, she spin up. You can't keep finding it. I heard it.

Yeah. That's. She totally changed her dialect when she was talking to Jane. I heard that little bit of like, well, Lord, you ought to know that. Yeah. She's a little sharp. She's a little sharp. She's like, you can't help but find it if you can't find it. Yeah.

But now, Dwight Pekethley was the interviewer. And at that time, that was before he was actually the historian. So he was doing that just as a college kid. from Texas Tech. Wow. And he was there to record her. And he did record several oral histories with other folks. And it's funny because I think it was Jane that mentioned sometimes she would talk to folks and sometimes she wouldn't.

She would suss people out. And if they passed her smell test, then she'd sit down and visit with them and people would return. You know, they became her friends. And so I think Dwight was definitely one of those people that was in her kind of, trusted little circle of strangers that she met. I was so glad he kept the interview going when they were interrupted. Like he'd have been tempted to turn it off or something. Because in the moment, you wouldn't have realized that that would be something that 50 years later would be valuable.

So valuable. You know, it just would have been just like a random interaction. And I warned you about the roosters. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, you did. They were very, very well reported. The roosters. Okay.

there's another part of the interview where the hogs come up. This is not a joke. The hogs come up and she's answering a serious question by this interviewer. They're talking about something legitimately serious. And you hear this like root. And it gets closer and closer and closer. And it feels like it's right under the porch. And you hear just a...

to the point that the interviewer goes, you sure have a lot of pigs. Like he kind of like has to like address it. And she goes, she goes, that's a sow with 11 piglets. And then he was like, what are you going to do with those? And she said, I guess I'm just going to give them away. And she talks about the pigs. But it was like chaos.

Just like, all that though, the hearing, actually getting to hear her voice and the rooos and every bit of that. For me, especially not, again, not having any attachment to the story. it was another layer of humanizing all of it. Because even if you didn't have a picture of her to look at, you're just kind of hearing this story, you still get attached to it, but actually getting to hear it, you could connect to it better.

And you could put your mamma's face on that voice. Exactly. That's the thing that I really picked up on is we were really close with Christy's my wife, Christy's grandmother. And I think about, she lived in her house for decades and decades. And it was, I mean, really,

it was just kind of, of a shack. You know what I mean? Just a shack in rural Oklahoma. And the idea of, you know, my in-laws, my mother-in-law, this is my mother-in-law, this is my mother-in-law's mother. Like, they talked to her about building her a new house, and she said, why do I need a new house?

You know? Didn't they have dirt floors? Well, when she first got married, her first two houses had dirt floors. But I think of the idea of moving Grandma Vaughn out of her house would have been, like, unthinkable. You know what I mean? She lived to be 90, I think she was 93 or 94, live by herself and carried in her all her own firewood, you know, basically till the day she died. Yeah. And the idea of her being forced off of that land that she'd lived on for 50, 60 years, you know what I mean, would be unthinkable.

Yeah. You know, that brings up something interesting. Granny Henderson was a type in that period. Like she was, I'm not saying she wasn't unique because she was very unique where she lived and lived as a widow and all these things. But I've had a lot of people say to me, she reminded me of this person. Yeah. And all those people aren't here anymore. I mean, we just don't have people alive that were born in 1892 and lived their life without electricity, without phone, without running water.

But it brought back memories of all these people. and and and and and now this well anyway just that she was she she represented something you know that that was important to me yeah 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 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 Felps. 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. And the fact that her mother, you know, I do a lot of research, and I only know of,

and I'm in a small community. I'm not saying the whole river, but in a small area, I know of two women who bought home places. and one was quite a bit later than Ev's mother. But that's very unusual. That a woman bought. I love that too.

That, you know, the early 1900s, a woman buying property and being able to maintain that property. You know, one thing that she did was when the pencil company came in and my great uncle and a lot of the other locals that cut the cedar trees and floated those down the river, they worked, Ev and her mother as cooks for the. for those workers. And so they would do a full, I mean, all the full grub, you know, morning to evening, and they would travel with them down the river. So they would go all the way down. I think, gosh, I don't know if they stopped at Wollum. For some reason, I'm thinking Wollum was their end in point.

But then they would come back. But they lived in tents and went all the way down the river. That was Eves' mother and Eve. She would have, that she brought her on to help because, you know, all hands on deck. And that was her job. But she, instead of her own. place. Yeah, that was.

Yeah, so Ev's father died when she was 14, when she was 14, that should have been a trivia question. 14 months old. Yeah. Yeah. Josh, what was your favorite part? Or a terrible criticism. I think, I think just the, I loved the audio.

I mean, I don't know how you can get away, get away from that. That is, that is such a treasure to have that and to be able to, to, to be able to, to, to, It's like if you could go back in time. It's as close to being able to go back in time and to get a view of her life, what life was like on the Buffalo. And I feel like the Dwight Pitcahatt. How do you say his last name? Pitt Cathley. Pit Cathley.

I feel like he did such a great job just being disarming. You know what I mean? In the way that he interviewed her that kind of just brought you in. So when you listen to it, you feel like you're there. And I think that's really meaningful to me. And that's something in a lot of the oral histories, there's things that from our childhood as Gen Xers that you're going to hear that you've forgotten. The way a screen door claps when it shuts, water dripping out of the sink or water running continually,

because a lot of it was gravity flow. And so there's these little things from my childhood that I've forgotten. And there's things from even before my time that I'll catch when I'm listening. listening to those and sometimes I don't know what they are and I have to really isolate it. But that is a treasure to me all in itself. The one interview that I didn't, I couldn't use much of the audio from it was the interview with Roy and Katie Keaton. I was so glad that you read that transcript like you did, which I thought was a really

powerful part of the podcast because it really, you know, we had this personal connection to Granny, but then when you read about the Keetons and we saw all the details, and we didn't even go into all of it, but there is, it's over two and a half hours, I'm pretty sure between those three segments of the interview where in 1984, so this is 12 years after the redesignation of the park, they had been moved out. And there's an interview with Roy and Katie, and they, it's pretty, it's really neat. oddly, and this is not like a conspiracy theory. The second they start talking about the park,

because finally the interviewer goes, tell me about when the park came. And I'm serious, I think they actually like bump the recorder or something because the audio quality just plummets and it was unusable. I was going to try to use her actually saying what you read. Because I heard it. But the audio is not usable for something like this.

I'm working with MSU. There were a couple of those that it was odd how the audio would, you know, mess up. And they were able to actually clean up one because they have the original tapes. Oh, okay. And so they are working on cleaning that up and getting that to me. So when I get it all, I'll send it to you. Yeah, that would be interesting. But one thing, you were talking about westward expansion a little bit ago.

Katie's story is really unique in that her parents were, one was from Lithuania, the other was from Czechoslovakia. Yeah. And they came, her parents came to Kansas. And I don't know if Katie was born in Kansas. I kind of think maybe. And then they moved to Arkansas. They didn't speak a word of English.

And so when they got to the Buffalo River Valley, they had to go into school, these children who spoke no English with a bunch of my people. And my people can be really onry. I mean, you start thinking about some of the mean pranks your grandpa played on you. The generation before that, they were even on rare, you know. And they speak to Katie and they ask her if the kids would have her teach them words in her language. And she said, no, they made fun of us.

We didn't talk. And then for her to become such a huge, and her whole family is such a huge part of our community there. I deal with people that are her descendants all the time. And they're some of the best people, I mean, you're ever going to meet. And I'm kin to the Keaton side. So her husband's side, I'm keen. into. But their story of coming all this way and then getting a knock on the door, you know, that's your American dream just going right down the toilet.

Yeah. Yeah. When you listen to the interview, the whole thing, you get the point that we made, but you actually hear it and see it, is that it's almost like they were trying to, it was the first person that they served papers to, the first of what they know is going to be 90,000 acres. Well, it was the first of the declaration of taking. Right. Right. There were only like two or three declarations of taking. Oh, really? Yeah. They were very sparse. And so when they come with a declaration of taking, it's over and done. There's, you know, that's, they've got it. And their place was at Lost Valley. You've probably, everybody's hiked Lost Valley. It's a gorgeous spot. But it was kind of the, it was, it was a real, I don't want to say the crown jewel, but it was a real feather in their cap to get Lost Valley. But then what's so wild is that their neighbors, they didn't take the,

land. Well, they did some of it, but they, you know, back in the, I think it was in the late 80s or the early 90s, Jim Liles worked for the Park Service. He was an assistant superintendent. He's a real good friend of mine. I hope he considers me a friend. Author of this book right here, which I've referenced quite a bit, old folks talking, really good. Old folks talking is, is the next book down from the Bible for me. That's my genealogy Bible right there. And he is, he and his wife both, Susie Liles, his wife, was a historian at the Park Service, and they gave so much to our community through that book and through the other work that they did of recording histories. And Jim was the one that kind of came up and created the leaseback program in Boxley Valley.

So a lot of the reason why you still see residential occupation in Boxley is because of Jim and what he came up with to let people lease back their family farms. and that was wonderful, but there were certain ones that just didn't qualify. Yeah. I think with the declaration of taking, I don't know if that would even make it, you know, an option. Yeah. It's so complicated and there's so many little facets. One thing that was on the interview with Katie Keaton is she told about seeing a Black Panther.

Is that right? I'm not kidding. I got it. Does she change your mind? Well, I mean, when it came from her, I was like, well, my. I'd believe it might be real. Yeah, for real. She told the story of seeing a Black Panther weapon, Boxley or somewhere.

There's no manner of critter that we don't have. I'm telling my grandpa was one of the best trappers on the river. That was his whole life, was fishing and trapping and hunting. And he's talked about killing Panthers. And now it hasn't been recent. Yeah, yeah. And don't know that it was at Hawksbill, but it was definitely. Well, you find me a picture of a black panther that he caught,

and we're going to take it to town. I don't have that. Okay. Hey, Lake, I mentioned venomous snakes getting bit by venomous snakes. I've got two fools in our presence who have been bit by venomous snakes. One was just acting the fool when he was bit. How did you get bit by a venomous snake? Mine's not much better.

Uh-oh. Much better at all. Which category would you be in? So I said, if you want to get my attention, tell me how many venomous snakes you've been bit by, but not if you were just goofing around with one. Oh, I was goofing around. But I was not, this is, it is the only interesting twist to it. I was goofing around, but I was not goofing around with a snake.

Because I did not even know I had been bit. True story. So. Do tell. So we're out and about doing country kid stuff at night. The next day. In Mississippi. In Mississippi, it's summertime.

Which is just venomous snake central. We were in tall grass and I had on like flip-flops. Oh, Lord. And so if you get bit wearing flip-flops, I deserve it. I want to hear the story. And I was supposed to play in the band in a wedding the next day. And so I'm sitting.

What do you play? Oh. Drums. Okay. Yeah. In my former life. So I was, I mean, I'm sitting there behind the drums. I mean, like the bride has walked down and they're doing the ceremony.

And I remember being like, my ankle hurts. And I reached down and I felt my ankle. My ankle just was swollen, and then I was like, something is wrong. And I went to stand up, and I couldn't put any weight on that leg. And I thought, spider or something had bit me or whatever, and get home, I look. And, I mean, I saw the two marks, but still, I was like, snake would, you know, I would see a snake bite me. I went to the family doctor and tell him, it was like, something bit me a spider or something, whatever. He walks in and looks at it, and he said, that's a snake bite.

And they, I mean, they had to put me on it. I couldn't walk on it for five days. So when did you get bit? The night before. Just walking through the grass. He said, because when he told me that, he said, that ain't spider bite, that's a snake. And I said, Dr. Rowland, you're the doctor here,

but I always figured if I got snake bit, I would know about it. And he said it happens more often than you would think. Is that right? And he said, basically, it wasn't even like the venom that got me. It's just more of like bacteria infection. But, yeah, I got a picture of it. This is kind of a soft snake bite story. Weak.

I just told you it happened. He's just telling you the truth. No, I'm not doubting you. I was just hoping that you were like, like, dove into the grass to, like, catch a deer. No, I mean, it was the most bizarre. Yeah, no, I wish that'd be the case. Hat tip to your snack bite's story. Hat tip.

That's good. That's good. Brent, how did you get bit? Trying to catch one. Well, actually, I called him, and then he called me. And I wasn't doing anything different. Now, you called me. He called me a fool all ago.

He did. But I don't have any videos of me catching them on Instagram. You know how many times Clay's been bitten by a venomous snake that punctured the skin? Zero. You know how many times Granny Henderson is in bit by venomous snake? Granny wasn't messing with him. At least twice. Well, three times.

I remember twice. On the podcast, Jane said three. But, yeah. And then stone cold fed them to the pigs. Yeah, yeah. Take that. Yeah. Because you don't let nothing go to wakes.

That's right. Yeah, fat them to the pigs. Fad them to the pigs. Yeah, my snake handling days are numbered. Now that we have good insurance. I ain't called one since then. I mess with them a little bit. Does your insurance agent listen to this?

I hope not. I hope not. I hope not. Yeah. Do you want to tell people who would be interested in supporting? Yeah, at the end we're going to do that. And we're almost there. Misty, is there any other, anything else you'd like to say?

Just give you the open mic here. We had visited when you were at the house and I had said something about, I was surprised that it didn't end in a gun battle or gun shots or something like that. And I had visited with a gentleman in Voxley, Valley, and I won't mention his name because he didn't tell me I could. I didn't ask. I should have. But I asked him that question. And I said, how in the world did we, you know, avoid somebody getting shot? Because with everybody who, you know, everybody hunted, so everybody had, I mean, everybody had guns. And he said, because we were good Christian people and we knew better. And I thought, well, you know, I guess I was, that was it. Yeah. And that was, I really think that that was, was it. And there was a case. And there was a case. in Searcy County, and if you want to hear it, I'll read it, and if not, that's fine. But there was a case in Searcy County where the person who was moved off, they said that they were held at gunpoint.

And I spoke to their, I think it was the great granddaughter, and I asked them if I could read it here, if time permitted and all that. And she said, yes. But it was something that was really difficult for their family. Of course, it was Searcy County, so it's out of my realm. I had heard about it, but I didn't know. I didn't even remember their names. So there was a case where one family was held at gunpoint.

And they received a declaration of taking as well. So they were one of the few of those that was given out. And it was strange. Whenever those were given out, it seemed like that the property value was a lot less. So for Lost Valley and the Keetons, the initial amount that was deposited in the holding account for them, for that property was $13,000. Wow. And this was like a hundred and sixty acres or something.

I would assume it was 160 just because that was the homestead amount of land. And so, and we all know what Lost Valley looks like. It's absolutely incredible. And I don't know that they owned all the way up there because the primroses did own some up there. And the way land lays, it's different. But it was around the Beechwood School and the opening part of Lost Valley, you know, for 13. thousand. And they and the slays in Searcy County, along with a few other families, did take them to court to get a more fair amount. And they, as far as I know the slaves one and I know the Keaton's one, I don't know the outcome for the others. Can you summarize the story of the gunpoint?

Well, let me look and see how long it is real quick. And if you guys want to chat for just a second, I'll find it. I think I've got it marked. Well, it's not, it's a couple paragraphs. Basically, the Slays were wanting to do some blasting. And the park was saying that it was in an area where they were going to blast the bluff. And they were saying, no, it's not. It's so far away. And so there's not going to be any impact to the bluff. So just let us do what we're going to do.

And he had went, Mr. Slay, I think his name was Emmett. He had went to the park and they didn't even tell him that they were going to serve him with a declaration of taking the very next day. So he was there, say, on a Tuesday, and then they served him on the very next day. Oh, wow. And nobody said anything. And meanwhile, his wife was sick, and I believe in bed, and he had went out looking for a sick calf. And while he was out looking for that calf, these two men approached him. And as he was going to that place, he was listening on the road.

radio and it said that there were two escaped convicts to be on the lookout for these two escaped convicts. And so he was, you know, as we are around, you know, will you pay a little extra attention if you're out and about? And he was looking for that calf and two armed men with shotguns stepped up on him and said, you need to, we have taken this land as of 10 o'clock this morning. You need to go back home. There's a man there with your wife. and he lit out. And his statement says that their fingers were on the trigger of the shotguns. And I believe it was the superintendent of the park service,

who wasn't even in town at that time, denied that and said they weren't. But I believe it was marshals. I don't even know if it was actual park service employees. And I think that happened a lot where things were contracted out. But either way, these men showed up at gunpoint. And when he got to his house, there was. somebody with a gun in his home. And they were told to get out of their home.

That at 10 o'clock that morning, it was no longer their home. Wow. Wow. So it's, you know, when we talk about the black and white and all the gray and the muddy areas, there are good and there are bad in all of this. But in order to get past it, we got to own it. You got to own all that crap. You got to own all the bad stuff.

before you can come out the other side, if you want locals and people to get on board with preservation and conservation, you need to acknowledge their hurt feelings and their lost legacy. Because for us, subsistence farming, you don't make money. You get by.

You grow what you eat, and everybody would grow a watermelon patch, and they would take that to town, and that would be their spending money. And so when you take their land, that's their legacy. That's what they were going to give to their children, their grand, and it would just be passed on like myself. I'm seventh generation to work and live on the farm that my ancestors, you know,

provided to me. Now, my parents did a lot of work stitching it all together because as time moves on, you lose bits and pieces. And so when you take so much from a people, And then, you know, we see a lot of threads and stuff on social media that say, get over it. Just get over it. That happened so long ago. How would you deal with someone coming to your home and saying, I own your house?

Get out. You don't own it anymore. And you're saying, well, yeah, I do. I've made all the payments. You know, I'm free and clear. This is my house. And I think that a lot of people need that, need conversations. like this to put a face on it so that they can see their mammal or see their self in that

situation where if I was in that place, how would I feel? Because there's always a price to be paid, but until you're the one paying the price, you don't really care what the price tag is. Yeah. No, that's great. I think we've got to talk about the redesignation a little bit. Kyle, what do you, what do you, I mean, we, we laid it out. I mean, the bottom line is that there's, there's groups in Arkansas, it's not the National Park Service that are wanting to redesignate the river. And it would be an upgrade in National Park designation to, right now it's the Buffalo National River and the proposal. And it's not an official proposal. It's not like this is in law or it's come to vote or there was just talk of, which was very serious talk.

of from the groups that it came from about re-designating the river to a national park and preserve which as I understand it would mean that the Buffalo National River would like elevate and status and and it basically

would attract a whole bunch more people but Kyle what do we what do y'all think about that? I've got a lot of thoughts about it but before I give you some I want to ask the

the group, what do we think is more exploitive? Is it the, was it the original people who live there, or is it a national river or a national park and preserve? What do you all think? If exploit is the exploitive of the land. I guess we've got to define exploitive, don't we? Yeah, exploitive for the use of the land or the river. Unanswerable.

I don't know how you answer that. Yeah, I don't know how you answer it either. Because what I wish is that it left everybody alone, and every generation since them would still have that place up there. And I was best friends with them, so I could go down there. So I can turn your nut on their left. So you can also enjoy it and float it. You really can't answer it.

But I just, I've been chewing on that since somebody brought it up maybe earlier of the exploitive quote. And, you know, you have the exploiters and the preservers kind of thing. It doesn't seem like a fair dichotomy to place people in. No, because I don't even think the original, I think, exploiting, calling them exploitors, that was just poor terminology. Yeah, it is. Yeah.

I would, yeah. I think we exploit the river now more than it was ever was ever being done before. As far as tourist dollars, uh, yeah,

I mean, people, people wanting to float it, people using it as they should. It's, I mean, it's a national river and it's, it's public and they can.

And, uh, misty's talked about the, the cars line in bumper to bumper to bumper down miles and miles of road for people who just want to get a taste of the buffalo. They just want to experience it for the first time. And so I think the redesignation to go there, the way it went about, and we've talked about it before, and you all have read about it and heard about it and seen other people cover it. They seemed to do or want to do, or they went about, I guess I should say, the conversation for redesignating it in a very similar way that happened.

about 50 years ago, which was grassroots, only a couple of people let the news spread as it needed to, but it wasn't an official. Here's a proposal. Let's talk about it and gather everybody, which is I know why Misty called a town hall and we're going to get everybody involved and we're going to figure out what they're saying and the language was masked and hidden and not very readable or understandable. And that's not to say, well, the people who live there don't know how to read the question and understand it. You don't know how to, like, it doesn't make sense in some ways. It's just very, very governmental, very, I don't know what. Somebody on you think that word.

I think it's purposefully deceptive. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit hidden. And so not to name all the players that we found out and have asked to interview and they've declined and said no comment, all that kind of stuff. But think big Arkansas money. You can let your mind go where you need that to go. And big Arkansas governmental power had this redesignation proposal on the table. I think wanted to see it elevated.

I don't know if it's for more protection. I don't know if it's for more hunting and fishing rights. Or I don't know if it's because they also just want more control over it so they can increase tourist dollars. And so I think I have opinions about it. I know where I land on it, but nothing is official enough to comment on it and then not come back later and look the fool for talking about it that way.

To me and what I reported to the world in this podcast was like the what the community the the the cons I feel confident saying the consensus of the community is that they don't want this yeah yeah it's a bad idea I mean and that's yeah that's even more powerful than your opinion or my opinion totally because I mean like for me to have an opinion that I'm trying to push yeah I don't live on the buffalo is doing the same thing that the group that's trying to push their opinion I mean for real like if you notice on that podcast I didn't say whether I was for or against it uh but I mean, I think it's clear.

I mean, I'm against it. But I don't want, that doesn't matter. What matters was the clip that I used where the, it was the, one of the board members of Farm Bureau. It was Jack Bowles. Yeah, where he said, hey, we have, we as a board, and not that Farm Bureau speaks for the county, but I felt like he, he was speaking for the county in a way. And he just said, we don't think there's any benefit to this. And, I mean, that's kind of where it lands with me. Yeah.

BHA would say the same. same thing. I'm on the public waters committee of BHA. It doesn't seem like it helps anything. If anything, it seems like it could come around to take away what we're fighting for, that kind of stuff. But I'm like y'all, I just, I enjoy it. I've grown up loving it, but I don't live in it. And so I think I'm, I think I care enough about people being able to be left alone. That's very Arkansas of me, very Ozarkian of me, like leave us alone, that whole sentiment. That's for America. Yeah, maybe just American of me.

But, Misty, Dr. Misty, you were your sense of them? I was just going to say it seems like it would further restrict the people who still live there right now. I mean, that seems to be what they could do on their own property. And if it doesn't produce a massive benefit, I mean, I think it's worth a debate, even if it produced significant benefit for everybody else in the world. And I still don't think it would be a, well, for sure we should do it. But especially since it does not. seem to produce much benefit.

I mean, that's the, that's the gist I get is that it doesn't really, what does it improve? Yeah. And it certainly would take away some value. They almost won't say what it would improve, at least in the current stage when we were uncovering it last fall. I say we, a lot of people uncovered it, Misty really uncovered it and other people were talking about it.

But the proposal almost wasn't willing to say what it wanted to do or what it would improve. It was more just to everybody. agrees that a national park and preserve is better than a national river. Like, that's what we do around here. We make things better. So, of course, of course it's better. It's a higher designation. And when you're trying to figure out what that means, it just doesn't, it doesn't come out clear. But in park and preserve is such a new idea within the park system. I don't understand why you would want to take the nation's very first national river, a scenic waterway, and fiddle with it when you don't really when you don't know and number one when you don't have the support of the locals

it seems like the only and i'll wait out into it because i lord i've waited out so deep now that i'm you know eyeballed deep now and get my nose up a little bit too far steeped in blood to turn back you know like shakespeare said but it seems like the only thing it's going to do is line some people's pockets um and it's some some big people that maybe don't even need their pockets lined and the communities that they're dealing with are teetering on, you know, there's a lot of poverty. There's a lot of people, but nobody knows we're in poverty. We're just poor and we just go on kind of a thing. But I think there's a lot of people who look at the commercialization aspect of it.

Like, who wouldn't want more? Well, you know, once upon a time, all of this in town, you know, this was all prairies. This was wilderness areas too. And I know we have to have cities and I know we have to have civilization. But why would we want to start messing around in our national park system to potentially commercialize and bring more people in when we are not able to manage the people we have now? And if we're praying that Congress is going to fund the national parks, why do we have to be redesignated in order to do that? Why don't they just fund the national parks? Is every park going to have to go through?

Because it's not just the Buffalo National River that has issues with facilities and access and different areas that we're needing help with. That's across the board of all the National Parks properties. Do they all need to be re-designated in order to get a little bit of cash to fund them? You know, to me, that's just nonsense to think that we're going to have to go through some process

in order to get some extra money. Right, right. I understand. Yeah, because that, That would probably be the first thing that somebody would say is they would be like, well, if you need more money, this is the way to get more money. But then I've also heard that the redesignation doesn't guarantee money. And I didn't want to, I mean, I'm not ready to, the podcast wasn't about all the details of the redesignation. Because I think they would have talked.

They would have been a part of this. I mean, you're not, you're not, you're not, that's not the point of your conversation. Right. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. we could have got somebody to talk about the re-designation. And that just wasn't what we were talking about. You know, but it was noteworthy and relevant to bring up at this point, you know.

And is it going to price out the people? I mean, those are the things I think about. Is it going to price out the people like has happened in Tennessee for the people around the Smoky Mountains where their grandkids can't buy land near them? Yeah. Those are things that we should. I think, yeah, whenever you're talking about progress, it's really important to define what progress is. and you know people people like us take criticism and i will take criticism for even bringing up the buffalo national river because uh people will say that i'm like spot burning uh just just even by bringing it up

right they'll be like well clay you're doing what because people might hear this and be like man i want to go check out the river um i don't know what to say about that uh this is a story that needs to be told and don't come. Leave Misty alone and her family. Just let them. Well, you know, and I'm a cabin owner. So I, you know, if anybody wants to call somebody a hypocrite, I guess they can sling that at me.

But I look at it in a way that we have always had tourism. I mean, even Ev, and they would put people up in houses for people. And they would come down, floaters would go down and she would cook for them. Or, you know, it was just, there's always been, there's always been somebody there wanting to see the river. And we would just say, like, come on, you know. Yeah. But there is a threshold that a river can only take so much. You can only take so much from it.

Yeah. And if we're looking at, like with Neil Compton and the Ozark Society, one of their biggest issues was the horse ranch at Steel Creek, the Yarborough Horse Ranch. That was one of those things where they said, we absolutely. have to get them off of this river because they are destroying it. They are a nuisance. And I forget all of the exact words, but there were some pretty harsh words about that bunch of people, that family that owned that. And if we're going to commercialize it, that's kind of like, well, you ran these people off their land that they had legally bought. And they had a business there. And they weren't affecting anybody. And

people came from all over the world to buy Arabian horses from them. And so if we're going to commercialize it, it doesn't seem like that we're really being conservationists. If we take from one person, they're just not good enough to do what we want. And then later on, 50 years later, well, let's do it something else. And maybe bring in a few more people and maybe do this and maybe do that. You know, that's a little bit underhanded, I feel like. Yeah. Well, this has been great, guys.

Lake, thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. Kyle, much appreciated. Missy, thank you for coming. And all you other people. All you local exploiters. Don't forget about the money. Follow the money.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so Buffalo River Partners. Yeah, I spoke with one of the people on the, I think on the board. I believe she's on the board. And she told me who the president was, gave me his number. And the amount that they have gotten, they've already, They've already reached the amount that they needed for Granny Henderson's house to do the reconstruction or the repairs that they're going to do. And that's supposed to start this fall and winter.

But they have a lot of other historic structures within the park. One of them is at the junction of 74 and 43. And a lot of people know that is the Beaver Jim Boyhood home. And that's one that they're going to have to start working on soon. So if anybody, you had mentioned, you know, people had wanted to donate, if they do, it's not going to go particularly to Ev's house. but it will go into a fund for the historic structures. Okay. So that's something, you know, I can put you in touch with them.

Yeah. And we can get that worked out. So Buffalo River Partners, I'll probably post a link on my social media, but I had a lot of people wanting to contribute to Granny's house, which is it's a good thing that they already have the money they need to repair it in the way they do. So that's big. But you can still, we can still gather up some money for other. there's lots like I said I just cherry-picked granny's story and hers was the most famous but there's a ton of other other stories and other historic structures on the river well you can't just fix it once you got to keep it up yeah yeah so yeah so look for some information on that but it's the Buffalo River Partners is specifically who is doing that but yeah thank you all so much man I kind of wish I'm kind of sad I always kind of get sad when some of these

series end because for for a period of time it's like I was going over and riding mules with Justin for about two weeks there I was over over in Newton County like every three days you know meeting people and talking to people was a lot of fun so but so for now and if you want to leave us a comment yeah you can email us at where bear grease at the meat eater.com yep yep thanks guys thank you First Lights fieldwear collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days and real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts.

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