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Speaker 1: She put a face on it that nobody else could

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Speaker 1: put a face on. If they were going to do

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Speaker 1: that to a little old woman who never did anything

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Speaker 1: to hurt anybody, who only help people. You know, if

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Speaker 1: they would do that to her, they'd just do it

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Speaker 1: to anybody. And in our culture, the one thing you

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Speaker 1: don't do is trample around on older folks. That's a

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Speaker 1: real good way to get a really bad reputation.

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Speaker 2: Today we'll learn the personal story of a true Ozark

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Speaker 2: legend as we listen to bits and pieces of a

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Speaker 2: historic interview with Ava Barnes Henderson from nineteen seventy four,

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Speaker 2: who was one of the last private landowner holdouts in

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Speaker 2: the ninety five thousand acre Buffalo National River in Arkansas.

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Speaker 2: She didn't want to sell. It's a fascinating biopiece as

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Speaker 2: we continue to explore this American doctrine of utilitarian conservation,

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Speaker 2: the greatest good for the greatest number, and the injustice

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Speaker 2: of it at times. On the last episode, we learned

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Speaker 2: about the political state of America and how it informed

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Speaker 2: the battle for the Buffalo River and the Ozarks between

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Speaker 2: the pro damn pro park and pro leave us Alone landowners. Today,

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Speaker 2: we'll hear words like communism, martyrdom, and displacement, which are

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Speaker 2: unexpected themes in a conversation about a beautiful stretch of

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Speaker 2: Pristine river. But we're telling a side of this story

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Speaker 2: that's rarely told. And hang around till the dead gum

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Speaker 2: plot twist at the end, when we'll learn there are

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Speaker 2: people trying to redesignate the rivers standing with the National Park.

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Speaker 2: It's very complicated, folks, and I really doubt that you're

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Speaker 2: gonna want to miss this one.

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Speaker 3: She lived three months after they moved out of it.

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Speaker 2: Moved her out for three months.

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Speaker 3: Yes, she did. She'd died at eighty seven. She spent

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Speaker 3: one night in her new house that they built her,

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Speaker 3: and then my brother Howard took her to his house,

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Speaker 3: which was just a the field from him where she

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Speaker 3: was where they built her house. She lived three months.

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Speaker 2: What do you make of that?

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Speaker 3: I make it they took her life away from her.

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Speaker 2: The Ava Barnes Henderson interview credits that we're about to

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Speaker 2: hear go to Texas Tech University's Southwest Collections Special Collections

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Speaker 2: Library courtesy of Jane Kilgore. My name is Klay Nukem,

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Speaker 2: and this is the Bear Grease Podcast where we'll explore

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Speaker 2: things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places,

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Speaker 2: and where we'll tell the story of Americans who lived

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Speaker 2: their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF gear,

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Speaker 2: American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear as designed

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Speaker 2: to be as rugged as the place as we explore.

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Speaker 4: You were born around here? Where were you born?

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Speaker 5: I was born right down this river about and the

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Speaker 5: Lord and just below Prood.

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Speaker 4: When was that eighteen nine to eighteen ninety two? Then

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Speaker 4: you moved your parents moved up here.

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Speaker 5: Yeah. My daddy home stood a depth there booth. Well

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Speaker 5: it joins Gertie.

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Speaker 4: Out there, Oh yeah, by Compton.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, and I was just fourteen months old. My dad died,

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Speaker 5: of course, I don't remember your brother.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: What were your parents' names?

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Speaker 5: My mother was a Buchanan, that's right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you see now your mother was the great.

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Speaker 5: Niece niece of President Buchanan.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, the great.

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Speaker 2: My dear bear, Grease, brothers and sisters. You have just

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Speaker 2: been granted access behind culture Vail, into the very heart

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Speaker 2: of the Ozarks, the place that few get to hear. See.

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Speaker 2: That was the voice of Eva Henderson, known to her

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Speaker 2: community as Ev and Since her global debut in National

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Speaker 2: Geographic in March nineteen seventy seven, she's been known to

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Speaker 2: the world as Granny Henderson. She would become an Ozarkian legend.

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Speaker 2: The incredible portraits of her on her Newton County, Arkansas

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Speaker 2: farm with her cattle, hogs, and chickens and dogs, taken

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Speaker 2: when she was eighty five years old, would become iconic

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Speaker 2: emblems of standing against government intrusion, self sufficiency, and the

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Speaker 2: gritty backwoods way of life on the Buffalo River. This

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Speaker 2: interview took place on July twenty second, nineteen seventy four.

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Speaker 2: And like Memphis is proud of Elvis and Illinois is

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Speaker 2: proud of Abe Lincoln, in Arkansas, we're proud of Grannie

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Speaker 2: Henderson in a way she was a martyr.

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Speaker 4: Would be a great great niece.

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Speaker 6: Did you keep up with the presidents in your youth

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Speaker 6: and through your life?

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Speaker 5: Well, I used to.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. Did you have a favorite.

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Speaker 5: Well, I don't know. We all sawt pretty well. Roosevelt.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, oh, did you do you remember Teddy Roosevelt.

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Speaker 4: That's what I'm talking about, That's the what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 4: he must have been quite a guy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I find it interesting that Grannie Henderson's favorite president

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Speaker 2: was Teddy Roosevelt, one of the core authors of the

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Speaker 2: doctrine of utilitarian conservation, The greatest good for the greatest number.

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Speaker 2: Here's more from Ev Henderson.

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Speaker 4: And you married to Henderson?

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Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, Henderson.

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Speaker 4: Where'd you live after you married? Down here?

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Speaker 5: Well? Yeah, my mother bought this place, oh, when I

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Speaker 5: was thirteen. Yeah, so my husband up to for the

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Speaker 5: scene about two years after we were married. You down

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Speaker 5: this place?

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Speaker 2: The Henderson Farm, bisected by the Buffalo River, was one

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Speaker 2: hundred and sixty seven acres just upriver from what they

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Speaker 2: call the Goat Bluff, which is on an inside bend

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Speaker 2: as the river sweep south, carved from ancient sandstone and

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Speaker 2: limestone towering three hundred and fifty feet above the water.

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Speaker 2: The park and most outsiders call it the Big Bluff.

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Speaker 2: EV's mother, Ira, bought the land in nineteen oh five.

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Speaker 2: Ev married Frank Henderson when she was sixteen and nineteen

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Speaker 2: oh nine, and they moved on to the land two

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Speaker 2: years later and built a house around nineteen thirteen. She

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Speaker 2: would live there until the spring of nineteen seventy nine.

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Speaker 2: I was thrilled when I learned that there was actual

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Speaker 2: audio of Granny Henderson, and aside from the roosters, the

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Speaker 2: quality is pretty good. The interviewer is Dwight Pitt Kathley,

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Speaker 2: a respected historian for the National Park Service, and the

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Speaker 2: interview is an hour and fifteen minutes long. It's truly fascinating,

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Speaker 2: and in the Ozarks we don't apologize for roosters making

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Speaker 2: incredible rackets. The interview continues and directly you can hear

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Speaker 2: the rumble of a motor getting closer and closer, and

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Speaker 2: there's an impromptu visitor that shows up, Yes.

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Speaker 5: Visitors, Yeah, Robbie, Yeah, how you do? And just sitting here,

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Speaker 5: how you all right?

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Speaker 2: It's EV's granddaughter, twenty nine year old Jane Kilgore, Hiller's brother.

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Speaker 5: His wife is coming down here. I'm going down Upsuckholm

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Speaker 5: camp through two whore they get some water.

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Speaker 2: She's asked her grandmother where a spring is to get water.

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Speaker 2: It was a Sunday afternoon and there's a group of

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Speaker 2: them going camping. Granny gets fired up as she gives

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Speaker 2: instructions to the spring. You can hear her voice change, no, I.

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Speaker 5: Can you or that spring is over there? I grand

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Speaker 5: mama hunted for that. Well, I'll tell you, Jane, you

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Speaker 5: go right over that before you know, Honey, at that

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Speaker 5: second forward you go right down the edge of the

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Speaker 5: creek on the far side, and you can't keep them

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Speaker 5: finding well.

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Speaker 3: And when heard all up now that creek, mate, and

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Speaker 3: I never could find it too, Hillard, I said, and

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Speaker 3: I forgot what it.

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Speaker 5: Springs say, Well, it's plenty when you want to hunt Ford,

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Speaker 5: I'm the with you old day.

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Speaker 2: A while will. The improptu moment ends with Granny offering

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Speaker 2: to help find the spring after the interview. The reason

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Speaker 2: the National Park historian was interviewing her was that on

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Speaker 2: March first, nineteen seventy two, the government had authorized the

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Speaker 2: formation of the Buffalo National River, known as America's first

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Speaker 2: National River. The land her family had owned since nineteen

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Speaker 2: oh five was quickly en route to being owned by

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Speaker 2: the United States government by whatever means necessary. Eva Henderson

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Speaker 2: would be the last private holdout in the whole ninety

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Speaker 2: five thousand acre National Park. That's why National Geographic came.

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Speaker 2: Her husband, Frank worked in the logwoods, and Ev worked

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Speaker 2: on the farm. They essentially were subsistence farmers, living not

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Speaker 2: much different than the first white pioneers who came to

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Speaker 2: this region in the eighteen thirties. They never had running water, electricity,

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Speaker 2: or a phone. Frank bought his first truck in the

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifties, but he died in nineteen fifty six. Ev

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Speaker 2: never learned to drive a car and remained on her

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Speaker 2: remote farm as a widow for twenty three years until

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, but she would be close to family

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Speaker 2: just down the river. EV's only daughter, Arby, lived with

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Speaker 2: her husband and children. One of those children was Jane Kilgore.

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Speaker 2: She's the one who asked about the spring. She was

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Speaker 2: twenty nine years old in that audio clip. Today Jane

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Speaker 2: Kilgore is seventy six, and I'd like to introduce you

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Speaker 2: to her my whole life. Have heard about your grandmother.

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Speaker 2: So what year were you born?

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Speaker 3: I was born in forty eight, born down there at

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Speaker 3: Malwahome Place Town.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yep. How long did you live there?

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Speaker 3: Till I was thirteen? You'll have figure that's the difference there. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: we moved to come to a point when was thirteen.

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Speaker 3: The park brought us up.

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Speaker 4: Two.

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Speaker 2: Now did y'all move because the park bought your land? Yes?

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Speaker 2: Jane has invited me into her home. She lives high

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Speaker 2: on the mountain now above the river, on what some

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Speaker 2: say is the prettiest farm in Newton County. Her home

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Speaker 2: is tidy and comfortable and full of pictures of family.

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Speaker 2: She made a coconut cream pie when she heard that

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Speaker 2: I was coming by. About a dozen whitetail racks, four

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Speaker 2: of which her shoulder mounted adorned the walls of her

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Speaker 2: living room. The big eight point in the center her

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Speaker 2: late husband, Hillard killed, but the other three shoulder mountain

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Speaker 2: bucks or Jane's. I'm trying to pry from her everything

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Speaker 2: I can about her life on the river and her grandmother.

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Speaker 2: I asked her what her childhood was like. She answered quickly, wonderful.

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Speaker 3: No electricity, We had running water, and we spend a

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Speaker 3: lot of time with grandma, me and my sister.

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Speaker 2: Did How far did she live from you?

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Speaker 3: Probably half a mile? You don't where that big flat

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Speaker 3: rock he is just down the creek from that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you knew your grandmother?

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Speaker 3: Well, oh, yes, yes, my grandpa Frank. Here was her

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Speaker 3: husband's name, Frank Henderson. I helped him pick his tobacco patch.

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Speaker 3: He chewed tobacco, and we'd have picked the worms off

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Speaker 3: of it, and then I'd help him twist it. When

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Speaker 3: we cut it off, we twisted it and then hung

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Speaker 3: in the barn. And I remember that so well. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: he gave me a little heap for calf.

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Speaker 2: What was your grandmother like?

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Speaker 3: Very tough woman. There'll never be another woman as tough

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Speaker 3: as she was. I'm just not saying that because she's

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Speaker 3: my grandma.

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Speaker 4: She was.

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Speaker 3: She lived three months after they moved out of it.

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Speaker 2: Moved her out three months.

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Speaker 3: Yes, she did. She died at eighty seven. She lived

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Speaker 3: three months. She spent one night in her new house

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Speaker 3: that they built her, and then my brother Howard took

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Speaker 3: her to his house, which was just up the field

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Speaker 3: from him where she was when they built her house.

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Speaker 3: She lived three months.

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Speaker 2: What do you make of that?

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Speaker 3: I make it. They took her life away from her.

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Speaker 2: I said earlier that Granny was a martyr, and that's

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Speaker 2: really the way that we view her. The river nationalized

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Speaker 2: in seventy two, but she was able to hold out

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Speaker 2: into the spring of seventy nine when she sold to

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Speaker 2: the park. They had built her modern house and as

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Speaker 2: the crow flies, it was only two point eight miles away,

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Speaker 2: and she spent one night in her new house and

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Speaker 2: told her son that she couldn't do it, so she

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Speaker 2: moved in with him, and within three months, on July tenth,

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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, Grannie Henderson passed away. I asked Jane

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Speaker 2: how she was able to stay there seven years after

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Speaker 2: the area was designated a national park.

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Speaker 3: She had her lawyer and she thought it as long

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Speaker 3: as she could. They I think they were pretty lenient

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Speaker 3: with her, I mean in a way, but then they

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Speaker 3: were people over them too say, and she didn't talk

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Speaker 3: about too much. She just said, I will leave. We're

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Speaker 3: gonna get ready. Well they know you won't, you know,

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Speaker 3: but she did. She thought, I think that's reached him

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Speaker 3: so long. They in a way felt sorry for her

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Speaker 3: and didn't want to do it. But there were people

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Speaker 3: in Washington, d C. Giving them a limited amount of

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Speaker 3: time to do what they had to do.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 3: I don't know all about the how the government worked

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Speaker 3: that in that way, but I think that had a

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Speaker 3: lot to do with it. She kept telling them she

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Speaker 3: wasn't going. She told them she wasn't leaving, and she

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Speaker 3: run one off that came down when talk to her

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Speaker 3: more that she didn't recognize him because it was a

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Speaker 3: different one than what had been there before, and she said,

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Speaker 3: you might as well hit the trail. That's what she stuted. Oh,

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Speaker 3: by here's something. Oh she was something else.

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Speaker 2: Grannie was not a wealthy woman, but you know, many

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Speaker 2: people like her saved every penny they ever made. I

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Speaker 2: suspect that's how she could afford a local lawyer to

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Speaker 2: fight against the behemoth of the National Park Service. Many

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Speaker 2: sold right away, but not Grannie Henderson. I suspected did

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Speaker 2: buy her some time. But that's about it. I asked

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Speaker 2: Jane about the house the park built her.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they built her a house with electric running water, worshiper, dryer,

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Speaker 3: bath inside bathroom. She never knew nothing about stuff like that.

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Speaker 3: She didn't even know how to start a worship driyer.

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Speaker 3: She works in the creek on the rubboard.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like they just I feel like she

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Speaker 3: would have lived a lot longer. She was eighty seven,

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Speaker 3: and I always held it against them because how much

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Speaker 3: lower would she have lived? And she would have lived

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Speaker 3: a happy life. She might have lived to be a hundred,

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Speaker 3: I don't know, and she would she would have lived

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Speaker 3: longer than she did, Yes, but no, Grandma was a

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Speaker 3: she was a tough woman. I wish I would have

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Speaker 3: paid more attention because we were just me and Rosie

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Speaker 3: played the creek most of the time if we wasn't working.

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Speaker 3: She had a lot of old Indian remedies for like

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Speaker 3: snake bites, bee stings, whatever, you know, just being kids,

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Speaker 3: we didn't pay a lot of attention to her. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: I know of three times she got copperheadbit and she

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Speaker 3: never even went to the doctor. Is that right, that's right,

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Speaker 3: that's absolutely right.

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Speaker 2: Yes.

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Speaker 3: And forgetting seed ticks and stuff on her, she would

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Speaker 3: tie kerosene ragar and her ankles and she'd never get

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Speaker 3: any text her checkers on her. I don't know what

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Speaker 3: she did for the snake bites. I remember she told

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Speaker 3: me one time that she mixed up turpe tine and

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Speaker 3: sugar and stove soot for a cut. Now, that would

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Speaker 3: stop the bleeding. But as far as the sneak bates,

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Speaker 3: I don't know what she does.

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Speaker 2: But I know of.

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Speaker 3: Three times she got compreheaded bedow and she killed them

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Speaker 3: and throwed them in with the hogs and they ate them.

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Speaker 2: I remember.

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Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, I'll never forget my grandma.

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Speaker 2: That's a pretty gangster move to feed the copperhead. That

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Speaker 2: just bit you to the hogs and then whip up

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Speaker 2: an herbal remedy, avoiding the lines that the er. If

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Speaker 2: you want to get Clay Nucomb's attention, tell me how

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Speaker 2: many times you've been bitten by venomous snakes, unless you're

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Speaker 2: just fooling around like Brent was when he got bit.

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Speaker 2: But the number of times you've been bit is a

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Speaker 2: direct correlation to your exposure to gritty close to the

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Speaker 2: land living. And if Granny was out of her bed,

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Speaker 2: she was in some serious snake country. As I sit

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Speaker 2: with my back to these four big ozark bucks on

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Speaker 2: the wall, Jane pulls out the March nineteen seventy seven

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Speaker 2: issue of National Geographic. I'm flipping through the pages looking

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Speaker 2: at the incredible images of Granny on her farm. Tell

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Speaker 2: me about when National Geographic came and did that peace

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Speaker 2: on her.

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Speaker 3: I didn't know anything about that until I got that

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Speaker 3: through the mail. I didn't know anything about him. Even

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Speaker 3: you know, she had lots of company that she didn't

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Speaker 3: say too much about it to anybody.

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Speaker 2: So she was in National Geographic, which in the seventies was, yeah,

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Speaker 2: probably even bigger than it is today. I mean a magazine,

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Speaker 2: a premiere print magazine. She was a national geographic and

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Speaker 2: never told it. Just didn't think it was that big

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Speaker 2: a deal.

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Speaker 6: Right.

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Speaker 3: No, But when they first started coming down and talking

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Speaker 3: to her about where she lived, I guess it's some

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Speaker 3: part people out.

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Speaker 2: She said.

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Speaker 3: There were some strange people come down here, and she said,

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Speaker 3: I answered some of their questions, and some of them

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Speaker 3: I told there wasn't another business. But I thought that

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Speaker 3: was such a god. Have you saw this?

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Speaker 1: Oh?

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Speaker 2: I have? I have?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I had it hunted for that wall ago and

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Speaker 3: I had in a toad in my closet.

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Speaker 2: That is probably that's the really famous picture of her

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Speaker 2: right there.

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Speaker 3: It is she's something. She was something else. Yeah, tough.

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Speaker 3: She was ever a bit four foot seven and she

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Speaker 3: would get up on top of a five gallon bucket

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Speaker 3: and drive a wooden post with a sledge hammer. They

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Speaker 3: didn't have tea posts back then.

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Speaker 4: She was tough.

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Speaker 3: She carried the water from and she had her some

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Speaker 3: big tubs down there. But the fance she carried water

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Speaker 3: from Buffalo, carried the water at Turkey Hoose in that tib.

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Speaker 2: Did she always wear the camouflage.

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Speaker 5: Old, yes, oh yes.

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Speaker 3: On time we ever seen her with that is when

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Speaker 3: she's getting ready to go to bed.

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Speaker 2: She wore that specific canfula yes, yes, sir, Do you

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Speaker 2: still have that?

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Speaker 5: No?

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Speaker 3: The sad thing of it is is when I go

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Speaker 3: back down to her home place, all the windows are out,

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Speaker 3: the riffs falling in. The purservice was supposed to have

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Speaker 3: kept that up as a historical side. It's pitiful.

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Speaker 2: I wonder why they're not keeping it up.

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Speaker 3: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Grannie Henderson always wore an old school camo patterned bonnet,

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Speaker 2: and that ended kind of on a downer note. You see,

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Speaker 2: Grannie's house is still standing. It's a several mile hike

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Speaker 2: or mule ride down there, but it's just a matter

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Speaker 2: of time before the earth reclaims it. I do know

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Speaker 2: that the park has done some work on it since

356
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Speaker 2: she left, but the family isn't too happy about it.

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Speaker 2: And I do know that there's currently a group called

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Speaker 2: the Buffalo River Partners trying to raise money to help

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Speaker 2: restore Grannie's house. And since we started researching for this podcast,

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Speaker 2: the park has publicly stated new interest in maintaining the

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Speaker 2: historic structures, but some say it's a day late and

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Speaker 2: a dollar short. I visited Grannie's old home place many

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Speaker 2: times as we hear this emotional story of Granny giving

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Speaker 2: up her land, It's important to understand that the park

365
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Speaker 2: did give every landowner the right of a life of state,

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Speaker 2: which means they could live there until they died, and

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Speaker 2: upon the death of the deed holder, the land would

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Speaker 2: go into the possession of the park. It was kind

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Speaker 2: of confusing when I learned that, because I'd have thought

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Speaker 2: she would have taken them up on that deal. But

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Speaker 2: for where she lived, the life of States had heavy

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Speaker 2: restrictions on livestock and land use that she couldn't tolerate.

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Speaker 2: And as I understand it, after a long battle and

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Speaker 2: her being the last one on the river, all her

375
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:09,840
Speaker 2: neighbors and family had moved away, the family thought it

376
00:21:09,960 --> 00:21:14,160
Speaker 2: was best that she should sell and move. She'd held

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Speaker 2: out for so long. But even with this option of

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00:21:17,640 --> 00:21:21,280
Speaker 2: the life estate, it didn't soften the sting of the cold,

379
00:21:21,440 --> 00:21:25,439
Speaker 2: stiff arm of the government. To an unbiased observer, it

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Speaker 2: might be easy to say, well, that's fair. If they

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Speaker 2: want to make a park for our nation to enjoy,

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Speaker 2: at least they gave the option for folks to live

383
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Speaker 2: there until they died. Then it's their choice. Well, it

384
00:21:35,880 --> 00:21:39,040
Speaker 2: wasn't their choice, and the other option would have been

385
00:21:39,119 --> 00:21:42,560
Speaker 2: the government never coming to buy your land. In the

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Speaker 2: upper part of the Buffalo River watershed sits the small

387
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Speaker 2: community of Boxley, and in nineteen seventy two it contained

388
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Speaker 2: twenty seven occupied homes and approximately eighty people. And in

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Speaker 2: the original National Park Service survey documentation in nineteen sixty one,

390
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Speaker 2: they know Boxley and suggested a private use zone, stating, quote,

391
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Speaker 2: areas possessing high agricultural values, such as those around Boxley

392
00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:14,960
Speaker 2: and along Richland Creek, might be protected by acquiring partial

393
00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:19,399
Speaker 2: rights or scenic easements only end of quote. Boxley was

394
00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:24,359
Speaker 2: also along a prominent roadway into the park, and so

395
00:22:24,920 --> 00:22:28,840
Speaker 2: Boxley was given kind of a special unique deal. But

396
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Speaker 2: Granny's Place was truly in the backwoods and wasn't in

397
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Speaker 2: a private use zone. They would follow through with this

398
00:22:35,320 --> 00:22:38,280
Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventy two legislation, and it meant that

399
00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:41,920
Speaker 2: the land at Boxley could remain in private ownership quote

400
00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:44,719
Speaker 2: except for the rights purchased by the government to prevent

401
00:22:44,960 --> 00:22:48,880
Speaker 2: unsightly changes in the pastoral setting end of quote. People

402
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:51,199
Speaker 2: could remain living there, but they couldn't as much as

403
00:22:51,240 --> 00:22:53,600
Speaker 2: dig a hole in the ground without the Park's permission.

404
00:22:56,240 --> 00:22:59,440
Speaker 2: This is still enacted today and many of the families

405
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 2: in Boxley Valley still live there and it's beautiful. Unfortunately,

406
00:23:04,359 --> 00:23:07,240
Speaker 2: most of the ninety thousand acres of private land acquired

407
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:11,280
Speaker 2: weren't in the private land use zones. And even with

408
00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:14,840
Speaker 2: all this looking really good on paper, what many of

409
00:23:14,840 --> 00:23:17,879
Speaker 2: the locals say and what isn't written in the books

410
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:21,600
Speaker 2: by the Park Service, is that people were bullied and

411
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 2: intimidated by the park and they were unorganized and unclear

412
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:31,640
Speaker 2: on communicating the new land acquisition laws. And you've got

413
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:34,840
Speaker 2: to remember this was way before the Internet and some

414
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:39,520
Speaker 2: folks like Granny didn't even have phones. You'll remember Misty

415
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 2: Langdon from the last episode. She's kind of a grassroots

416
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 2: spokesperson for the locals and runs the Remnant Project, designed

417
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:50,760
Speaker 2: to document the history of Newton County. People like her

418
00:23:50,960 --> 00:23:55,560
Speaker 2: are really important and gutsy. She invited me to her home,

419
00:23:55,920 --> 00:24:00,520
Speaker 2: which is a gorgeous multi generational cattle farm. You really

420
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:04,160
Speaker 2: want to hear how people feel, you go and talk

421
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:05,400
Speaker 2: to Misty.

422
00:24:05,840 --> 00:24:10,479
Speaker 1: You know ev Henderson. Everybody calls her Granny Henderson. She

423
00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:15,440
Speaker 1: was treated pretty pretty terribly, you know, as an older person.

424
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: A lot of the you know, just the hatred and

425
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:24,879
Speaker 1: the you know, furre at the park was because of

426
00:24:24,920 --> 00:24:27,919
Speaker 1: the treatment of her. She put a face on it

427
00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:32,040
Speaker 1: that nobody else could put a face on. If they

428
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:34,119
Speaker 1: were going to do that to a little old woman

429
00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 1: who never you know, did anything to hurt anybody, who

430
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 1: only help people. You know, if they would do that

431
00:24:40,680 --> 00:24:43,760
Speaker 1: to her, they'd just do it to anybody. And in

432
00:24:43,920 --> 00:24:47,520
Speaker 1: our culture, the one thing you don't do is trample

433
00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 1: around on older folks. That's a real good way to

434
00:24:51,040 --> 00:25:04,359
Speaker 1: get a really bad reputation. People hurt, people are still

435
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 1: so hurt.

436
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 7: You know.

437
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: There are so many families that I deal with, and

438
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: I'll call them up and say, hey, I thought you

439
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:16,880
Speaker 1: might have some pictures or some documents that you want

440
00:25:16,960 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 1: to share with with the Remnants project, And do you

441
00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 1: want to tell me a few stories about growing up?

442
00:25:22,440 --> 00:25:25,640
Speaker 1: You bet, come on, honey. But when you would get

443
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:28,240
Speaker 1: around and I knew to wait, I knew to get

444
00:25:28,280 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 1: what I knew to save the park question for last.

445
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:36,320
Speaker 1: That is a subject that would be like if somebody

446
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: in your family had some deep, dark secret and you

447
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 1: didn't want anybody to know, and you were out in

448
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 1: them publicly on the town square. That's the attitude that

449
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:48,359
Speaker 1: they have about talking about the park.

450
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:53,199
Speaker 2: It's just too it is too dark, too bad of

451
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:55,760
Speaker 2: a scenario. It's just we're just erasing that.

452
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:59,479
Speaker 1: From It's too painful, I think is one it was.

453
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: I think it was probably one of the most painful

454
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:06,760
Speaker 1: periods for people here because everybody was scared. I asked

455
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:09,919
Speaker 1: my mom when all this came about, how do we

456
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:13,240
Speaker 1: keep our land? How did we not lose a bunch.

457
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:15,840
Speaker 2: Of going The land that we're on right now is

458
00:26:15,880 --> 00:26:16,720
Speaker 2: the border of the park.

459
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, and about three quarters of our land is all

460
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 1: surrounded by park. They are our neighbor and we're most

461
00:26:23,160 --> 00:26:26,119
Speaker 1: of the time, we're really good neighbors with one another,

462
00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 1: you know. But with mom, when when the town hall

463
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 1: meeting and stuff got called and for the redesignation stuff,

464
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:36,399
Speaker 1: and that's jumping a little ahead, but she came to

465
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,879
Speaker 1: me and she said she kind of had tears in

466
00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:41,680
Speaker 1: her eyes and a lump in her throat, and she said,

467
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:44,960
Speaker 1: you're going to keep fooling around until you get this

468
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: place took from us, because the park is liable to

469
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 1: not like you doing this and take that. And I said, Mama,

470
00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:55,479
Speaker 1: I don't think the park, you know, I think the

471
00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 1: park is done with their you know, acquisition, land acquisition,

472
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:03,800
Speaker 1: and I think we're all right. But fifty years later,

473
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 1: she is still absolutely attitude like she she's set fear.

474
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 2: She grew up thinking that these people had ultimate sovereign

475
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 2: power and could just kind of do what they want.

476
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:17,480
Speaker 1: And that is exactly what happened. They did have sovereign power,

477
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:19,800
Speaker 1: and they did do whatever they wanted.

478
00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:22,880
Speaker 2: As far as so how did how did Your original

479
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 2: statement was how did we keep this land? Because it's

480
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:28,639
Speaker 2: three sides bordered by a national park? And as I

481
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:31,560
Speaker 2: understand it, I mean it was kind of I mean

482
00:27:31,600 --> 00:27:33,919
Speaker 2: they were just drawing lines on a map just to

483
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 2: say where this park was right, and I mean they

484
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 2: could have they wanted exactly.

485
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:44,720
Speaker 1: They prayed. That was it. There was no Our family

486
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: had no political pool. There were some families in Boxley

487
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 1: that had some political allies, and I think that helped.

488
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:56,400
Speaker 1: But for us, it was Coove Lines was a preacher

489
00:27:56,840 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 1: and so many people around here knew him. That's my

490
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: great grandfather. And I reckon it was prayer and fasting,

491
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 1: you know, it was on their face, you know, praying NonStop.

492
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 2: But it was that imminent of a threat. Yes, that

493
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:17,919
Speaker 2: they took it serious like that, and it felt like

494
00:28:18,160 --> 00:28:20,240
Speaker 2: it was so far beyond their control.

495
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 1: Right there was nothing they could do. Yeah, I know,

496
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 1: for me, it kind of felt like if a tornado's

497
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: coming through the house and you all huddle up and

498
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 1: you start praying, and but a you mean business. I

499
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,240
Speaker 1: kind of that's the image that I had in my mind.

500
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 2: I thought the analogy of praying that a tornado wouldn't

501
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 2: hit your home was a good descriptor. You get a

502
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:43,040
Speaker 2: sense of the helplessness, the fear, the random nature of

503
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 2: the threat. It may hit us or skip us, but

504
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 2: it's beyond our power. The shape of geographic boundaries are

505
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 2: interesting data points that often indicate the type of authority

506
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 2: that the boundary drawer had. Typically, indigenous peoples had boundaries

507
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 2: based on rivers, mountains, valleys, and natural features, and even

508
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 2: historical use patterns, which are rarely straight lines. The last

509
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 2: couple thousand years, governments and specifically colonizers began drawing straight boundaries,

510
00:29:14,960 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 2: meaning someone from somewhere else who didn't understand the way

511
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:23,840
Speaker 2: this place works, wanting to keep things simple, was drawing

512
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 2: the geometric boundaries. This is highly simplified, but I think

513
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 2: you get the point. And for the record, we tried

514
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,640
Speaker 2: to get the National Park Service to be on this podcast,

515
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:41,080
Speaker 2: but they declined the interview. We tried local and national

516
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 2: channels and they said it was a funding issue. Whatever

517
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 2: the reason, I can't help but think that it was

518
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 2: a strategic error. And it's a shame because the vast

519
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,760
Speaker 2: majority of people that work for the National Park Service

520
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 2: are wonderful, hard working, well meaning people, and here I

521
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:01,400
Speaker 2: am trying to interpret their law and their story, and

522
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 2: I'm certain that I've got some of their side of

523
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 2: the story wrong. It's possible, but this story is intentionally

524
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:11,480
Speaker 2: focused on the people who haven't had much of a

525
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 2: voice in this now fifty year process. And this is

526
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 2: no way designed to be a hit piece on our

527
00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:22,480
Speaker 2: national parks, because I am a fan and a partaker.

528
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 2: After the park was established in seventy two, the biggest

529
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 2: shock in the community came when the first people were

530
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 2: served papers requiring them to sell. Word of the encounter

531
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:38,479
Speaker 2: spread like wildfire. Here's misty on the perception of the

532
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:40,920
Speaker 2: park's process of acquisition of land.

533
00:30:41,840 --> 00:30:45,480
Speaker 1: It was just so underhanded, and then the amounts that

534
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: they would give people were all over the board. One

535
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 1: person might get something that seemed like a fair price,

536
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 1: and then somebody else like Roy Keaton, would absolutely get nothing.

537
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: And I mean Roy and Katie for me Keaton, they

538
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 1: had some of the harshest treatment that I know of

539
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 1: in our area. Going through the notes and the transcripts

540
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: and everything that I have seen, I don't know how

541
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:15,280
Speaker 1: anybody made it out of that without a shooting.

542
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 2: I mean it was me. Kay House is a lifelong

543
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 2: resident of the Buffalo River. Her family home seted here

544
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 2: early and never left. She remembers when the Keaton family,

545
00:31:28,040 --> 00:31:32,240
Speaker 2: Misty just spoke about the served papers and the acquisition

546
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 2: of their land.

547
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 8: My first memory of when the Park Service came in

548
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:42,959
Speaker 8: and took over We had a little grocery store there

549
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 8: in Ponka's where a trailer's sitting now. But my first

550
00:31:46,880 --> 00:31:53,239
Speaker 8: memory was whenever they came in and they took it

551
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 8: Roy Keaton's property, which is the property up at Los Valley.

552
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 8: That was my first memory, because the US Marshals came

553
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:08,080
Speaker 8: in that night, stopped there at the store and ask about,

554
00:32:08,320 --> 00:32:12,040
Speaker 8: you know, where Roy Keaton lived. That was my first

555
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 8: real memory. I mean, all the talk and everything.

556
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 2: You remember, what did you how did you feel about that?

557
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 1: I scared to death.

558
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 8: I mean, you know, we just you just couldn't imagine

559
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 8: things like that happening around here, you know, because it's

560
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 8: such a quiet, family oriented place to live.

561
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, everybody was like, this is real.

562
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 8: Yeah right, that's I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that's

563
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 8: the very first real action that was taken.

564
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:51,120
Speaker 2: How did how did the people that you knew respond

565
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 2: to that?

566
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:53,480
Speaker 3: Curious?

567
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 2: Really?

568
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean they were very, very upset at the time.

569
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, the community was scared, and it's hard to blame them.

570
00:33:04,040 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 2: There's actually a recorded interview with Roy and Katie Keaton.

571
00:33:07,560 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 2: In the early nineteen eighties, the park Service, recognizing an

572
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 2: issue and an effort to restore and build relationships with

573
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 2: the community, commissioned an outreach to gather oral history from

574
00:33:18,800 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 2: the people who sold land. The Keatons lived in Boxley

575
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:26,480
Speaker 2: Valley in the residential zone. I listened to the entire interview,

576
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:30,640
Speaker 2: which is over two hours, and unfortunately the audio quality

577
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 2: isn't great, especially when they talk about the park. But

578
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 2: the Keatons described in detail how things transpired. Here's Misty

579
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 2: reading just a small part of that transcript.

580
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 1: This is Katie and Roy Keaton being interviewed by the

581
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: Center for Ozark Studies June the ninth of eighty three,

582
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 1: and the interviewer says, when did you first hear about

583
00:33:56,040 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 1: the park? Katie answered, well, we've heard a long time

584
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 1: about the park, but we never did hear a thing

585
00:34:01,560 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 1: that they'd want to take our house till they brought

586
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 1: us the papers. Really, they never confronted you, Oh no, nothing,

587
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:12,720
Speaker 1: never said nothing until this us Marshall that night walked

588
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: in and with a whole bunch of papers, gave me

589
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: a set, and he a set, and my son and

590
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:20,800
Speaker 1: his wife, we each got a whole bunch of papers,

591
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 1: said we were living on government property. They gave us

592
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 1: ninety days to get off. He said, had you heard

593
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: about them taking other people's land? They hadn't taken anybody's

594
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:34,320
Speaker 1: land over there at that time. We was the first

595
00:34:34,360 --> 00:34:37,320
Speaker 1: ones that they moved in on. Did you ever see

596
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 1: this plan in the paper or anything like that? No,

597
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,040
Speaker 1: did you ever hear of any meetings? They didn't have

598
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 1: any over in here, nothing until after they took our place,

599
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 1: and then the people got to get in together. Do

600
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:54,880
Speaker 1: you think people saw what happened to you and got together,

601
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: and Katie answered, yeah, did they give you specific reasons

602
00:34:59,200 --> 00:35:02,279
Speaker 1: to why you had the leave your land? They said

603
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: they were going to take that land for everybody to

604
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 1: enjoy and not just us. I thought it was and

605
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: then they have redacted something there. Well, what did you do?

606
00:35:13,200 --> 00:35:15,480
Speaker 1: We tried to fight. Yeah, we had to go to

607
00:35:15,520 --> 00:35:17,760
Speaker 1: court to get our money. They wouldn't give us nothing

608
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: until after they gave us the ninety days to do something.

609
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 1: They didn't. We didn't get a penny of money until

610
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: that after the ninety days.

611
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:25,359
Speaker 2: Was that I had?

612
00:35:25,360 --> 00:35:26,799
Speaker 1: They had to lead.

613
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 2: They had to fund themselves to yes, go live somewhere else.

614
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:34,800
Speaker 1: Their move, their repurchase everything, and earlier in this interview

615
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 1: the house that they're interviewing them in and she said

616
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 1: this ain't no home where they're at now. So they

617
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:45,320
Speaker 1: spent the later years of their life with her saying

618
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:50,040
Speaker 1: this ain't no home. And they said. We tried to fight.

619
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 1: We had to take them to court to get our money.

620
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 1: They didn't give us nothing. Was it a fair price? No,

621
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:58,040
Speaker 1: we had to take them to court. And then of

622
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:00,480
Speaker 1: course after that the attorney takes half half of it,

623
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:03,799
Speaker 1: so we still didn't get very much after that was

624
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: the law they used to get your land, more specific

625
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: than eminent domain. I don't remember. They said they had

626
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,320
Speaker 1: right to do it, and that was it. The judge

627
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 1: told us that they have the right to take it

628
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:17,160
Speaker 1: at any time they wanted, but they didn't have the

629
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 1: right to tell you how much they're going to pay

630
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 1: for it. That was up to the jury, you know.

631
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:25,720
Speaker 1: And they took them to court, and I don't remember

632
00:36:26,600 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 1: what they were given at first. I know it was

633
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 1: poultry that they won one hundred and sixty three thousand

634
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 1: dollars settlement from court. I mean that kind of goes

635
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:40,000
Speaker 1: to show how small of an amount, because in the

636
00:36:40,040 --> 00:36:42,920
Speaker 1: eighties one hundred and sixty three thousand would be a

637
00:36:42,920 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 1: pretty good windfall. Yeah, And that was making up the gap,

638
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 1: you know, that was making up what they was, That

639
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:50,520
Speaker 1: was making up the fair price.

640
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:51,919
Speaker 2: That they took it. And they went back to court,

641
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:56,000
Speaker 2: they said you owe them and sees exactly. Oh gosh,

642
00:36:56,080 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 2: so they must have just paid them nothing. Nothing. Here's

643
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:05,280
Speaker 2: the bottom line on paper in the halls of Congress,

644
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:09,360
Speaker 2: reading public Law ninety two Dash two thirty seven, which

645
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:13,520
Speaker 2: instituted the National River, which detailed how land would be acquired.

646
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 2: I've read it. It looks tolerable, just unfortunate for the landowners.

647
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:22,840
Speaker 2: But on the ground in the backwoods of Arkansas in

648
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:26,919
Speaker 2: the early nineteen seventies, it wasn't pretty. And I can't

649
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:29,840
Speaker 2: even begin to tell on this podcast all these stories.

650
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm just cherry picking a couple, and I'm sure,

651
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 2: as stories do, some of them get exaggerated in the

652
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:42,520
Speaker 2: community over the years. But where there is smoke, there's fire,

653
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:47,960
Speaker 2: and in this case, the fire was visible to everyone.

654
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 2: I want to talk to doctor Brooks. Blevin's prolific author,

655
00:37:52,200 --> 00:37:56,480
Speaker 2: friend of this podcast and an authority in ozark history.

656
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 2: I've got a peculiar question as it relates to the

657
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:03,239
Speaker 2: time period in the long arm of this freedom love

658
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 2: and American government and the word communism. Yeah, there's a

659
00:38:09,840 --> 00:38:12,200
Speaker 2: there's a sentence into your essay where it says there

660
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 2: were those who condemned the creation of our national rivers

661
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:19,319
Speaker 2: as communism. That's interesting. Can you can you explain why

662
00:38:19,360 --> 00:38:20,239
Speaker 2: people would have thought that?

663
00:38:20,480 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 7: Well, you think about the era when this, when this happens,

664
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 7: you get the Buffalo National River in seventy two, we're

665
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:31,239
Speaker 7: in the Cold War, and it's it's natural that a

666
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 7: lot of people would have seen any kind of big

667
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:39,319
Speaker 7: government intrusion in the everyday lives of people and in

668
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:45,240
Speaker 7: the in the property rights of Americans as a communistic

669
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 7: type move And I've seen not just with a buffalo story,

670
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:54,040
Speaker 7: but this is such a vast story that takes in

671
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:57,439
Speaker 7: so much of the of the US story from the

672
00:38:57,480 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 7: from the mid twentieth century. I've seen a lot of

673
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:03,839
Speaker 7: letters to congressmen and senators and stuff where they bring

674
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:07,640
Speaker 7: up the C word, it's communism. And so it would

675
00:39:07,680 --> 00:39:09,840
Speaker 7: have been a natural reaction for a lot of people,

676
00:39:09,960 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 7: especially a lot of conservative people, who put a lot

677
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 7: of value in the primacy of property rights. This is

678
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:22,360
Speaker 7: also the era when you're starting to have kind of

679
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 7: the infant movement of the hard right of kind of

680
00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:31,839
Speaker 7: ultra conservative people. And if you go back to kind

681
00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 7: of the beginnings of the libertarian movement and stuff like that,

682
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:37,960
Speaker 7: a lot of those folks, if property rights is not

683
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:42,680
Speaker 7: at the top, it's on the mount rushmore of rights

684
00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 7: of Americans that are or should be inviolable for those people,

685
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 7: this becomes a property rights issue. Is there a justification?

686
00:39:55,000 --> 00:40:00,480
Speaker 7: Is there enough of an American national interest in aiding

687
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 7: the Buffalo National River to justify the taking of private

688
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 7: property from these citizens. Can you make can you make

689
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 7: a case that there's a justific constitutional justification for that.

690
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 7: Of course it holds up under under our laws, But

691
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:21,239
Speaker 7: there were a lot of people who who saw this

692
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:24,560
Speaker 7: as getting close to kind of breaching that, you know,

693
00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 7: that constitutional directive that we live under.

694
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:33,680
Speaker 2: The commies. I knew it, and now I want to

695
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 2: turn the throttle up just a bit. If you remember,

696
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 2: in the first episode, I mentioned doctor Neil Compton, who's

697
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:50,840
Speaker 2: considered the father of the Buffalo National Park, kind of

698
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 2: like John Muir is of Yosemite. And after talking with

699
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 2: the people here, I'm feeling conflicted about this man who

700
00:40:58,760 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 2: is so influential and turning this into a national park.

701
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 2: I want to ask doctor Blevins about it, and I'll

702
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:09,880
Speaker 2: trust what he tells me. Until I started doing this research,

703
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:14,880
Speaker 2: the name Neil Compton would have in my mind, not

704
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:17,080
Speaker 2: knowing a lot about the Buffalo River, but I would

705
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:19,319
Speaker 2: have said he's the guy that saved the Buffalo River.

706
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:22,480
Speaker 2: I would have said he's a hero. When you get

707
00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:26,439
Speaker 2: over into Newton County, he is not a hero. I'm

708
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 2: struggling to try to decide if he's a hero or

709
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:33,480
Speaker 2: a villain. But I'm kind of conflicted because it feels

710
00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:39,800
Speaker 2: like those are in society minimized, this marginal, disenfranchised group

711
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:44,279
Speaker 2: of people, did not hear them and just kind of

712
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 2: did what they wanted to do. And in Compton's book,

713
00:41:47,120 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 2: you see you see little threads of that. And one

714
00:41:49,640 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 2: thing that stood out to me in his book, which

715
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 2: was a great book. He did a great job. He

716
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:58,320
Speaker 2: was a good writer, but his reports to the world

717
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 2: was that basically this one hundred and thirty five miles

718
00:42:01,400 --> 00:42:06,360
Speaker 2: of river was uninhabited. He said, it's basically uninhabited, you know,

719
00:42:06,520 --> 00:42:10,399
Speaker 2: given the illusion that these people they want to leave.

720
00:42:11,800 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 2: Not to put words in his mouth, but just the

721
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 2: idea that I have as I read that and then

722
00:42:17,000 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 2: know also what was going on behind the scenes, as

723
00:42:19,440 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 2: he was saying, these folks don't have any power, these

724
00:42:23,600 --> 00:42:26,280
Speaker 2: folks don't have any pool, They don't know what they've

725
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,960
Speaker 2: got in a way, and maybe this is villainizing him

726
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:31,960
Speaker 2: too much, but I'd be willing to step on the

727
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 2: line to say, you know, almost just saying these people

728
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:36,839
Speaker 2: don't deserve, they don't know what they've got, and they

729
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 2: don't deserve it, and that's probably pretty harsh. What do

730
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:43,320
Speaker 2: you think about that? Am I being too hard on him?

731
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 4: Well?

732
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:48,400
Speaker 7: I think Neil Compton. I think he realized, Now you

733
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:51,160
Speaker 7: don't see this in his book. The book stops in

734
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:55,239
Speaker 7: nineteen seventy two. The battle has been won, We've nationalized

735
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:59,360
Speaker 7: the river. The rest of the story goes untold, you know,

736
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:01,360
Speaker 7: the land Act position and all that kind of stuff

737
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:04,160
Speaker 7: after nineteen seventy two. But even in that book, I

738
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 7: can fish out evidence that Compton realized that one of

739
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:13,440
Speaker 7: the things that most fascinated him in those early days,

740
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 7: and he says this in his book, was these little

741
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 7: farmsteads and the people who lived in that valley that

742
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 7: was fascinating to him. It was that human community there

743
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 7: that to him would have seemed like they were living

744
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:32,279
Speaker 7: fifty years behind the times, and they might have been

745
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:35,399
Speaker 7: probably would have been compared to somebody from New York

746
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 7: or Chicago or something like that, and maybe even to

747
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 7: somebody from Bentonville.

748
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 2: So would your perception of him wouldn't be like what

749
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:43,120
Speaker 2: I just described.

750
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:46,399
Speaker 7: No part of it would be. I think Compton would

751
00:43:46,400 --> 00:43:49,840
Speaker 7: have had a more conflicted attitude on what eventually happened

752
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 7: because we don't really know. He never really talks about

753
00:43:52,600 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 7: the loss of land of a lot of these people

754
00:43:55,480 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 7: that he knew personally. Yeah, I mean that's not part

755
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:02,840
Speaker 7: of his book, The Battle for the Buffalo. And maybe

756
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 7: why it's not part of the book it may have

757
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:07,759
Speaker 7: been something a little too difficult, too personal to deal with.

758
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 7: But I think by and large, the group of people

759
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:15,960
Speaker 7: he represented the recreational canoeists and you know people and

760
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 7: campers and stuff like that. I don't think you're wrong

761
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:24,680
Speaker 7: in saying that they probably approached the people of the

762
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 7: Buffalo Valley with a with a kind of a condescending

763
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 7: outsider attitude that these people they don't know what they

764
00:44:32,080 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 7: have and therefore they can't take care of it the

765
00:44:35,200 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 7: way that the government could take care.

766
00:44:37,400 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 2: Of it now.

767
00:44:38,560 --> 00:44:40,800
Speaker 7: And a lot of that again goes back to self interest.

768
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 7: If you're a canoeist from Kansas City, your interest is

769
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:48,799
Speaker 7: making sure that river stays undamned and that you have

770
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:51,839
Speaker 7: access to it. If the National Park Service takes it over,

771
00:44:51,880 --> 00:44:58,360
Speaker 7: you're going to have even more seamless access. So for them,

772
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:02,160
Speaker 7: definitely that's in their set he interest to favor that

773
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:05,680
Speaker 7: and to argue the greatest good for the for the

774
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 7: greatest number, and we humans have a powerful capacity to

775
00:45:10,840 --> 00:45:15,560
Speaker 7: rationalize whatever it is that we want into being something

776
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:18,040
Speaker 7: that almost seems altruistic.

777
00:45:19,560 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 2: I never knew doctor Compton nor his family, and I

778
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:28,560
Speaker 2: hope that this segment isn't interpreted as personally disparaging. However,

779
00:45:28,880 --> 00:45:32,000
Speaker 2: I think the point is that it's not black and white,

780
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 2: and I'd like to correct something that I said in

781
00:45:34,640 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 2: that segment. Not everybody in Newton County dislikes Compton, because

782
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:43,480
Speaker 2: today the region is full of new people who wouldn't

783
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:47,759
Speaker 2: be there without his influence. There is little doubt to

784
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 2: the people on the river Compton was an elite, politically

785
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 2: connected outsider, and when the dams were defeated, they could

786
00:45:57,400 --> 00:46:01,839
Speaker 2: have just walked away. More on that later in the

787
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 2: foreword of Compton's book, written by a man named Ken Smith,

788
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 2: a very well respected man. My eyebrows raised when I

789
00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:13,560
Speaker 2: read this statement, and I quote from the book from

790
00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 2: the foreword. Other battles were being fought and won in

791
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:22,600
Speaker 2: the sixties to creator expand national parks in Arizona's Grand Canyon,

792
00:46:22,920 --> 00:46:28,920
Speaker 2: among California's Redwoods Washington's Cascades. In each case, the Buffalo

793
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:32,160
Speaker 2: River and all the rest. The battle has been between

794
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:35,880
Speaker 2: those who saw the area's natural resources to be used

795
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:40,760
Speaker 2: for material gain, often to the benefit of local interest,

796
00:46:41,320 --> 00:46:45,720
Speaker 2: and those who saw the resources as having intangible, even

797
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 2: spiritual benefits, with park advocates usually living outside the immediate area.

798
00:46:53,120 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 2: In simplest terms, locals versus outsiders, exploiters versus presentationist. End

799
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 2: of quote. Hmm, that's an interesting quote. And I'll give

800
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:10,960
Speaker 2: the man the benefit of the doubt because he was

801
00:47:11,040 --> 00:47:14,080
Speaker 2: partly talking about those who are wanting to damn the river,

802
00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:19,840
Speaker 2: but where Granny and Misty's families local exploiters looking for

803
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 2: material gain by simply wanting to stay on their own land.

804
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 2: Without a doubt, Doctor Compton appreciated at some level the

805
00:47:35,239 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 2: rural Ozarkian people so different from him that he encountered

806
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:42,560
Speaker 2: in his early trips to the Buffalo. In his book,

807
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:45,600
Speaker 2: he gave one of the best description of the ozark

808
00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:48,719
Speaker 2: people that I've heard, and I'd like to read what

809
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:52,680
Speaker 2: he wrote. A quote from his book, This Journey to

810
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 2: the Unknown Buffalo did, however, and plant the seed of

811
00:47:55,840 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 2: interest in our native land, so that for me, then,

812
00:47:58,760 --> 00:48:03,360
Speaker 2: on honest compared prison was sought between our rivers, forests, mountains,

813
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:06,200
Speaker 2: and prairies and those in other parts of America and

814
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:09,480
Speaker 2: the world, and for our people a feeling not so

815
00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:12,839
Speaker 2: much of pride, but of sympathy and understanding for their

816
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:17,440
Speaker 2: unpretentious manner, their honest approach to the uncertainties of life,

817
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:21,839
Speaker 2: and their rye and whimsical method of expression, and their

818
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 2: tried and true moral values. End of quote. That was

819
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:31,960
Speaker 2: incredibly good insight in writing. But I hadn't forgotten that

820
00:48:32,000 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 2: those commies still took Granny's land. And again, in doctor

821
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:41,839
Speaker 2: Compton's defense, there were vocal landowners on the river who

822
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:44,800
Speaker 2: wanted the river damned, and some who wanted the park.

823
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:47,759
Speaker 2: In the book, he cites Homer Blyth, who had seven

824
00:48:47,840 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty three acres on the river, and he

825
00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:53,280
Speaker 2: said that the river dried up each summer, wasn't worthy

826
00:48:53,320 --> 00:48:56,440
Speaker 2: of a park and should be damned. Larry Potter owned

827
00:48:56,480 --> 00:48:59,560
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred acres and six miles of river frontage on

828
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:02,720
Speaker 2: the Lower Buffalo and support of damning one hundred percent

829
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine or fe of duty. A lifelong Boxley

830
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:11,600
Speaker 2: resident went to Washington to petition for the National Park,

831
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:16,320
Speaker 2: but her land was in the residential zone, but many

832
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 2: people who were deeply connected to the land didn't want

833
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:25,719
Speaker 2: it damned or a park. Here's doctor Blevins. If that

834
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:28,799
Speaker 2: was not a national river, I probably wouldn't know that

835
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 2: much about it, you know, I wouldn't have gone over

836
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:34,680
Speaker 2: there and hiked and seen the bluffs. And with our

837
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:37,360
Speaker 2: water low, you know, I guess you could still float it,

838
00:49:37,360 --> 00:49:39,839
Speaker 2: but it would all be private land, you know, inside

839
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:43,279
Speaker 2: the high water mark. But so here I am someone

840
00:49:43,320 --> 00:49:45,680
Speaker 2: who's partaken to the Buffalo River, taking pride in the

841
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:48,799
Speaker 2: Buffalo River, take it, love it. But then now when

842
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:51,080
Speaker 2: I hear the story, I don't know if I should

843
00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 2: be mad, or should be happy, or should just be man.

844
00:49:56,040 --> 00:49:57,960
Speaker 2: The human existence is pretty conflicted.

845
00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:02,439
Speaker 7: It's the great, great area that most history, at least

846
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:06,279
Speaker 7: most interesting history, falls into. It's one of these things

847
00:50:06,320 --> 00:50:10,200
Speaker 7: where our own individual perspectives is a lot of times

848
00:50:10,239 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 7: will dictate how we view this story. And the vast,

849
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:18,840
Speaker 7: vast majority of people in the world, and even in

850
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 7: the White River Valley and even in Newton County don't

851
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:25,840
Speaker 7: have any connection with that little strip of land along

852
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:30,279
Speaker 7: the Buffalo River, and we're more likely to view that

853
00:50:30,440 --> 00:50:33,560
Speaker 7: in that sort of outsider black and white way with

854
00:50:33,680 --> 00:50:37,440
Speaker 7: this was this was one hundred percent a good thing,

855
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 7: nationalizing the river and not damning the river. But that's

856
00:50:41,960 --> 00:50:44,760
Speaker 7: what you know, that's what makes this such an intriguing

857
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:48,160
Speaker 7: stories that there are other elements to this that remind

858
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:50,279
Speaker 7: us that, you know, most of these stories are not

859
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:53,160
Speaker 7: just simple. They're not black and white. Yeah, good and

860
00:50:53,239 --> 00:50:57,440
Speaker 7: bad stories. And and Neil Compton is you know, he's

861
00:50:57,480 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 7: not He's not all good and he's not all bad.

862
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 7: And and it's hard to figure out what to do

863
00:51:02,520 --> 00:51:04,359
Speaker 7: with some of these characters.

864
00:51:04,960 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 2: Right in the middle of this conversation on ethics, I

865
00:51:08,640 --> 00:51:11,400
Speaker 2: want to step back in time for a minute onto

866
00:51:11,440 --> 00:51:16,040
Speaker 2: Granny Henderson's porch and hear her tell about the best

867
00:51:16,120 --> 00:51:21,080
Speaker 2: dog she ever owned. That's right, But first you'll hear

868
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,480
Speaker 2: her refer to her favorite gun.

869
00:51:24,960 --> 00:51:27,360
Speaker 5: So he's killed later bombings.

870
00:51:27,360 --> 00:51:28,960
Speaker 4: Okay, I guess you need a good gun out here.

871
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:35,480
Speaker 5: I've cared that mimb He used to have a dog.

872
00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:38,200
Speaker 5: He was he looked quite a bit like a dobby

873
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:44,319
Speaker 5: color and he was a real squirrel dog where he was.

874
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 5: He was good about the stock what he knows, but

875
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:50,800
Speaker 5: he never he wasn't a natural hater or some dogs

876
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:53,479
Speaker 5: you know, just don't never just go to the hill.

877
00:51:54,239 --> 00:51:57,200
Speaker 5: He's the best dog I ever owner of the will

878
00:51:57,320 --> 00:52:03,319
Speaker 5: of course never expect. But I went thousand dollars Bobby.

879
00:52:03,520 --> 00:52:08,560
Speaker 5: He watches it, not think of moves, not move had

880
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:17,000
Speaker 5: let you know, and a good dog's worth helo after

881
00:52:17,080 --> 00:52:17,840
Speaker 5: these barns.

882
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 4: Yes, basically out here you need a good dog.

883
00:52:20,920 --> 00:52:25,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bobby is the dog that was sitting right there

884
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:29,120
Speaker 2: with them. He's in several of the photos in National Geographic.

885
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:32,239
Speaker 2: But she said she wouldn't take a thousand dollars for him,

886
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 2: which in seventy four was a lot. But the best

887
00:52:34,600 --> 00:52:38,560
Speaker 2: dog she ever owned was that squirrel dog healer. I

888
00:52:38,600 --> 00:52:42,480
Speaker 2: want to ask Jane Kilgore what her grandmother would have

889
00:52:42,520 --> 00:52:46,440
Speaker 2: thought about this park. So, I mean she would have

890
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:50,360
Speaker 2: been against this area becoming a national park.

891
00:52:50,880 --> 00:52:54,799
Speaker 3: Oh absolutely, yes, yeah, yes.

892
00:52:54,719 --> 00:52:57,040
Speaker 2: As were everybody most people on the.

893
00:52:57,080 --> 00:53:00,480
Speaker 3: River right just past her house down there, you go

894
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:05,160
Speaker 3: across thirty jim Bluff, go across the creek. That's where

895
00:53:05,200 --> 00:53:07,320
Speaker 3: we had our cane patches and corn patches.

896
00:53:07,360 --> 00:53:07,880
Speaker 2: Over there.

897
00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 3: Now there's not even a you can't tell where it's

898
00:53:12,120 --> 00:53:14,360
Speaker 3: just a big back of sand and rocks.

899
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 2: Do you ever go down there, Oh, yeah, to your

900
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:17,720
Speaker 2: old home place.

901
00:53:19,080 --> 00:53:19,760
Speaker 4: What is it?

902
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:22,200
Speaker 2: Is it nostalgic for you to go there? I mean,

903
00:53:22,280 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 2: does it make you sad? Does it make you happy?

904
00:53:24,880 --> 00:53:26,480
Speaker 3: I'm proud I live in a place where I've got

905
00:53:26,480 --> 00:53:29,920
Speaker 3: electricity now, but you don't. I told Hillary one time,

906
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:32,200
Speaker 3: my husband, I said, I wouldn't mind being back down there.

907
00:53:32,520 --> 00:53:34,239
Speaker 3: He said, about the time you couldn't turn the TV

908
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:38,640
Speaker 3: on or you change your mind. Yeah, but then we

909
00:53:38,640 --> 00:53:40,319
Speaker 3: were sad when they moved us out there.

910
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:46,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were. Yeah, Granny was again the park and

911
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 2: I think we already knew that. And Jane's old home place,

912
00:53:51,600 --> 00:53:55,680
Speaker 2: half a mile from Granny's is still standing today too.

913
00:53:56,880 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I wouldn't like to be able to drive

914
00:53:58,680 --> 00:54:01,239
Speaker 3: back down there and just you know, spend the night

915
00:54:01,239 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 3: and not of the chim bluff.

916
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:08,600
Speaker 2: Would you have felt like they minimize the locals, This

917
00:54:08,800 --> 00:54:12,200
Speaker 2: kind of walked over people that they felt like they could, right.

918
00:54:12,280 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I know they had. Yeah, and they don't

919
00:54:14,040 --> 00:54:16,240
Speaker 3: pay attention to the tourists. They would like the tourists

920
00:54:16,239 --> 00:54:20,279
Speaker 3: to be down there. I think it just became a

921
00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:23,000
Speaker 3: tourist attraction and people go down there and look at

922
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 3: my old home place or my grandma said, it don't

923
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:28,960
Speaker 3: mean anything to them. And I even called Washington d C.

924
00:54:29,120 --> 00:54:29,520
Speaker 2: One time.

925
00:54:29,560 --> 00:54:31,719
Speaker 3: My mother had crypt an arthritis. She lived to be

926
00:54:31,800 --> 00:54:36,279
Speaker 3: ninety six. We would take her in a raft to

927
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:38,160
Speaker 3: down to the old home place when she was able.

928
00:54:38,239 --> 00:54:40,840
Speaker 3: She got to where she wasn't, so I asked one

929
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:43,320
Speaker 3: of the park rangers about taking her on the full whidder,

930
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 3: and he said, you can't do that, and I said,

931
00:54:46,680 --> 00:54:49,279
Speaker 3: well why not. She's the only one left that's home.

932
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:51,920
Speaker 3: Said that, and she can't write. He put her on

933
00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:55,400
Speaker 3: a mule. She's ninety six year old, she's crippled with arthritis.

934
00:54:55,400 --> 00:54:58,840
Speaker 3: She can't write a mule and so he gave me

935
00:54:58,880 --> 00:55:02,359
Speaker 3: the number of Washington d SEEING. I called and no.

936
00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:04,399
Speaker 3: I said, well if I take her anyway, and I said,

937
00:55:04,400 --> 00:55:09,960
Speaker 3: you'll get a ticket, okay, But I was going to

938
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:10,840
Speaker 3: chance it and take.

939
00:55:10,680 --> 00:55:11,440
Speaker 2: Her on the full wheeler.

940
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 3: Who used to be the park ranger down here, the

941
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:19,919
Speaker 3: real nice guy. Huh yeah, yeah, he told me. He said,

942
00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:22,560
Speaker 3: if it was up to me, miss Kilgore, I would

943
00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:25,600
Speaker 3: tell you go right ahead and take her. But he said,

944
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:27,919
Speaker 3: now they're big wigs ahead of me, so I can't

945
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:29,600
Speaker 3: tell you that because I'd get in trouble, i'd.

946
00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:31,480
Speaker 2: Lose my job. But I was.

947
00:55:31,920 --> 00:55:35,279
Speaker 3: I almost took her once to just chance it because

948
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:39,239
Speaker 3: she wanted to go. Yeah, they don't care. They don't

949
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,279
Speaker 3: care if if you're if you have lots of memories down,

950
00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 3: I want to go back. They don't care.

951
00:55:44,680 --> 00:55:45,279
Speaker 2: Yeah.

952
00:55:45,560 --> 00:55:47,799
Speaker 3: No, the more people that runs up down the river

953
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:50,240
Speaker 3: and brings beer and throws it in the river, and

954
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 3: that's what they'd like. No, I don't like them. Yeah, yeah,

955
00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:59,319
Speaker 3: I'm just like my Grandma'm playing spoken. I don't know,

956
00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:00,480
Speaker 3: I don't I don't them.

957
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:04,400
Speaker 2: It's clear to see that Jane has a unique and

958
00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:07,920
Speaker 2: personal connection to the Buffalo River, and she's one of

959
00:56:07,920 --> 00:56:10,799
Speaker 2: those people that feels like they've had something taken that

960
00:56:10,840 --> 00:56:14,280
Speaker 2: they can't get back. But don't get the wrong idea

961
00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:17,880
Speaker 2: about her. She's not a victim. She's lived a wonderful

962
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:21,839
Speaker 2: life full of hard work and joy and family. She's

963
00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:25,719
Speaker 2: deeply respected in her community, and I have incredible respect

964
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:29,840
Speaker 2: for Jane Kilgore. I'd probably drove that four wheeler down. Therefore,

965
00:56:30,880 --> 00:56:33,480
Speaker 2: I want to get back to doctor Blevin's for a

966
00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:38,440
Speaker 2: big question, and it's this, did they have to nationalize

967
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:42,319
Speaker 2: the River to completely save it from being damned. If

968
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:45,320
Speaker 2: they had just walked away with the place have stayed

969
00:56:45,360 --> 00:56:48,839
Speaker 2: in private hands, and then really the bigger question is

970
00:56:49,000 --> 00:56:50,640
Speaker 2: would that have been the best thing.

971
00:56:51,760 --> 00:56:56,920
Speaker 7: If the Buffalo River nationalization weall hadn't been passed in

972
00:56:57,000 --> 00:57:02,000
Speaker 7: seventy two, if we'd waited another year or another two years,

973
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 7: it never would have happened. There would be no Buffalo

974
00:57:05,640 --> 00:57:10,759
Speaker 7: national River. This happened right on the cusp or right

975
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:14,359
Speaker 7: at the very end of what we might call the

976
00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 7: the New Deal Coalition or like the progressive New Deal

977
00:57:18,160 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 7: Coalition of American history and American politics. This long era,

978
00:57:23,440 --> 00:57:27,480
Speaker 7: at least from the thirties through the sixties, where there

979
00:57:27,560 --> 00:57:29,840
Speaker 7: was this kind of consensus. I mean, there was always

980
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:32,640
Speaker 7: political division, but there was this kind of consensus, whether

981
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:35,040
Speaker 7: you were on the right or the left, whether you

982
00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:38,560
Speaker 7: were a Republican or Democrat, that the government had a

983
00:57:39,400 --> 00:57:43,480
Speaker 7: had a right and even a responsibility to plan things out.

984
00:57:43,800 --> 00:57:45,560
Speaker 7: You know, planning was a big that was a big

985
00:57:45,640 --> 00:57:50,040
Speaker 7: catch word in the twentieth century, that there were university

986
00:57:50,120 --> 00:57:55,080
Speaker 7: trained technocrats and experts who knew better how the world

987
00:57:55,120 --> 00:58:00,400
Speaker 7: should work than your average Joe. And for roughly a

988
00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:05,560
Speaker 7: generation or more. That's that's how our national government operated.

989
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:08,880
Speaker 7: We went from the New Deal into World War Two

990
00:58:08,880 --> 00:58:11,760
Speaker 7: and in the into the Cold War after that, and

991
00:58:11,800 --> 00:58:15,080
Speaker 7: it's during that era that you have this great era

992
00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:19,160
Speaker 7: of damn building. It's from it's really from the thirties

993
00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:21,480
Speaker 7: into the end of the sixties and a little bit

994
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:24,560
Speaker 7: into the seventies, and by the by the end of

995
00:58:24,560 --> 00:58:28,120
Speaker 7: the sixties, that political philosophy is starting to go away,

996
00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:33,080
Speaker 7: and it's doing it. Vietnam is exposing some of the

997
00:58:33,080 --> 00:58:35,800
Speaker 7: weaknesses of our government. There are people in both the

998
00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:39,760
Speaker 7: right and the left who are beginning to distrust things

999
00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:44,080
Speaker 7: that the federal government does. There's the civil rights movement,

1000
00:58:44,360 --> 00:58:47,240
Speaker 7: which stirs a lot of people on the right side

1001
00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:52,640
Speaker 7: of the political spectrum. You've got a lot of things

1002
00:58:52,640 --> 00:58:57,240
Speaker 7: that are chipping away at this traditional kind of teflne

1003
00:58:57,680 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 7: government that we had that what are you know, where

1004
00:58:59,880 --> 00:59:02,960
Speaker 7: the government did must be right. And this explodes in

1005
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:05,320
Speaker 7: the seventies and by the end of the seventies, this

1006
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:07,000
Speaker 7: isn't going to go anymore, you know.

1007
00:59:07,240 --> 00:59:09,480
Speaker 2: So if it hadn't happened, right then you don't think.

1008
00:59:09,400 --> 00:59:11,479
Speaker 7: I don't think it would. And the reason I say that,

1009
00:59:12,040 --> 00:59:15,280
Speaker 7: at the very moment that this Buffalo stuff has been

1010
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:18,960
Speaker 7: finalized in seventy one. In early seventy two, at that

1011
00:59:19,080 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 7: very moment, there's an effort in the state of Missouri

1012
00:59:23,640 --> 00:59:28,760
Speaker 7: to enact a statewide scenic rivers program and it's over

1013
00:59:28,800 --> 00:59:32,920
Speaker 7: eight hundred miles of rivers they're going to be part of.

1014
00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:35,640
Speaker 7: This would have been part of this state Scenic.

1015
00:59:35,440 --> 00:59:37,439
Speaker 2: Rivers program, and there was this.

1016
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:43,280
Speaker 7: Massive uproar, I mean, just this grassroots anti government uproar

1017
00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:47,480
Speaker 7: that just just takes over. And it's all in the ozars.

1018
00:59:47,480 --> 00:59:50,520
Speaker 7: It's all in the Missouri ozars. It's a state wide system.

1019
00:59:50,560 --> 00:59:54,720
Speaker 7: But it goes away. That fight ends in seventy one,

1020
00:59:55,560 --> 00:59:59,680
Speaker 7: and I think that was that was a signal of

1021
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:01,840
Speaker 7: what was going on nationally.

1022
01:00:01,680 --> 01:00:03,800
Speaker 2: Like the states were saying, we don't want the federal

1023
01:00:03,840 --> 01:00:05,480
Speaker 2: guarn coming in here. Well, are just.

1024
01:00:05,600 --> 01:00:09,400
Speaker 7: Any government, right, But at the same time they're fighting

1025
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:12,600
Speaker 7: in Missouri, people are fighting against you know that. In

1026
01:00:12,680 --> 01:00:16,000
Speaker 7: sixty eight, the federal government passes the National Wild and

1027
01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:20,240
Speaker 7: Scenic Rivers Act, and this is something separate from the

1028
01:00:20,280 --> 01:00:23,080
Speaker 7: Buffalo and those are National Scenic Riverways, but there are

1029
01:00:23,440 --> 01:00:25,200
Speaker 7: you know, a bunch of rivers around the nation that

1030
01:00:25,400 --> 01:00:29,080
Speaker 7: are classified as federal wild or scenic rivers, and by

1031
01:00:29,080 --> 01:00:33,360
Speaker 7: the seventies it gets harder and harder to get rivers

1032
01:00:33,400 --> 01:00:36,720
Speaker 7: designated as wild and scenic rivers because people don't want

1033
01:00:36,760 --> 01:00:39,600
Speaker 7: it anymore. They see it as a federal A lot

1034
01:00:39,640 --> 01:00:42,720
Speaker 7: of them dismiss it as a federal land grab, or

1035
01:00:42,800 --> 01:00:46,479
Speaker 7: it's just federal intrusion, it's just people who are again.

1036
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:49,280
Speaker 7: Or you know that old motto that might as well

1037
01:00:49,320 --> 01:00:52,080
Speaker 7: have existed leave us alone. That becomes kind of the.

1038
01:00:52,760 --> 01:00:59,480
Speaker 2: Motto, Wow, that is really interesting. It would have been

1039
01:00:59,480 --> 01:01:03,800
Speaker 2: hard to but the thirty year damn building era of

1040
01:01:03,840 --> 01:01:07,040
Speaker 2: the Army Corps of Engineers was ending, and it's likely

1041
01:01:07,080 --> 01:01:10,560
Speaker 2: the Buffalo River dams would have never happened if the

1042
01:01:10,640 --> 01:01:15,320
Speaker 2: park people had also gone away. But as we get

1043
01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:19,920
Speaker 2: to the end of this story, I'm terribly conflicted because

1044
01:01:19,960 --> 01:01:24,160
Speaker 2: I love the Buffalo National River. I do enjoy that

1045
01:01:24,200 --> 01:01:27,400
Speaker 2: it is public land, and if it was still private,

1046
01:01:27,880 --> 01:01:31,360
Speaker 2: I doubt I'd know much about it. I've got a

1047
01:01:31,440 --> 01:01:35,280
Speaker 2: question for Misty. Can you see the Is it hard

1048
01:01:35,320 --> 01:01:37,280
Speaker 2: to see the bigger picture when you're right in the

1049
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:38,080
Speaker 2: middle of it.

1050
01:01:38,080 --> 01:01:41,240
Speaker 1: It's not for me, and I feel kind of like

1051
01:01:41,280 --> 01:01:45,040
Speaker 1: a trader when I even say that I'm glad that

1052
01:01:45,080 --> 01:01:48,840
Speaker 1: it's protected in some way, but I am I'm glad

1053
01:01:48,880 --> 01:01:52,080
Speaker 1: that we do have some protections of it. If not,

1054
01:01:52,680 --> 01:01:55,520
Speaker 1: it would be nothing but condos and strip malls already,

1055
01:01:56,400 --> 01:01:59,280
Speaker 1: it would I feel like that the thing that they

1056
01:01:59,320 --> 01:02:04,280
Speaker 1: were trying their hardest to protect the river from is

1057
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:09,200
Speaker 1: where we're at now, that we're at a tipping point where, well,

1058
01:02:09,240 --> 01:02:11,600
Speaker 1: we could do we could make a lot of money

1059
01:02:11,720 --> 01:02:14,520
Speaker 1: if we added, if we changed the park, and we

1060
01:02:14,600 --> 01:02:19,000
Speaker 1: did this, this and this, and then we're right back

1061
01:02:19,040 --> 01:02:21,880
Speaker 1: to the beginning of, you know, commercialization of the river.

1062
01:02:22,640 --> 01:02:26,320
Speaker 1: And that's the part that really and that's the part

1063
01:02:26,360 --> 01:02:27,640
Speaker 1: that makes me furious.

1064
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:31,520
Speaker 2: What I haven't told you yet is that last year

1065
01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:34,760
Speaker 2: there was talk of redesignating the park from a National

1066
01:02:34,880 --> 01:02:39,080
Speaker 2: River to a National Park and Preserve. The Details of

1067
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:43,080
Speaker 2: the change are substantial and complicated, but it comes at

1068
01:02:43,080 --> 01:02:47,280
Speaker 2: the heels of a statewide tourism push in Arkansas, and

1069
01:02:47,320 --> 01:02:50,560
Speaker 2: many people in Newton County view it as a repeat

1070
01:02:50,600 --> 01:02:55,640
Speaker 2: of what happened in seventy two, which is outside influences

1071
01:02:55,800 --> 01:03:01,080
Speaker 2: essentially commercializing the river through the redesignation, which would recruit

1072
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:03,880
Speaker 2: more people to come here. And in the name of

1073
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:07,600
Speaker 2: economic development of the state, get them to spend more

1074
01:03:07,640 --> 01:03:09,160
Speaker 2: money in Arkansas.

1075
01:03:09,640 --> 01:03:12,960
Speaker 1: Because if we're going to protect this from the people

1076
01:03:13,240 --> 01:03:16,960
Speaker 1: who loved it as much as they loved their family,

1077
01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:20,160
Speaker 1: and that was everything to them. That land was all

1078
01:03:20,200 --> 01:03:23,240
Speaker 1: they had besides their family. If we're going to take

1079
01:03:23,240 --> 01:03:27,280
Speaker 1: that from them and preserve it, let's do that. You

1080
01:03:27,400 --> 01:03:30,440
Speaker 1: treat it everybody awful. You ought to be ashamed of that,

1081
01:03:30,880 --> 01:03:34,840
Speaker 1: But that's done and gone. Let's go from where we're at.

1082
01:03:35,240 --> 01:03:37,720
Speaker 1: Let's try to be good neighbors to one another. I

1083
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:40,800
Speaker 1: feel like that we're I feel like I'm a pretty

1084
01:03:40,800 --> 01:03:42,600
Speaker 1: good neighbor to the park, and I try to be.

1085
01:03:43,560 --> 01:03:47,680
Speaker 1: But that thing of turning it into what you're trying

1086
01:03:47,680 --> 01:03:51,400
Speaker 1: to avoid it turning into why you know, I think,

1087
01:03:51,400 --> 01:03:55,560
Speaker 1: in my simplest form of what I'm against about the

1088
01:03:55,640 --> 01:04:03,240
Speaker 1: river is a bunch of rich people, corporations, politicians who

1089
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:07,440
Speaker 1: are wanting to come in and turn our protected, our

1090
01:04:07,560 --> 01:04:12,200
Speaker 1: federally protected public land into something that just fits their

1091
01:04:12,320 --> 01:04:19,080
Speaker 1: business model. That is infuriating to me. If you want

1092
01:04:19,120 --> 01:04:22,240
Speaker 1: to give it back to somebody, line up the descendants

1093
01:04:22,280 --> 01:04:24,240
Speaker 1: of the people who you took it from and let

1094
01:04:24,280 --> 01:04:34,520
Speaker 1: them have it and let them farm it if you're done,

1095
01:04:35,120 --> 01:04:38,000
Speaker 1: you know, protecting it and worrying about water quality and

1096
01:04:38,040 --> 01:04:39,880
Speaker 1: this and that. And I don't think that the park

1097
01:04:40,040 --> 01:04:42,960
Speaker 1: is I do not think at all. I think that

1098
01:04:43,000 --> 01:04:45,920
Speaker 1: the park is doing the best that they can.

1099
01:04:45,800 --> 01:04:46,439
Speaker 2: Do right now.

1100
01:04:47,040 --> 01:04:50,400
Speaker 1: They are under budget, they are understaffed, and I have

1101
01:04:50,480 --> 01:04:52,160
Speaker 1: a lot of friends that work at the park, and

1102
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:54,400
Speaker 1: I like a lot of people that are there, and

1103
01:04:54,440 --> 01:04:56,840
Speaker 1: I think they are good, good people.

1104
01:04:57,400 --> 01:04:58,160
Speaker 2: But I think that.

1105
01:04:58,040 --> 01:05:00,400
Speaker 1: They are protecting it the best that they can with

1106
01:05:00,440 --> 01:05:02,040
Speaker 1: the budgeting that they've got.

1107
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:18,880
Speaker 2: Some sources say the redesignation would bring more federal money.

1108
01:05:19,280 --> 01:05:23,400
Speaker 2: Others say additional funding is no guarantee, but without a doubt,

1109
01:05:23,520 --> 01:05:27,680
Speaker 2: it would bring more people. And that's good if you're

1110
01:05:27,720 --> 01:05:31,960
Speaker 2: a merchant, speculator or a politician. It's not good if

1111
01:05:31,960 --> 01:05:34,800
Speaker 2: you're trying to raise a family here. There's a strong

1112
01:05:34,920 --> 01:05:37,480
Speaker 2: case to be made that many of the families will

1113
01:05:37,480 --> 01:05:41,040
Speaker 2: be gentrified out of this area when land values just

1114
01:05:41,080 --> 01:05:44,280
Speaker 2: get too high, taxes too high, and the pressure to

1115
01:05:44,400 --> 01:05:45,760
Speaker 2: sell too great.

1116
01:05:47,720 --> 01:05:52,360
Speaker 9: Our boards raggers here came together and we do all

1117
01:05:52,440 --> 01:05:55,240
Speaker 9: of the information that has made along. It's is you

1118
01:05:56,200 --> 01:05:59,800
Speaker 9: and grew a deep inside and really the look in

1119
01:06:01,280 --> 01:06:02,920
Speaker 9: every potential.

1120
01:06:02,480 --> 01:06:04,480
Speaker 4: Wish heard walker.

1121
01:06:04,520 --> 01:06:09,600
Speaker 9: Here we ame through the conclusion that there is no

1122
01:06:09,840 --> 01:06:17,320
Speaker 9: benefits and no thingies anywhere that we could see for agriculture,

1123
01:06:17,640 --> 01:06:21,640
Speaker 9: for the people in Lindon County, and for our way

1124
01:06:21,640 --> 01:06:25,760
Speaker 9: of life under this hole change in deination.

1125
01:06:29,160 --> 01:06:33,400
Speaker 2: With murmurs spreading about the redesignation, last fall, Misty called

1126
01:06:33,400 --> 01:06:36,479
Speaker 2: a public meeting in the small town of Jasper, which

1127
01:06:36,480 --> 01:06:40,120
Speaker 2: has a population of five hundred, and over eleven hundred

1128
01:06:40,200 --> 01:06:43,360
Speaker 2: people showed up, and all but about seven of them

1129
01:06:43,400 --> 01:06:47,760
Speaker 2: were against the redesignation. That little clip you just heard

1130
01:06:48,000 --> 01:06:50,560
Speaker 2: was one of the board of directors of the local

1131
01:06:50,600 --> 01:06:53,520
Speaker 2: farm Bureau. There was another meeting down the river with

1132
01:06:53,600 --> 01:06:57,120
Speaker 2: almost the exact same results. The overarching theme of the

1133
01:06:57,120 --> 01:07:02,160
Speaker 2: community was leave us alone. We made our peace with

1134
01:07:02,240 --> 01:07:06,760
Speaker 2: the world fifty years ago, and that's enough for one community.

1135
01:07:08,200 --> 01:07:11,120
Speaker 2: I want to listen to one last clip from the

1136
01:07:11,240 --> 01:07:16,160
Speaker 2: historic Granny Henderson interview as she expresses her doctrine on

1137
01:07:16,400 --> 01:07:20,600
Speaker 2: hard and old times and yeah, the roosters are still there.

1138
01:07:23,520 --> 01:07:26,520
Speaker 4: Did the depression have much of effect down in here

1139
01:07:27,800 --> 01:07:28,520
Speaker 4: for the thirties.

1140
01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:31,480
Speaker 5: The thirties, so I said, has come up the hill

1141
01:07:31,480 --> 01:07:35,200
Speaker 5: today turned out wather. I said, shoot, we keep a hollering,

1142
01:07:35,280 --> 01:07:38,000
Speaker 5: holler and holler about the heat and what we're going

1143
01:07:38,040 --> 01:07:39,520
Speaker 5: to do. Some of them says, if we were doing

1144
01:07:39,560 --> 01:07:41,040
Speaker 5: what we're going to do, and I said, we'll do

1145
01:07:41,280 --> 01:07:44,800
Speaker 5: just like we' did. Somebody said they didn't. What this's

1146
01:07:44,840 --> 01:07:47,840
Speaker 5: going to do is cattle going down, hogs going down.

1147
01:07:47,920 --> 01:07:51,320
Speaker 5: I said, they're just like we did in the thirties. Yeah,

1148
01:07:51,360 --> 01:07:54,560
Speaker 5: I said, you think bigger count our cow I've got

1149
01:07:54,600 --> 01:07:57,440
Speaker 5: on this place. I guess we sold some seven dollars apiece.

1150
01:07:57,960 --> 01:07:59,880
Speaker 5: I'll be done glad to get it.

1151
01:08:00,040 --> 01:08:02,200
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, we didn't have.

1152
01:08:02,200 --> 01:08:04,680
Speaker 5: Money to snap a letter. Why and it only took

1153
01:08:04,680 --> 01:08:07,440
Speaker 5: two cents while Yeah, and I'll hear it so minutes

1154
01:08:07,440 --> 01:08:10,439
Speaker 5: so we can live all the days back. I don't

1155
01:08:10,480 --> 01:08:14,600
Speaker 5: want to see it in the thirties. Yeah, time is

1156
01:08:14,600 --> 01:08:16,480
Speaker 5: two two pinchy.

1157
01:08:18,040 --> 01:08:21,759
Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy four, times were hard, especially for her,

1158
01:08:22,280 --> 01:08:26,840
Speaker 2: and she said we'll do just like we did. She'd

1159
01:08:26,840 --> 01:08:29,439
Speaker 2: been through a lot of hard stuff, and then she

1160
01:08:29,680 --> 01:08:33,720
Speaker 2: ended by saying that time is pinchy. I think I

1161
01:08:33,840 --> 01:08:37,000
Speaker 2: know what she meant by that, but I'm not entirely sure.

1162
01:08:38,240 --> 01:08:42,160
Speaker 2: In this next and final clip, it's the only time

1163
01:08:42,200 --> 01:08:45,080
Speaker 2: in the whole interview that she addresses that the park

1164
01:08:45,200 --> 01:08:48,720
Speaker 2: is trying to buy her land. And remember, from this

1165
01:08:48,880 --> 01:08:52,479
Speaker 2: moment she'll hold out for another five years until the

1166
01:08:52,479 --> 01:08:56,559
Speaker 2: spring of nineteen seventy nine. And in this clip she

1167
01:08:56,680 --> 01:08:57,880
Speaker 2: really doesn't give us much.

1168
01:09:00,680 --> 01:09:03,920
Speaker 6: Well, having lived so many years though here, what what

1169
01:09:04,160 --> 01:09:08,559
Speaker 6: stands out in your mind? Is cause anything the years

1170
01:09:08,600 --> 01:09:11,719
Speaker 6: past or is there anything that any period of time

1171
01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:14,640
Speaker 6: or the the people or the the the way of

1172
01:09:14,760 --> 01:09:19,280
Speaker 6: life down here that stands out more than any others?

1173
01:09:19,520 --> 01:09:24,400
Speaker 5: Well, I don't know. Yeah, it's part of that. I

1174
01:09:24,479 --> 01:09:25,559
Speaker 5: pretty over part of it.

1175
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:27,040
Speaker 4: I would yeah, Well that's like.

1176
01:09:28,479 --> 01:09:33,000
Speaker 5: That's right thing, Yeah, that's.

1177
01:09:34,680 --> 01:09:36,360
Speaker 2: That you you you wanna live it all here?

1178
01:09:36,360 --> 01:09:39,040
Speaker 4: An Yeah, wouldn't want to go in here, no one.

1179
01:09:40,400 --> 01:09:44,720
Speaker 5: I just assume spen the rest of my daysis in horl.

1180
01:09:47,120 --> 01:09:49,360
Speaker 4: And it's feasible.

1181
01:09:50,160 --> 01:09:50,759
Speaker 1: People don't.

1182
01:09:53,680 --> 01:09:56,200
Speaker 5: And they have me a house build. That's the politics

1183
01:09:57,960 --> 01:10:00,560
Speaker 5: takes some close has me to get out.

1184
01:10:20,880 --> 01:10:24,400
Speaker 2: The interview with Granny Henderson kind of leaves me wanting more.

1185
01:10:24,960 --> 01:10:26,920
Speaker 2: But even at the end, in the heat of the

1186
01:10:27,000 --> 01:10:30,599
Speaker 2: land battle, she was kind. The park would build her

1187
01:10:30,640 --> 01:10:33,400
Speaker 2: that house and she would leave the land that her

1188
01:10:33,400 --> 01:10:36,439
Speaker 2: mother bought in nineteen oh five. She'd spend one night

1189
01:10:36,479 --> 01:10:39,720
Speaker 2: in the new place before moving in with her grandson.

1190
01:10:40,200 --> 01:10:43,320
Speaker 2: She'd only live there three months before passing away on

1191
01:10:43,520 --> 01:10:48,080
Speaker 2: July tenth, nineteen seventy nine, from what her family says

1192
01:10:48,920 --> 01:10:54,200
Speaker 2: was of a broken heart. At the end of this story,

1193
01:10:54,520 --> 01:10:58,559
Speaker 2: I remained deeply conflicted, as my heart holy sides with

1194
01:10:58,640 --> 01:11:02,240
Speaker 2: the landowners whose rooms ran deep in this land, and

1195
01:11:02,280 --> 01:11:06,080
Speaker 2: they have lost something that they'll never get back. However,

1196
01:11:06,560 --> 01:11:09,799
Speaker 2: I don't think the National Park Service or Neil Compton

1197
01:11:09,880 --> 01:11:13,800
Speaker 2: were bad people, and in many ways they are both heroes.

1198
01:11:14,720 --> 01:11:17,840
Speaker 2: This is a celebration that this river isn't damned and

1199
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:22,920
Speaker 2: is protected as is in perpetuity. My conclusion is that

1200
01:11:23,000 --> 01:11:27,040
Speaker 2: this mortal realm just isn't fair, and a person would

1201
01:11:27,080 --> 01:11:30,400
Speaker 2: do well to deal humbly with the circumstances they're dealt

1202
01:11:30,920 --> 01:11:33,519
Speaker 2: and pray for wisdom to know when to fight for

1203
01:11:33,600 --> 01:11:37,439
Speaker 2: that which can be one, when to compromise, and even

1204
01:11:37,520 --> 01:11:41,040
Speaker 2: when to sell. And I think the message is clear

1205
01:11:41,760 --> 01:11:45,360
Speaker 2: that this redesignation of the river is not something that's

1206
01:11:45,400 --> 01:11:51,920
Speaker 2: good for that community. I can't thank you enough for

1207
01:11:52,000 --> 01:11:55,600
Speaker 2: listening to bear grease and Brent's this Country life podcast.

1208
01:11:56,280 --> 01:11:58,960
Speaker 2: Please let us know what you think of these episodes.

1209
01:11:59,240 --> 01:12:04,080
Speaker 2: Remember you can email us at beargreaseat themetor dot com.

1210
01:12:04,439 --> 01:12:07,519
Speaker 2: You can't wait to talk to everybody on the render

1211
01:12:07,920 --> 01:12:11,080
Speaker 2: next week, and we're gonna try to put together a

1212
01:12:11,200 --> 01:12:16,519
Speaker 2: way to give money to help restore Granny Henderson's house.

1213
01:12:17,280 --> 01:12:18,120
Speaker 2: Stay tuned for that