1
00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:08,480
Speaker 1: There are people all up and down the Buffalo River

2
00:00:09,039 --> 00:00:12,760
Speaker 1: who feel like that they have lost something, that something

3
00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:15,680
Speaker 1: has been taken from them that they are never going

4
00:00:15,760 --> 00:00:17,480
Speaker 1: to be able to get back. This is never going

5
00:00:17,520 --> 00:00:18,240
Speaker 1: to be restored.

6
00:00:19,560 --> 00:00:23,640
Speaker 2: In this series, we'll be examining the great American doctrine

7
00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:28,920
Speaker 2: utilitarian conservation, the greatest good for the greatest number, through

8
00:00:28,960 --> 00:00:32,040
Speaker 2: the lens of the formation of the Buffalo National River

9
00:00:32,120 --> 00:00:36,160
Speaker 2: in the Ozarks of Arkansas, touted as our nation's first

10
00:00:36,280 --> 00:00:41,160
Speaker 2: national river and celebrated without question, but will be looking

11
00:00:41,280 --> 00:00:45,040
Speaker 2: at a different side of the story, one rarely told

12
00:00:45,520 --> 00:00:49,040
Speaker 2: or understood, as we focus on the families who got

13
00:00:49,080 --> 00:00:53,279
Speaker 2: the short end of the stick on this utilitarian doctrine

14
00:00:53,479 --> 00:00:57,080
Speaker 2: and had to give up their lands, being displaced by

15
00:00:57,120 --> 00:01:01,160
Speaker 2: the strong arm of the government. In this episode, we'll

16
00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:04,360
Speaker 2: talk about human self interest. Take a mule ride with

17
00:01:04,440 --> 00:01:09,760
Speaker 2: Willard Vlynes, meet grassroots historian Misty Langdon, and interview our

18
00:01:09,880 --> 00:01:15,360
Speaker 2: longtime Bear Grease favorite historian and author and hillbilly doctor

19
00:01:15,400 --> 00:01:19,760
Speaker 2: Brooks Blevins about how the heck all this happened. The

20
00:01:19,840 --> 00:01:24,120
Speaker 2: water is ice cold and the story complex and windy.

21
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:28,080
Speaker 2: Hang with us for a while, because I really doubt

22
00:01:28,120 --> 00:01:31,000
Speaker 2: that you're gonna want to miss this one. Where was

23
00:01:31,040 --> 00:01:32,039
Speaker 2: your house from right here?

24
00:01:32,400 --> 00:01:37,280
Speaker 3: Well? Let it for just about fifty yeards no foundation,

25
00:01:37,400 --> 00:01:38,240
Speaker 3: John left? Is it?

26
00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:39,600
Speaker 2: Yeah?

27
00:01:39,880 --> 00:01:47,560
Speaker 3: Park till it down.

28
00:01:50,960 --> 00:01:53,600
Speaker 2: My name is Clay Nukem, and this is the Bear

29
00:01:53,680 --> 00:01:58,640
Speaker 2: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search

30
00:01:58,720 --> 00:02:02,400
Speaker 2: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the

31
00:02:02,440 --> 00:02:06,559
Speaker 2: story of Americans who live their lives close to the land.

32
00:02:07,240 --> 00:02:12,920
Speaker 2: Presented by FHF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and

33
00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:16,480
Speaker 2: fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the

34
00:02:16,480 --> 00:02:28,320
Speaker 2: place as we explore. I'm in the saddle atop my

35
00:02:28,480 --> 00:02:32,040
Speaker 2: trusty eight year old paint mule, Izzy, and we're following

36
00:02:32,120 --> 00:02:38,520
Speaker 2: behind another, perhaps even flashier sorrel a red paint mule.

37
00:02:39,880 --> 00:02:44,680
Speaker 2: Willard's mule, Rosy, is about fifteen hands tall. She's good sized.

38
00:02:44,960 --> 00:02:49,040
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm following a glowing led light fifty

39
00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:53,359
Speaker 2: feet below the surface of a forested sea of hickory,

40
00:02:53,720 --> 00:02:58,520
Speaker 2: sweet gum, and walnut. We're completely under the shade until

41
00:02:58,520 --> 00:03:02,040
Speaker 2: the mule's hoofs the water as we entered the bright

42
00:03:02,160 --> 00:03:09,800
Speaker 2: sunlight crossing the river. Now, did y'all have y'all had

43
00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:12,440
Speaker 2: parts of the farm on both sides of the river. Right,

44
00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:14,960
Speaker 2: How did you how did you manage crossing it? Just

45
00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:15,640
Speaker 2: you just didn't.

46
00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:17,919
Speaker 3: If it was real high, couldn't. If it was real high,

47
00:03:18,040 --> 00:03:18,880
Speaker 3: it couldn't.

48
00:03:18,600 --> 00:03:19,440
Speaker 2: Get across the river.

49
00:03:19,639 --> 00:03:21,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, we said.

50
00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:26,800
Speaker 2: Willard the lines is seventy eight years old, born February twentieth,

51
00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:31,120
Speaker 2: nineteen forty six. He and eight siblings were born down

52
00:03:31,240 --> 00:03:34,920
Speaker 2: on this river, and two other siblings were born what

53
00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:38,920
Speaker 2: he calls up on the mountain, all in Newton County, Arkansas.

54
00:03:40,080 --> 00:03:44,160
Speaker 2: We're heading towards his old home place, but first we've

55
00:03:44,200 --> 00:03:46,240
Speaker 2: got another home place to stop at.

56
00:03:48,760 --> 00:03:53,040
Speaker 3: Grandma's maiden name was shown the line. It's nine a

57
00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:56,920
Speaker 3: year to tell about in a few short lines, down

58
00:03:56,960 --> 00:04:01,520
Speaker 3: in Newton County, down in Arkansham. And in nineteen one

59
00:04:01,600 --> 00:04:04,960
Speaker 3: she married Grandpa. That's where.

60
00:04:06,440 --> 00:04:08,320
Speaker 2: That's good.

61
00:04:08,680 --> 00:04:08,880
Speaker 1: Yeah.

62
00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:17,960
Speaker 4: Grandma's maiden name was Zone Blimes. There's ninety years to

63
00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:23,400
Speaker 4: tell about in a few short lines. Barn in Newton County,

64
00:04:23,440 --> 00:04:30,160
Speaker 4: down in Narkansas. Then in nineteen one she married Grandpa.

65
00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:34,200
Speaker 5: We lead her soul resting son in the morning.

66
00:04:35,440 --> 00:04:39,159
Speaker 4: And that greadbody new she tunner barn where that barn.

67
00:04:39,839 --> 00:04:41,599
Speaker 2: Don't get that barn is in pretty good shape.

68
00:04:41,680 --> 00:04:47,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, we always knowed this old Harper place. Merle Haggard's

69
00:04:47,520 --> 00:04:52,640
Speaker 3: grandma lived here. Her maiden name was Zone Vliines. Huh

70
00:04:52,640 --> 00:04:53,720
Speaker 3: she married a heart.

71
00:04:53,839 --> 00:04:54,560
Speaker 2: Some of y'all skin.

72
00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:58,680
Speaker 3: Yeah. She had been my probably great great ants in

73
00:04:58,720 --> 00:04:59,400
Speaker 3: the real Yeah.

74
00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:02,040
Speaker 2: You know he's got a criminal background.

75
00:05:01,760 --> 00:05:07,560
Speaker 3: Right, Well, I have too, in prison.

76
00:05:07,320 --> 00:05:12,039
Speaker 2: Doing life with U Bro. That was Merle Haggard's song

77
00:05:12,279 --> 00:05:16,760
Speaker 2: Grandma Harp. Her maiden name was Vlyines, just like Willard's.

78
00:05:17,400 --> 00:05:20,520
Speaker 2: She was born in eighteen seventy six and died in

79
00:05:20,600 --> 00:05:24,040
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine at the age of ninety three in

80
00:05:24,120 --> 00:05:29,200
Speaker 2: Newton County. Haggard released this song in nineteen seventy two,

81
00:05:29,240 --> 00:05:32,040
Speaker 2: three years after her death, and it talks about her

82
00:05:32,080 --> 00:05:36,440
Speaker 2: way of life dying, Which is an odd coincidence because

83
00:05:36,480 --> 00:05:40,960
Speaker 2: that year, nineteen seventy two would be significant for this

84
00:05:41,200 --> 00:05:45,080
Speaker 2: river and the people who lived near it. For most,

85
00:05:45,120 --> 00:05:47,359
Speaker 2: it would be a year of the celebration of a

86
00:05:47,440 --> 00:05:51,800
Speaker 2: conservation success. But for the people who had land that

87
00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:56,160
Speaker 2: actually touched this river, for many of them, it's a

88
00:05:56,240 --> 00:06:05,960
Speaker 2: year of infamy. Here's Willard telling us about his so

89
00:06:06,040 --> 00:06:10,520
Speaker 2: called criminal record. Remember we're on mules standing in front

90
00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:11,239
Speaker 2: of an old barn.

91
00:06:12,360 --> 00:06:14,440
Speaker 3: Matter of fact, I paid my first fine right here

92
00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:16,799
Speaker 3: to the park rangers. Is that right? Right?

93
00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:17,640
Speaker 2: What happened?

94
00:06:18,400 --> 00:06:22,480
Speaker 3: There's about ten of us come in down here and camped. Now,

95
00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:26,040
Speaker 3: the eight of them was preachers. Well, the next morning

96
00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:30,360
Speaker 3: the park rangers come up the creek. There's some horseback

97
00:06:30,440 --> 00:06:34,239
Speaker 3: riders down here. Where's all riding mules. There's some horseback riders.

98
00:06:35,320 --> 00:06:38,200
Speaker 3: They made fun of her mules. They went back up

99
00:06:38,240 --> 00:06:40,560
Speaker 3: still creek and told the park ranger we's camped here.

100
00:06:40,560 --> 00:06:43,120
Speaker 3: And the next morning they met us down here, and

101
00:06:43,279 --> 00:06:45,919
Speaker 3: you weren't a camp here, that's what he said. We

102
00:06:45,960 --> 00:06:47,960
Speaker 3: slept in the old barn. He said, we wasn't supposed to.

103
00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:50,040
Speaker 2: How that's it with you?

104
00:06:50,120 --> 00:06:51,320
Speaker 3: Well, not very good.

105
00:06:52,920 --> 00:06:54,720
Speaker 2: The real question is why was he making fun of

106
00:06:54,760 --> 00:06:55,360
Speaker 2: your mules?

107
00:06:55,640 --> 00:06:57,839
Speaker 3: I don't know. They just made light of her mules.

108
00:06:57,920 --> 00:06:59,880
Speaker 2: Oh man, that gets under my skin quick.

109
00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:03,800
Speaker 3: But I told that park ranger, I said, I want

110
00:07:03,839 --> 00:07:06,600
Speaker 3: you to just look here. I said, when my folks

111
00:07:06,640 --> 00:07:08,640
Speaker 3: lived here, I said, this was all clared land. I

112
00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:12,760
Speaker 3: said a rabbit couldn't get through here. Now, man, I said,

113
00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:14,640
Speaker 3: I'll take the blame. I said, these are other people

114
00:07:14,680 --> 00:07:17,640
Speaker 3: didn't know. I asked him. I said, well, what's to

115
00:07:17,680 --> 00:07:20,880
Speaker 3: find thee and he said, be twenty five dollars. He

116
00:07:20,920 --> 00:07:22,800
Speaker 3: looked in his book and he said no, said he'll

117
00:07:22,840 --> 00:07:26,480
Speaker 3: be fifty dollars. I said, you look in that book

118
00:07:26,480 --> 00:07:28,800
Speaker 3: and find something for twenty five dollars, and he did.

119
00:07:28,880 --> 00:07:33,040
Speaker 3: He charged me twenty five. That's honest. True. Of course

120
00:07:33,080 --> 00:07:36,280
Speaker 3: he left. They took up a donation. I've come out

121
00:07:36,280 --> 00:07:39,640
Speaker 3: of ahead and all the preachers pitched it.

122
00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:43,800
Speaker 2: I don't want to make light of breaking the law,

123
00:07:44,240 --> 00:07:48,080
Speaker 2: but this story captures something that's eluded ninety nine percent

124
00:07:48,160 --> 00:07:51,840
Speaker 2: of people, including me, who've enjoyed this area, which is

125
00:07:51,880 --> 00:07:56,000
Speaker 2: now public land. Many of the families who had to

126
00:07:56,080 --> 00:07:59,720
Speaker 2: sell their land to the government against their will are

127
00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:03,400
Speaker 2: wiel sore about the whole deal, though it took place

128
00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:08,360
Speaker 2: over fifty years ago. You see today Grandma Harp's land

129
00:08:08,440 --> 00:08:11,800
Speaker 2: sits in the upper portion of a ninety five thousand,

130
00:08:11,960 --> 00:08:15,320
Speaker 2: seven hundred and thirty acre block of land designated as

131
00:08:15,360 --> 00:08:19,400
Speaker 2: the Buffalo National River in nineteen seventy two. Advertised as

132
00:08:19,440 --> 00:08:24,560
Speaker 2: America's first national River, the government acquired over ninety thousand

133
00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:28,520
Speaker 2: acres of private land from over two thousand property owners,

134
00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:31,679
Speaker 2: some of whose families had been in the region since

135
00:08:31,720 --> 00:08:35,160
Speaker 2: this place was homesteaded. At one time, you could have

136
00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:38,360
Speaker 2: driven a car in here, but since nineteen seventy two

137
00:08:38,440 --> 00:08:41,320
Speaker 2: the nearest road is well over an hour's ride on

138
00:08:41,360 --> 00:08:46,040
Speaker 2: a mule. The fields once cleared by Willard's kinfolks have

139
00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:50,240
Speaker 2: grown up into secondary succession brambles en route in the

140
00:08:50,280 --> 00:08:53,800
Speaker 2: next seventy five years to return to the Ozarks Climax

141
00:08:53,880 --> 00:08:57,200
Speaker 2: forest of oak and hickory. When you ride down the

142
00:08:57,280 --> 00:09:00,000
Speaker 2: river with Willard and you hear the stories of his child,

143
00:09:00,040 --> 00:09:03,079
Speaker 2: childhood and what used to be his community, it's kind

144
00:09:03,120 --> 00:09:06,320
Speaker 2: of spooky. It might be what it's like to visit

145
00:09:06,440 --> 00:09:11,439
Speaker 2: Chernobyl in Ukraine. It's like a civilization erased off the map,

146
00:09:11,920 --> 00:09:17,120
Speaker 2: engulfed by the subtle violence of natural reclamation cycles, collapsing

147
00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:21,800
Speaker 2: barns and smoke houses, dilapidated homes in various stages of decay,

148
00:09:22,240 --> 00:09:26,400
Speaker 2: hayfields turned into cedar groves decay in nineteen forties, model

149
00:09:26,480 --> 00:09:32,240
Speaker 2: forward trucks laying around, and footprints of rock foundations of

150
00:09:32,360 --> 00:09:36,680
Speaker 2: buildings are scattered all down the river. But it didn't

151
00:09:36,679 --> 00:09:41,040
Speaker 2: happen because of a nuclear disaster. Or industry moving. It

152
00:09:41,160 --> 00:09:44,920
Speaker 2: happened because the place was so stinking beautiful that the

153
00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:49,360
Speaker 2: government decided to turn it into a national park. And

154
00:09:49,400 --> 00:09:53,040
Speaker 2: trust me, you don't want to be in the government

155
00:09:53,240 --> 00:09:58,440
Speaker 2: sites when they want your land. They've proven that from

156
00:09:58,480 --> 00:10:02,560
Speaker 2: the perspective of a human, nature's takeover of this place

157
00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:07,079
Speaker 2: seems sluggish and slow, but by how the earth measures,

158
00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:11,320
Speaker 2: it's as hot, tempered, and swift as a tornado. The

159
00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:15,920
Speaker 2: soil is an insatiable savage, engulfing dead organic matter. Above

160
00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:20,400
Speaker 2: it houses barns and flesh, while shooting rockets of living

161
00:10:20,520 --> 00:10:24,720
Speaker 2: cells to the sky. Jealous for sunlight. Anything in its

162
00:10:24,760 --> 00:10:30,000
Speaker 2: path be dead gummed. Its strategy is to outlast anything

163
00:10:30,480 --> 00:10:34,920
Speaker 2: in everything. The earth knows that in time it will

164
00:10:34,960 --> 00:10:38,880
Speaker 2: beat you, and in some ways, so does the government.

165
00:10:42,200 --> 00:10:46,000
Speaker 2: This story is about the modern American people, not just here,

166
00:10:46,360 --> 00:10:50,600
Speaker 2: who sacrifice their homelands for quote, the greater good of society,

167
00:10:51,280 --> 00:10:55,640
Speaker 2: slain by our utilitarian land use doctrine the greatest good

168
00:10:55,679 --> 00:10:59,640
Speaker 2: for the greatest number, which we including I hold so dear.

169
00:11:00,400 --> 00:11:02,920
Speaker 2: But if you've never had your land taken and your

170
00:11:02,920 --> 00:11:07,000
Speaker 2: family uprooted, then it's hard to understand our national parks

171
00:11:07,000 --> 00:11:09,840
Speaker 2: are celebrated in our culture, and we're proud that our

172
00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:12,920
Speaker 2: nation had the idea to lead the world in preserving

173
00:11:13,040 --> 00:11:16,480
Speaker 2: such places of natural beauty. But the truth is that

174
00:11:16,520 --> 00:11:19,640
Speaker 2: the stories of land acquisition for the Great Smoky Mountain

175
00:11:19,720 --> 00:11:24,000
Speaker 2: National Park, the Shenandoah Valley National Park, and many many

176
00:11:24,120 --> 00:11:29,000
Speaker 2: others were downright brutal. The story of the Buffalo is

177
00:11:29,040 --> 00:11:32,600
Speaker 2: a lesser known story. Also, much like the hundreds of

178
00:11:32,640 --> 00:11:36,760
Speaker 2: thousands of acres of land taken for recreational lakes in

179
00:11:36,800 --> 00:11:40,360
Speaker 2: this country between the nineteen thirties and seventies, these are

180
00:11:40,400 --> 00:11:44,760
Speaker 2: not glamorous stories celebrated in our culture. But there was

181
00:11:44,800 --> 00:11:47,760
Speaker 2: a time when this country was hungry for land and

182
00:11:47,960 --> 00:11:52,600
Speaker 2: somebody had to fork it up. Ozark historian doctor Brooks

183
00:11:52,640 --> 00:11:56,680
Speaker 2: Blevins wrote that the land acquisition process of the National

184
00:11:56,760 --> 00:12:00,559
Speaker 2: Park Service when inquiring land for the Buffalo was at

185
00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:06,040
Speaker 2: best confusing and at worst deceptive. Before we get into

186
00:12:06,080 --> 00:12:09,079
Speaker 2: the details of how this river came to be America's

187
00:12:09,160 --> 00:12:13,400
Speaker 2: first national river, I want to talk with Misty Langdon,

188
00:12:14,120 --> 00:12:17,840
Speaker 2: a Newton County native whose mother was of Alliones related

189
00:12:17,840 --> 00:12:22,600
Speaker 2: to Willard. But Misty's a grassroots community leader who created

190
00:12:22,640 --> 00:12:30,520
Speaker 2: the Remnants project, designed to document the history of Newton County.

191
00:12:30,640 --> 00:12:32,760
Speaker 1: People ask me all the time why I do this,

192
00:12:33,200 --> 00:12:36,160
Speaker 1: because it is so much work. And Richard, I know,

193
00:12:36,240 --> 00:12:37,880
Speaker 1: he pulls his hair out all the time at me

194
00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:39,880
Speaker 1: because I'm I'll go down a rabbit hole and I

195
00:12:39,960 --> 00:12:41,439
Speaker 1: might not come up for a day or so, and

196
00:12:41,920 --> 00:12:44,080
Speaker 1: and people will call in. He says, she's looking for

197
00:12:44,120 --> 00:12:48,160
Speaker 1: dead people. Just you know, let her be. But there

198
00:12:48,160 --> 00:12:51,920
Speaker 1: are people all up and down the Buffalo River who

199
00:12:52,559 --> 00:12:55,559
Speaker 1: feel like that they have lost something, that something has

200
00:12:55,600 --> 00:12:58,439
Speaker 1: been taken from them that they are never going to

201
00:12:58,480 --> 00:13:00,880
Speaker 1: be able to get back. It's never to be restored.

202
00:13:02,840 --> 00:13:05,400
Speaker 2: It's really interesting and kind of makes my head spin

203
00:13:05,559 --> 00:13:09,120
Speaker 2: backwards to hear someone talk about the Buffalo River this way,

204
00:13:09,760 --> 00:13:13,680
Speaker 2: because this is a place I've only heard celebrated. But

205
00:13:13,760 --> 00:13:16,240
Speaker 2: it turns out there's a lot of stories I didn't know.

206
00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:20,240
Speaker 2: I first floated this river in nineteen ninety eight, and

207
00:13:20,320 --> 00:13:23,240
Speaker 2: after I got married in two thousand, my wife and

208
00:13:23,280 --> 00:13:26,120
Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time here. We even named

209
00:13:26,160 --> 00:13:31,440
Speaker 2: our middle daughter River. I asked Misty, from the community's perspective,

210
00:13:32,000 --> 00:13:35,080
Speaker 2: how all this went from private farmland back in the

211
00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:37,160
Speaker 2: seventies into a national park.

212
00:13:38,280 --> 00:13:41,640
Speaker 1: I mean, you hear rumors that something's, you know, a foot,

213
00:13:42,280 --> 00:13:47,720
Speaker 1: but to actually get a notice of condemnation of your

214
00:13:47,800 --> 00:13:53,480
Speaker 1: property and have no formal letter or anything before that,

215
00:13:53,640 --> 00:13:56,560
Speaker 1: I think it was the shock and awe factor of

216
00:13:56,600 --> 00:13:57,000
Speaker 1: how it was.

217
00:13:57,280 --> 00:13:59,360
Speaker 2: And this would have been in the late sixties, early

218
00:13:59,400 --> 00:14:02,800
Speaker 2: seventies before there was i mean, any kind of internet

219
00:14:03,120 --> 00:14:07,000
Speaker 2: or the communication was just way different back then. And

220
00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:09,160
Speaker 2: so you're saying some of these people on the river

221
00:14:09,240 --> 00:14:11,559
Speaker 2: were just totally caught off. They are totally because it

222
00:14:11,640 --> 00:14:16,120
Speaker 2: had been embroiled in like at least twenty years of

223
00:14:16,920 --> 00:14:19,440
Speaker 2: murmurs of this is going to be damned, This is

224
00:14:19,480 --> 00:14:21,280
Speaker 2: not going to be damned, This is going to be

225
00:14:21,320 --> 00:14:23,480
Speaker 2: a wild and scenic river. This is going to be

226
00:14:23,960 --> 00:14:26,920
Speaker 2: and it probably just kind of after a decade or

227
00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:28,560
Speaker 2: so of that, it was just kind of like, what

228
00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:30,800
Speaker 2: is going to happen? Is it ever going to happen?

229
00:14:31,280 --> 00:14:33,000
Speaker 1: Well, it kind of goes back to that thing talking

230
00:14:33,000 --> 00:14:37,840
Speaker 1: about isolated communities too, because in Fayetteville, the way that

231
00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:41,239
Speaker 1: their town and everything was structured, they had all the amenities.

232
00:14:41,280 --> 00:14:44,200
Speaker 1: By the sixties, the late sixties and early seventies, there

233
00:14:44,200 --> 00:14:48,120
Speaker 1: were people in Boxley that didn't have phones, and some

234
00:14:48,160 --> 00:14:51,040
Speaker 1: probably still didn't have along the river. I know still

235
00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:54,359
Speaker 1: didn't have you know, electricity, They were running off generators.

236
00:14:55,800 --> 00:14:59,160
Speaker 2: Fatdeville is the largest town in the region, about fifty

237
00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:02,760
Speaker 2: miles from the buffer. Low Boxley is a small community

238
00:15:02,800 --> 00:15:06,400
Speaker 2: at the head of the river. Interestingly, people from the

239
00:15:06,400 --> 00:15:09,200
Speaker 2: Fayedville area would play a big role in having the

240
00:15:09,320 --> 00:15:14,520
Speaker 2: river nationalized. Newton County was truly the backwoods of Arkansas.

241
00:15:15,080 --> 00:15:17,920
Speaker 2: And I can say this because I is one that

242
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:21,080
Speaker 2: most of the people that lived here were white folks

243
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:24,840
Speaker 2: of low financial means and what the world would call

244
00:15:25,360 --> 00:15:30,520
Speaker 2: hillbilly's people rich in land, love of country, family and hardship,

245
00:15:31,400 --> 00:15:36,720
Speaker 2: not money, education or political power. Later we'll see where

246
00:15:36,720 --> 00:15:40,920
Speaker 2: I believe the socio economic status would come into play.

247
00:15:42,000 --> 00:15:47,440
Speaker 1: So that isolation was a real, a real hardship for them,

248
00:15:47,560 --> 00:15:50,720
Speaker 1: and that was something I think tactically that the locals

249
00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:55,480
Speaker 1: could not get over, was the lack of organization. I

250
00:15:55,520 --> 00:15:57,560
Speaker 1: know in one of the oral histories that I had

251
00:15:57,600 --> 00:16:01,800
Speaker 1: listened to, the interviewer asks the lady, did you ever

252
00:16:01,840 --> 00:16:05,440
Speaker 1: sign petitions? Did you ever go to meetings? And the

253
00:16:05,520 --> 00:16:08,480
Speaker 1: answer was they had signed a petition once the word

254
00:16:08,480 --> 00:16:11,560
Speaker 1: had started to spread, but they never had meetings. You know,

255
00:16:11,640 --> 00:16:13,920
Speaker 1: those are the type of things that we look at

256
00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:17,560
Speaker 1: as a culture as being bad. You know, that's something

257
00:16:17,640 --> 00:16:22,960
Speaker 1: that against your government. You don't have secret meetings. And

258
00:16:23,360 --> 00:16:26,920
Speaker 1: I mean it's like, these are people who were complete patriots.

259
00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:29,360
Speaker 1: They had fought in, you know, World War Two, they

260
00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:34,320
Speaker 1: had a Korea, World War One, and to think about

261
00:16:34,400 --> 00:16:38,040
Speaker 1: setting up a meeting to talk about your government, I

262
00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:42,400
Speaker 1: mean that was And especially you think about what went

263
00:16:42,440 --> 00:16:45,480
Speaker 1: through during the fifties about communism and how everybody was

264
00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:49,240
Speaker 1: so nervous about being, you know, branded as a communist.

265
00:16:50,840 --> 00:16:53,080
Speaker 1: I think that was just a little bit too far

266
00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:55,000
Speaker 1: outside their realm of comfort.

267
00:16:55,080 --> 00:16:58,760
Speaker 2: They weren't really comfortable using the tools of the time

268
00:16:58,800 --> 00:17:01,240
Speaker 2: period RCT that would have been able to combat it.

269
00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:03,040
Speaker 2: It's not like these people would have been like, oh, well,

270
00:17:03,040 --> 00:17:07,200
Speaker 2: here's what we do to stop a major government action, right.

271
00:17:07,119 --> 00:17:09,520
Speaker 1: Like a town hall or a you know or whatever.

272
00:17:10,359 --> 00:17:13,720
Speaker 1: They just did not utilize that because and I'm putting

273
00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:15,920
Speaker 1: words in their mouths because I don't know, but in

274
00:17:15,960 --> 00:17:19,639
Speaker 1: my opinion, they didn't utilize it because that was just

275
00:17:19,680 --> 00:17:23,880
Speaker 1: a step too far against their against their own government.

276
00:17:24,160 --> 00:17:26,040
Speaker 1: And I think that by the time, because I spoke

277
00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:30,160
Speaker 1: with one guy down in Boxley and he's about my parents' age.

278
00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:32,880
Speaker 1: And I said, or how in the world did nobody

279
00:17:32,920 --> 00:17:36,439
Speaker 1: get killed over this? Because I know how hot tempered

280
00:17:36,480 --> 00:17:38,679
Speaker 1: I am. I'm a breed loving of the lines. That

281
00:17:38,800 --> 00:17:44,199
Speaker 1: is a terrible combination. And I can't imagine in the

282
00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:47,520
Speaker 1: time period that they were living, I don't know how

283
00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:50,919
Speaker 1: it skirted around and somebody didn't get killed.

284
00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:55,199
Speaker 2: Let's stop for just a second here. It's interesting that

285
00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:59,880
Speaker 2: this conversation starts from the angle that this government action

286
00:18:00,080 --> 00:18:03,720
Speaker 2: and to quote preserve the Buffalo is negative And if

287
00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:06,280
Speaker 2: you're from this part of the country, you'd be hard

288
00:18:06,359 --> 00:18:09,680
Speaker 2: pressed to hear anybody say, narry a negative word about

289
00:18:09,680 --> 00:18:13,600
Speaker 2: this place. This Buffalo National River is the crown jewel

290
00:18:13,640 --> 00:18:17,880
Speaker 2: of our state. But I'm learning that perspective can turn

291
00:18:17,920 --> 00:18:20,800
Speaker 2: the whole narrative one hundred and eighty degrees, So being

292
00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:25,080
Speaker 2: your doctrine into the hypocritical ditch, And that's what makes

293
00:18:25,080 --> 00:18:29,640
Speaker 2: this story so interesting. We love public lands and national parks,

294
00:18:30,240 --> 00:18:32,520
Speaker 2: but do we like how they make the sausage in

295
00:18:32,560 --> 00:18:35,880
Speaker 2: the back room? Are you a fan of displacement so

296
00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:39,000
Speaker 2: that our society will have a place to recreate? That's

297
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:42,520
Speaker 2: a harsh question, but it's one we asked our society

298
00:18:42,800 --> 00:18:45,440
Speaker 2: and they said yes to. It's what we asked the

299
00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:49,200
Speaker 2: American people before displacing the families in the Shenandoah in

300
00:18:49,320 --> 00:18:52,560
Speaker 2: Great Smoking Mountains National Park. And it's the question we

301
00:18:52,600 --> 00:18:56,480
Speaker 2: asked America before the Indian Removal Act of eighteen thirty.

302
00:18:56,560 --> 00:18:59,960
Speaker 2: It's just interesting what as a society we're able to

303
00:19:00,520 --> 00:19:05,240
Speaker 2: justify now. The Indian Removal Act was pure wickedness. Even

304
00:19:05,320 --> 00:19:08,960
Speaker 2: David Crockett thought so. But the questions about national parks

305
00:19:08,960 --> 00:19:13,400
Speaker 2: are much more nuanced. Landowners were paid, and some got

306
00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:16,520
Speaker 2: market value for their land, and in many cases simply

307
00:19:16,560 --> 00:19:19,960
Speaker 2: moved right down the road out of the park. But nonetheless,

308
00:19:20,280 --> 00:19:24,200
Speaker 2: the question of heavy handed government power and property owner

309
00:19:24,320 --> 00:19:28,439
Speaker 2: rights is a big one. But let's get back to

310
00:19:28,520 --> 00:19:39,119
Speaker 2: the river. Willard Vilnes was born down here. We've passed

311
00:19:39,200 --> 00:19:42,680
Speaker 2: Merle Haggard's grandma's place and we're riding down the rivers

312
00:19:42,960 --> 00:19:46,639
Speaker 2: edged the land Willard's father used to own and farm.

313
00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:50,280
Speaker 2: He's taking me to another barn. So tell me about

314
00:19:50,280 --> 00:19:50,760
Speaker 2: this barn.

315
00:19:51,480 --> 00:19:54,639
Speaker 3: Well, my dad and two brothers colder in me and

316
00:19:56,880 --> 00:20:00,080
Speaker 3: mister Daniels, they built his barn and they used a

317
00:20:00,160 --> 00:20:03,760
Speaker 3: handshaw to cut the rash prison. He didn't have no

318
00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:05,560
Speaker 3: electric tool to talk, but he'd be a load that

319
00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:07,399
Speaker 3: was born with handhol.

320
00:20:06,960 --> 00:20:08,280
Speaker 2: What year you think of this built?

321
00:20:09,400 --> 00:20:12,800
Speaker 3: Uh? We moved. We moved out of here in fifty six,

322
00:20:13,880 --> 00:20:18,200
Speaker 3: probably probably then fifty.

323
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:21,480
Speaker 2: I say you remember as little kid this barn?

324
00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:25,520
Speaker 3: Yeah I remember? Yeah, I member, Well, yeah, we would

325
00:20:25,720 --> 00:20:29,080
Speaker 3: we cut hay off down in there and Dad would

326
00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:31,879
Speaker 3: he would rake it and shock it and put it

327
00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:34,639
Speaker 3: on the wagon. I was just about I don't know,

328
00:20:34,800 --> 00:20:38,800
Speaker 3: ship seven year old shummers in there. But he let

329
00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:41,080
Speaker 3: me drive the mules while they loaded the wagon.

330
00:20:42,119 --> 00:20:44,520
Speaker 2: What's it? What's it like coming to barn like this

331
00:20:44,720 --> 00:20:48,280
Speaker 2: that your dad built, that's now just like engulfed in

332
00:20:48,400 --> 00:20:51,240
Speaker 2: forest and all right, it's kind of it's kind of

333
00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:52,720
Speaker 2: a unique situation.

334
00:20:53,040 --> 00:20:57,560
Speaker 3: Will Yeah, here I visited. I probably want your class

335
00:20:57,680 --> 00:21:01,200
Speaker 3: here and KYI remind this a little bit. Yeah, I'm

336
00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:03,359
Speaker 3: brought the kids over here and took pictures with them

337
00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:03,760
Speaker 3: over here.

338
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:07,520
Speaker 2: And now where was your house from here?

339
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:09,920
Speaker 3: HiT's old trufher mitch cruching.

340
00:21:10,200 --> 00:21:12,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, we was able to go to your old home place.

341
00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:13,440
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, with crousty river.

342
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:16,280
Speaker 2: Yell, is there anything still there, no shler.

343
00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:21,560
Speaker 3: Small custure there. Yeah, no foundation jo left of it. Yeah,

344
00:21:22,200 --> 00:21:23,120
Speaker 3: park tore it down.

345
00:21:24,480 --> 00:21:28,040
Speaker 2: The park tore down his old house. The Vilnes left

346
00:21:28,119 --> 00:21:31,160
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty six, and I assumed by seventy two

347
00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:36,000
Speaker 2: the old house was in disrepair and not deemed historically significant.

348
00:21:36,880 --> 00:21:39,720
Speaker 2: Some of the buildings of this civilization were left, while

349
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:43,720
Speaker 2: others destroyed. How the heck did all this come about?

350
00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:47,320
Speaker 2: We're heading to Willard's home place where he was born,

351
00:21:47,880 --> 00:21:51,200
Speaker 2: delivered by his grandmother. We're going to have to cross

352
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:55,480
Speaker 2: what the Ozarkians call the Buffalo kind of leaving out

353
00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:59,879
Speaker 2: the US Sound in Buffalo, it's a gravel bedstream with

354
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:04,000
Speaker 2: headwaters bird in the highest elevations of the Ozark Mountains

355
00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:08,520
Speaker 2: in northwest Arkansas, the Boston Range, which reaches about twenty

356
00:22:08,600 --> 00:22:12,320
Speaker 2: five hundred feet. The Eurogeny of the Ozarks is the

357
00:22:12,440 --> 00:22:17,000
Speaker 2: work of incomprehensible time and erosion on an uplifted plateau

358
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:20,760
Speaker 2: that was once the bed of a shallow ocean. Fossils

359
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:25,919
Speaker 2: of fish and crustaceans are common here. Geologists and psychologists

360
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:30,160
Speaker 2: agree that humans are incapable of understanding deep geologic time

361
00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:36,560
Speaker 2: beyond a shallow intellectual regurgitation of huge, meaningless numbers. It's

362
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:39,240
Speaker 2: kind of like trying to explain to a grasshopper the

363
00:22:39,359 --> 00:22:42,080
Speaker 2: life span of a wide oak. The beasts of the

364
00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:46,560
Speaker 2: Earth only understand time and segments congruit to their lifespans.

365
00:22:47,520 --> 00:22:50,560
Speaker 2: Geologists believe the Ozarks are older than the Appalachians, with

366
00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:55,480
Speaker 2: origins reaching back one point six billion years, but even

367
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:59,919
Speaker 2: to the world's top geologists, things are hazy back that far.

368
00:23:01,960 --> 00:23:05,879
Speaker 2: The Ozark Highlands or Mountains are in the central United States,

369
00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:10,440
Speaker 2: encompassing southern Missouri, northern Arkansas, and a small portion in

370
00:23:10,560 --> 00:23:15,440
Speaker 2: eastern Oklahoma and Kansas, and it roughly encompasses fifty thousand

371
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:19,080
Speaker 2: square miles. There are no natural lakes in the Ozarks.

372
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:22,320
Speaker 2: In the rugged regions, we call them mountains, and I'd

373
00:23:22,440 --> 00:23:26,359
Speaker 2: challenge any outsider to come here, hike em afoot and

374
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:29,440
Speaker 2: tell me they aren't mountains. But if you want to

375
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:33,320
Speaker 2: talk about the epicenter of beauty and ruggedness the Ozarks,

376
00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:37,000
Speaker 2: it's hard to deny that the Buffalo River country is

377
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:42,119
Speaker 2: its lifeblood. Starting in Newton County, the meandering River flows

378
00:23:42,200 --> 00:23:45,879
Speaker 2: through Cercy and Marion Counties until it enters the White

379
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:49,719
Speaker 2: River in Baxter County one hundred and fifty three miles

380
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 2: from its head but as the crow flies, from its

381
00:23:53,119 --> 00:23:57,000
Speaker 2: headwaters to its termination is only sixty miles. The river

382
00:23:57,160 --> 00:24:03,160
Speaker 2: is known for its pristine aqua blue green water towering limestone, sandstone,

383
00:24:03,200 --> 00:24:07,520
Speaker 2: and dolomite bluffs some four hundred feet above the water's surface.

384
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:12,560
Speaker 2: It's known for its caves and its incredible wet weather waterfalls.

385
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:16,639
Speaker 2: A couple hundred yards off the river, uphimned in Hollow

386
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:20,639
Speaker 2: is America's largest waterfall between the Appalachians and the Rockies,

387
00:24:20,680 --> 00:24:25,919
Speaker 2: which plunges two hundred and nine feet to the valley floor. However,

388
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:29,639
Speaker 2: by the calculations of men when they judge wildness based

389
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:33,359
Speaker 2: upon lack of human footprint, this river is one of

390
00:24:33,440 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 2: America's few remaining free flowing, undamned rivers. And this is

391
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:46,520
Speaker 2: truly something worth celebrating. They're over ninety thousand dams in America,

392
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 2: and they dang there, damned the buffalo put in all

393
00:24:50,560 --> 00:25:17,040
Speaker 2: these houses, barns and bluffs underwater. Doctor Brooks Blevins is

394
00:25:17,080 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 2: a professor at Missouri State University and a prolific author

395
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:24,760
Speaker 2: about the Ozarks. In twenty twenty two, he published a

396
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:28,280
Speaker 2: book called up south in the Ozarks. In it, he

397
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 2: has an essay called against the Current. I want to

398
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:35,639
Speaker 2: get into the deeper history of how the Buffalo was

399
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:38,880
Speaker 2: saved from being damned and how it became a national river.

400
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 2: Here's myself and doctor Brooks Blevins well in your interest,

401
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 2: particularly in the Buffalo. In the essay that you wrote

402
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:53,240
Speaker 2: in your book. It's interesting. When I first contacted you,

403
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 2: I believe you said you felt like you were the

404
00:25:56,119 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 2: only historian that had written about this from the perspective

405
00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,320
Speaker 2: of the people that had been displaced, and that kind

406
00:26:04,320 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 2: of links back to your story about your grandparents, and

407
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 2: that was a story the world was not interested in

408
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:18,439
Speaker 2: hearing of these oftentimes not that well to do, impoverish

409
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 2: people living in these rural places getting displaced. Like that's

410
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 2: not the story that America wanted to tell, and America

411
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:26,920
Speaker 2: wanted to hear.

412
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:30,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was not a story that was told and

413
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:34,119
Speaker 5: wouldn't be for you know, another generation. And there was

414
00:26:34,240 --> 00:26:38,040
Speaker 5: no Gorilla press at that time. It was something that

415
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:44,880
Speaker 5: mostly was just just forgotten and remained forgotten. And I think,

416
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 5: as far as I know, I am the only person

417
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 5: on the for the Buffalo River story. I'm the only

418
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:54,639
Speaker 5: person who's ever approached it. I should say I'm the

419
00:26:54,720 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 5: only person who's ever published anything that approaches it from

420
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 5: the kind of the perspective of the landowners. But there's

421
00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 5: as far as the published record what the public, you know,

422
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:10,960
Speaker 5: has access to, there's very little from the perspective of

423
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:13,880
Speaker 5: the people who lost their land, the people who really

424
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:19,160
Speaker 5: made the sacrifice that the rest of us now enjoy

425
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 5: the fruits of We.

426
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 2: Mentioned a story about doctor Blevin's grandparents. It's a family

427
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:28,680
Speaker 2: story that led him to be interested in the displaced

428
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:32,400
Speaker 2: landowners on the river. Though they didn't live on the Buffalo,

429
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 2: but rather in the White River watershed just to the northwest.

430
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 2: I want to hear what happened to them.

431
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:44,119
Speaker 5: My great great grandparents lived on Pigeon Creek, which is

432
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:46,880
Speaker 5: a tributary of the North Fork of the White River,

433
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:51,879
Speaker 5: and my great great grandpa was born there just a

434
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:54,719
Speaker 5: year or two before the Civil War, and so they

435
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 5: were still there in the early nineteen forties when the

436
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:01,400
Speaker 5: Army Corps of Engineers started building the Damn Norfolk Dam.

437
00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:05,359
Speaker 5: But they were one of the families who had to

438
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 5: sell their land to the government and they were moved.

439
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 5: I don't know a few miles south of Mountain Home

440
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:17,159
Speaker 5: and kind of a rocky hillside down there somewhere. And

441
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:21,880
Speaker 5: I found out not too many years ago what happened.

442
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 5: I was able to contact one of my grandpa's own cousins,

443
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 5: as we say in the Ozarks, first cousins, and she

444
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 5: told me the story of when the authorities, whoever the

445
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:36,120
Speaker 5: authorities were, I don't know if it was the sheriff's officer,

446
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 5: but when they came out, you know, they'd been given

447
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 5: the final warning that they had to vacate their farm.

448
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 5: This was before they shut the floodgates and you know,

449
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 5: flooded the valleys and all that kind of stuff. And

450
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:55,560
Speaker 5: she said her grandparents, my great great grandparents, refused to leave.

451
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:58,360
Speaker 5: They were in their eighties and they had lived there,

452
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:02,120
Speaker 5: you know, practically all the or adult lives, so they,

453
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 5: you know, they didn't didn't want to go, like a

454
00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 5: lot of other landowners there, and a lot of other

455
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 5: farmers there. She said that they refused to leave and

456
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 5: the authorities came out and physically carried them off the premises. No,

457
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 5: I don't know, you know, in my mind, I see

458
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 5: two old timers planking or something. You know, there's stiff

459
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 5: as a board that been carried out. But they may

460
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:26,320
Speaker 5: have carried them off in chairs or whatever.

461
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:30,960
Speaker 2: But that received no statewide press, no national press.

462
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 5: No, no, it didn't. The local weekly newspaper, the Baxter Bulletin,

463
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:41,240
Speaker 5: was operated by an editor named Tom Shiris, and Shyris

464
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:46,040
Speaker 5: was one of the premier damn promoters in the state

465
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:46,720
Speaker 5: of Arkansas.

466
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 2: And it's not a story he would no, No, this is.

467
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 5: Not It's not a story that was likely to show

468
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 5: up in the Baxter Bulletin.

469
00:29:55,280 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 2: It's interesting the government land condemnation, whether for a lake

470
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:03,960
Speaker 2: her national park, rarely made big headlines back in the day.

471
00:30:04,760 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 2: There's a famous photo of a pregnant woman named Lessie

472
00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,600
Speaker 2: Jenkins being carried out of her home in a rocking

473
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 2: chair in nineteen thirty seven when her family, including her

474
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:18,719
Speaker 2: seven children, were evicted from their home by the National

475
00:30:18,800 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 2: Park Service to make Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. And

476
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 2: books have been written about the process of land acquisition

477
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 2: for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and

478
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:36,120
Speaker 2: North Carolina, and all the stories are eerily similar. I

479
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 2: now want to get to the deep history with doctor

480
00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:43,560
Speaker 2: Blevins about the buffalo and surprisingly we're gonna have to

481
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:46,920
Speaker 2: go back to the Great Mississippi River Flood of nineteen

482
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:50,200
Speaker 2: twenty seven. But if you're a Bear Grease listener, you

483
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 2: remember our Mississippi River series which started at episode one

484
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:56,880
Speaker 2: twenty six, and if you listen, you'll have a head start.

485
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:00,800
Speaker 5: To really dig into the into the heart of this matter,

486
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 5: you have to go back even before the Great Depression,

487
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 5: at least to the Great Mississippi River Flood of nineteen

488
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 5: twenty seven. That was the event that really altered the

489
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 5: trajectory of what the Army Corps of Engineers was expected

490
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 5: to do. Before that, the Army Corps of Engineers was

491
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 5: an organization that mainly built levees and dikes along big rivers,

492
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:32,800
Speaker 5: But the Army Corps Engineers was not a dam building agency.

493
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 5: And because of the tremendous destruction the economic impact of

494
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:42,719
Speaker 5: that flood in nineteen twenty seven, all of a sudden,

495
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:48,440
Speaker 5: politicians had in the Mississippi Valley had tremendous pressure put

496
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 5: on them to do something to prevent another devastating flood

497
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 5: like this. Because you've got to remember, in the Mississippi Valley,

498
00:31:56,360 --> 00:32:00,440
Speaker 5: the flood of nineteen twenty seven was basically what led

499
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 5: us into the Great Depression, and then you get into

500
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 5: the heart of the Great Depression, and then FDR takes

501
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 5: office in nineteen thirty three, and you have a completely

502
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 5: new way of looking at the way the government handles

503
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:18,800
Speaker 5: crises in a way that we've never done before, where

504
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:21,400
Speaker 5: they just try to spend your way out of it.

505
00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:24,440
Speaker 5: You spend money, you put it in the hands of

506
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 5: people who don't have it, and you expect them to

507
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,320
Speaker 5: turn around and spend it and try to prime the

508
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 5: pump of the economy that way. And so it's kind

509
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:36,800
Speaker 5: of that one two punch of the nineteen twenty seven

510
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 5: flood and the Great Depression leading into the New Deal

511
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 5: that all of a sudden puts dams front and center

512
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 5: on the radar for the Army Corps of Engineers.

513
00:32:48,320 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 2: Dams came on the radar of America. They were all

514
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 2: the rage. As we follow this story chronologically, it's also

515
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 2: relevant to note that in nineteen thirty six there was

516
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:03,200
Speaker 2: a four thousand acre Buffalo River State Park formed, which

517
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:07,400
Speaker 2: was the first indication that this place was a special

518
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 2: place for recreation. But let's get back to talking about

519
00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:14,080
Speaker 2: the long periods of time that all this stuff took.

520
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:18,360
Speaker 5: So these flood control acts they plant the seed for

521
00:33:18,600 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 5: these dams. Now, just because a dam is mentioned in

522
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 5: one of these flood control acts doesn't mean it's going

523
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 5: to get built. What they do is they authorize these dams.

524
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 5: Then the Army Corps of Engineers has to go out

525
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:34,800
Speaker 5: finalize its plans. They have to do public hearings to

526
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:40,840
Speaker 5: gauge responses from the public, and then if they decide

527
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 5: that the benefit cost analysis is favorable, then they go

528
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 5: back to Congress and they present their case and they say,

529
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 5: you know, can we have the money to build this?

530
00:33:53,880 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 5: And so that's why it's such a long process. That's

531
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 5: why you know, these Buffalo dams are first mentioned as

532
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 5: early as Night teen thirty eight, but the battle for

533
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 5: the Buffalo doesn't even heat up really till the nineteen sixties.

534
00:34:06,320 --> 00:34:08,279
Speaker 2: So what really they talked about a dam on the

535
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 2: Buffalo River in the nineteen thirties.

536
00:34:10,239 --> 00:34:15,800
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's an extensive White River dam plan, a reservoir

537
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 5: plan that's first presented in thirty eight.

538
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:24,840
Speaker 2: It's interesting to look back the big swings in government

539
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 2: ideology around what the job of the government actually is

540
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:32,839
Speaker 2: and as author and bear grease guest John Barry said

541
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:35,800
Speaker 2: in his book Rising Tied, the nineteen twenty seven flood

542
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 2: truly changed America, and oddly we'll see how it affected

543
00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,400
Speaker 2: the Buffalo River. The Flood Control Act of nineteen thirty

544
00:34:43,440 --> 00:34:47,800
Speaker 2: eight was an extensive plan to build dams that included

545
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:51,320
Speaker 2: stuff on all the tributaries of the Mighty Mississippi to

546
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:55,319
Speaker 2: hold back water during major floods. And that's right. Old

547
00:34:55,400 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 2: Willard Vilnes Buffalo River in Arkansas was on there so

548
00:35:01,480 --> 00:35:05,400
Speaker 2: decades before the National River was ever imagined. They were

549
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 2: wanting to damn this spectacular river valley. It seems like

550
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 2: that could have an effect on the way people handled it.

551
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 2: With this like slow burn of kind of government bureaucracy

552
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 2: and rumors. I mean, that's like a generation and a

553
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:25,360
Speaker 2: half of oh rumors, and finally people are just I

554
00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:27,920
Speaker 2: mean it kind of just gets in their mind that well,

555
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:30,759
Speaker 2: this is going to be damned or it feels like

556
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:33,280
Speaker 2: that could play a role as opposed to just someone

557
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:35,520
Speaker 2: showing up and knocking on your door and being like

558
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 2: we're damning the river. It's like, well, we've been hearing

559
00:35:38,560 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 2: about this for thirty years and it's never happened.

560
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:45,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was you know there there's definitely a psychological

561
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 5: angle to that, because I've studied a lot of the

562
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:53,400
Speaker 5: newspaper coverage and letters and things like that, not just

563
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:57,320
Speaker 5: from the Buffalo, but from other damn projects, and some

564
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:00,600
Speaker 5: of them that never got done, but that they dragged

565
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 5: on for years and years, I mean for a generation

566
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 5: or more. Yeah, And every every three or four years,

567
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 5: here comes the Army Corps Engineers with another hearing. And

568
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:14,239
Speaker 5: over time, one thing that can happen is, like you say,

569
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:18,759
Speaker 5: people might just become complacent and think, well, it's it's

570
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:21,359
Speaker 5: this is never gonna happen. They're never going to build anything.

571
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 5: Or they might just decide, well, there's nothing we can do.

572
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:29,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that seems like yeah, or in some.

573
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 5: Cases people just got madder and madder and madder, and

574
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 5: and so you you know, you kind of this crescendo

575
00:36:36,600 --> 00:36:39,359
Speaker 5: of anger at the Army Corps Engineers builds up.

576
00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:43,720
Speaker 2: It seems like governments in the Earth have something in common.

577
00:36:44,560 --> 00:36:48,239
Speaker 2: Neither are hemmed into short time spans that humans are

578
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 2: comfortable operating in. They'll wait you out. Rumors of long

579
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:57,240
Speaker 2: term land use plans affect how people plan their lives.

580
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 2: I want to read something from doctor Neil Compton's nineteen

581
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 2: ninety two book Battle for the Buffalo, because it gives

582
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:10,280
Speaker 2: a picture of the times. Compton writes, the rough, mountainous

583
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:13,280
Speaker 2: country of much of the Ozarks in the Boston Mountains

584
00:37:13,400 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 2: has failed to sustain the initial population of white settlers.

585
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 2: The numbers of white pioneers had peaked about nineteen hundred,

586
00:37:21,800 --> 00:37:26,280
Speaker 2: after which an exodus began. Between nineteen fifty and nineteen sixty.

587
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 2: Arkansas lost two hundred and fifty thousand people in one

588
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 2: congressman as a result. But that was not necessarily a calamity. Cutover,

589
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:40,720
Speaker 2: eroded and impoverished uplands were going back to nature. Opportunity

590
00:37:40,840 --> 00:37:46,040
Speaker 2: for productive, long term civil culture and wildlife restoration existed.

591
00:37:46,520 --> 00:37:51,720
Speaker 2: End of quote. The emigration that happened is beyond dispute. However,

592
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 2: I get the sense this became part of the justification

593
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:59,600
Speaker 2: of making this land into a park, as in, people

594
00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 2: don't want to live here. People were leaving rural America

595
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:08,000
Speaker 2: to go to the cities for work. Rural communities needed help,

596
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:10,840
Speaker 2: and they said, let's build some lakes, which wasn't a

597
00:38:10,880 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 2: bad idea and may have even been a good one,

598
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:16,759
Speaker 2: but some were destined for the raw end of this deal.

599
00:38:17,360 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 2: The times were tough, but they didn't push everybody out,

600
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 2: and there was a thriving community along the Buffalo River

601
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:28,200
Speaker 2: that never left. Nobody told them that times were hard,

602
00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 2: and doctor Neil Compton would be the major player in

603
00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:36,359
Speaker 2: nationalizing the river. He's even known as the park's father.

604
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:39,759
Speaker 2: I'd never heard him referred to as anything but a

605
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 2: conservation hero until I started talking to folks whose families

606
00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:47,399
Speaker 2: had to sell because of the park. There'll be more

607
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:51,320
Speaker 2: about this on the next episode, but there were multiple

608
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 2: big damn projects in northern Arkansas and all across the country.

609
00:38:54,960 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 2: They were touted for producing the electricity, increasing tourism, and

610
00:38:59,120 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 2: increasing real estate value, in which in most cases they delivered,

611
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 2: and because of it, there was surprisingly little coordinated public

612
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:12,360
Speaker 2: protest until they started talking about the Buffalo.

613
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:15,759
Speaker 5: There's not a lot of There's not a lot of

614
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:19,960
Speaker 5: public protest against any of these dams that get built

615
00:39:20,080 --> 00:39:23,239
Speaker 5: in the White River basin until you know, until you

616
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:25,800
Speaker 5: get to like Buffalo and Water Valley.

617
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:29,759
Speaker 2: Then why wasn't there more public protests? Because it's I

618
00:39:29,880 --> 00:39:33,320
Speaker 2: read that the Buffalo was one of the corp of

619
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 2: engineers even in d C was like, what the people

620
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:39,759
Speaker 2: are upset about this dam. They hadn't received a lot

621
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:40,400
Speaker 2: of opposition.

622
00:39:40,800 --> 00:39:44,520
Speaker 5: Yeah, that is something that I've that I've spent a

623
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 5: long time trying to figure out the sociology and the

624
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:52,760
Speaker 5: psychology of the timing of public protests. There were always

625
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 5: protests from landowners who didn't want to go. But one

626
00:39:56,840 --> 00:40:00,360
Speaker 5: of the things that that may be surprised in certainly

627
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 5: upset these landowners was that they found that most of

628
00:40:03,440 --> 00:40:07,360
Speaker 5: their neighbors, who didn't have land in the flood basin

629
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:10,919
Speaker 5: were usually in favor of the dams. I mean, that's

630
00:40:11,440 --> 00:40:14,759
Speaker 5: that's just the way almost every almost every case, and

631
00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:16,520
Speaker 5: a lot of that just has to do with human

632
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 5: self interest. You know. It stands the reason that if

633
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:22,360
Speaker 5: you're going to lose your farm, you're going to be

634
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 5: against this. If you're not, it's probably what's probably gonna happen.

635
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 5: Is Land values are going to go up. You're in

636
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:35,120
Speaker 5: most cases where these dams are built, prosperity to a

637
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:38,480
Speaker 5: certain degree follows in these areas. And all the politicians

638
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:42,319
Speaker 5: are pro damned because they're money. This is port barrel politics,

639
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 5: you know, I am, I am bringing money and lots

640
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:50,000
Speaker 5: of millions of dollars back to my district, and you're

641
00:40:50,080 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 5: hurting just a small portion of your constituents one percent

642
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 5: of your constituents maybe right, and all the rest of

643
00:40:57,960 --> 00:40:58,880
Speaker 5: them are probably for it.

644
00:40:59,239 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's you.

645
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 5: You even see in the like in the hearings and stuff,

646
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:06,719
Speaker 5: the argument the greatest good for the greatest number.

647
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:11,880
Speaker 2: The great American land ethic, the utilitarian conservation of our

648
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:15,440
Speaker 2: beloved Teddy Roosevelt, the greatest good for the greatest number.

649
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 2: It's brilliant unless you're the one that's having to pay

650
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:24,239
Speaker 2: so that others can have your stuff. And honestly, when

651
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:27,719
Speaker 2: you put it like that, it kind of sounds like communism.

652
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 5: And so there's there's very little concern for that kind

653
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:36,480
Speaker 5: of insignificant minority of people who are who are going

654
00:41:36,560 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 5: to lose their homes and going to lose their farms.

655
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 2: Is that just the cost of having a prosperous nation,

656
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 2: because that.

657
00:41:43,760 --> 00:41:45,920
Speaker 5: Could be I mean, you know, you look at the

658
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 5: interstate highway system. You know, you have a similar thing

659
00:41:49,239 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 5: that happens there is especially in cities where there have

660
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:59,120
Speaker 5: been studies that show that especially low income neighborhoods, often

661
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:04,120
Speaker 5: we're just completely obliterated or part of it is, yeah, somebody,

662
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 5: somebody's got somebody's got to make a sacrifice if you're

663
00:42:07,440 --> 00:42:11,399
Speaker 5: gonna do any of this stuff. Now today, a lot

664
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 5: a lot of people with the more environmentalist ethic and

665
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:18,239
Speaker 5: a more kind of naturalist ethic would say, well, did

666
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:20,359
Speaker 5: we even need the dams in the first place? I mean,

667
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:23,040
Speaker 5: is that that's that would be a question. But nobody

668
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:26,319
Speaker 5: was asking that question back then, because it was all

669
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 5: about priming the pump, getting damn building jobs, and then

670
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:37,279
Speaker 5: the economic benefits that were expected to accrue from those

671
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 5: damns being built.

672
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:41,439
Speaker 2: So and the hydro electric power was a big cell.

673
00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 2: I mean, that was that was like today's modern energy

674
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 2: independence and and and maybe even renewable energy and all

675
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:51,400
Speaker 2: this like this is the way of the future. I mean,

676
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 2: they were preaching hydro electricity.

677
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:55,799
Speaker 5: That's a big thing, Clay.

678
00:42:55,920 --> 00:42:56,200
Speaker 3: That was.

679
00:42:57,080 --> 00:42:59,160
Speaker 5: And it's it's hard for us to understand because today

680
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:03,279
Speaker 5: hydro power is just a tiny little percentage of our

681
00:43:03,440 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 5: national power grid. But in those days, hydropower a major

682
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 5: selling point.

683
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:13,840
Speaker 2: It's kind of disheartening to see how little was gained

684
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:16,920
Speaker 2: from all these dams, and to see the empty wishes

685
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 2: of the government on energy production it has echoes of

686
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 2: the renewable energy headlines of today. But don't take this

687
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 2: as me knocking renewable energy. I ain't again it, but

688
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:33,480
Speaker 2: I don't trust any side short sighted energy propaganda. When

689
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:36,239
Speaker 2: all you care about is the next four years, you're

690
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:39,839
Speaker 2: bound to make bad decisions. We do well to learn

691
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 2: from the Chinese and think of building our nation in

692
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:48,879
Speaker 2: one hundred year segments. Whoo, we are growing deep into

693
00:43:49,000 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 2: parra greas boys. I want to step out of this

694
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 2: conversation and get back on the river with Willard. We've

695
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:09,280
Speaker 2: crossed the river and are headed towards where he was born.

696
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 2: He turns his mule around in the trail to face me.

697
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 2: He wants to tell me a story.

698
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:20,440
Speaker 3: My two older brothers had two cousins about their age,

699
00:44:20,520 --> 00:44:25,279
Speaker 3: he's teenagers. They'd meet right here every morning to walk

700
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:28,399
Speaker 3: to school together. My two cousins lived on down the creek,

701
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:32,040
Speaker 3: about half a mob. Well, they found them a yellow

702
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 3: jacket and thesh and they got to back in each

703
00:44:36,600 --> 00:44:39,800
Speaker 3: other out see which one could fight them the longest.

704
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 3: They stripped their clothes off, naked, and they cut them

705
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 3: a switch and they'd get in there and they'd fight

706
00:44:47,239 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 3: them yellow jackets and see who says, see who cas

707
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 3: standing the longest. They said that young our ball boy.

708
00:44:56,360 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 3: He was their first cousin. They said, that youngest our

709
00:44:59,680 --> 00:45:01,400
Speaker 3: ball b If you stay there long in any of them,

710
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:03,319
Speaker 3: here's a younger, but he stay longer.

711
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 2: He was.

712
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's the toughest one. But now they had a

713
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:12,279
Speaker 3: lot to do, didn't it. That was their entertainment Back then.

714
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,480
Speaker 2: We ride and cross the river one more time. I

715
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 2: see a stone structure built into the hillside.

716
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:27,719
Speaker 3: Yes, there's the old old fruit seller right here.

717
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:31,360
Speaker 2: And he describe to me what this looks like.

718
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 3: Well, the fruit cellar is what the that's what you

719
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:39,719
Speaker 3: put your canned food in. It kept be cool. Our

720
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:42,719
Speaker 3: cellar stays about the same temperature about year round, with

721
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 3: a door on it.

722
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:46,759
Speaker 2: Kind of dug into the hillside, probably ten or twelve

723
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:49,360
Speaker 2: feet and it's got a concrete front on it, but

724
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:53,319
Speaker 2: kind of dry laid stone around, and that just looks

725
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:53,839
Speaker 2: like a cave.

726
00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:57,040
Speaker 3: They used it for a storm shellar too. When you

727
00:45:57,160 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 3: become a stone.

728
00:45:59,520 --> 00:46:00,680
Speaker 2: Where was your house from.

729
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:06,480
Speaker 3: Right there, well, just about fifty yellards, no foundation joll

730
00:46:06,640 --> 00:46:09,759
Speaker 3: left of it. Yeah, Park tore it down.

731
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 2: Willard and his family have deep roots on this river

732
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:18,640
Speaker 2: that's now public land. I want to get back to

733
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 2: doctor Blevin's and see how the community reacted in the

734
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:25,080
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties to the prospect of damning this river.

735
00:46:26,640 --> 00:46:28,520
Speaker 5: But part of it too is you know, if you

736
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 5: if you're talking about why there's no public protest and

737
00:46:33,840 --> 00:46:37,800
Speaker 5: I and I used the phrase public protest on purpose,

738
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 5: because again, there's plenty of protests, just just doesn't make

739
00:46:41,760 --> 00:46:44,279
Speaker 5: it to the public level. And a lot of that's

740
00:46:44,360 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 5: because most of the newspapers, at least through the nineteen

741
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:53,839
Speaker 5: fifties were champions of damn building. This was seen as

742
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 5: a progressive thing that any booster of a of a

743
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 5: town or a state or anything with that, you've got

744
00:47:00,840 --> 00:47:04,040
Speaker 5: to be for damn building because of the the economic impact.

745
00:47:04,640 --> 00:47:06,800
Speaker 5: And if you're not, you're just stuck in the past.

746
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:09,880
Speaker 5: You know, you're just you're you're not going anywhere.

747
00:47:09,760 --> 00:47:11,680
Speaker 2: Be like fighting a fighting a tide.

748
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 5: Yeah, we don't want the internet, you know today? You know, yeah,

749
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:18,840
Speaker 5: get get it out of here. That was going on.

750
00:47:19,000 --> 00:47:22,480
Speaker 5: And then in Arkansas, all to a person, all the

751
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 5: politicians were damn advocates.

752
00:47:26,000 --> 00:47:29,240
Speaker 2: Well, that's what's so interesting about this story, Like we're

753
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:34,239
Speaker 2: highlighting the Buffalo River. But this thing happened all over

754
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:38,360
Speaker 2: the place. Oh really, I mean nationwide and so but

755
00:47:38,520 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 2: it's not. It's just not a story that you that

756
00:47:40,680 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 2: you hear that much about because it's it's not. It's

757
00:47:43,560 --> 00:47:50,279
Speaker 2: the unglamorous part of nation building. Stories of displacement aren't glamorous.

758
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:53,680
Speaker 2: And in the forties, fifties, and sixties damns were hot,

759
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:57,360
Speaker 2: but peaked after World War Two. The Army Corps of

760
00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 2: Engineers was the most powerful of all the Euros and

761
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:06,279
Speaker 2: had ambitions to damn every river in America. But now

762
00:48:06,680 --> 00:48:09,600
Speaker 2: we'll enter the phase we'll call the Battle for the Buffalo,

763
00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 2: which at this point is primarily a fight to keep

764
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:14,760
Speaker 2: it from being damned.

765
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:18,959
Speaker 5: The Battle for the Buffalo really starts in the early

766
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:22,680
Speaker 5: nineteen sixties. You had an attempt in the late fifties

767
00:48:23,200 --> 00:48:26,719
Speaker 5: to get money appropriated for a couple of dams. Eisenhower

768
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:31,040
Speaker 5: vetos the bill and sort of goes away until JFK

769
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:33,839
Speaker 5: takes office in sixty one. And for the most part

770
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:39,400
Speaker 5: in that era, Democrats were tended to be bigger proponents

771
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 5: of damn building and the activities the Army Corps Engineers

772
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:46,600
Speaker 5: than Republicans and so that's when everything kind of breaks loose,

773
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 5: is in sixty two when this Gilbert Damn proposal comes online.

774
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:54,840
Speaker 5: At the same time, in the background, you've got you

775
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 5: got bill Fulbright, Senator from Arkansas. He's already talking to

776
00:48:58,120 --> 00:49:02,920
Speaker 5: the National Park Service. They're already doing their surveys and

777
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:06,480
Speaker 5: things in the Buffalo Valley, trying to decide if this

778
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:11,040
Speaker 5: would be a valuable and worthy addition to the National

779
00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:13,520
Speaker 5: Park Service. So that's all going on in the background.

780
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,959
Speaker 5: So you got in the late fifties, the National Park

781
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:22,360
Speaker 5: Service starts this initiative they call Mission sixty six, and

782
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:25,960
Speaker 5: nineteen sixty six is going to be the fiftieth anniversary

783
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 5: of the founding of the National Park Service. So what

784
00:49:30,040 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 5: they're doing, they're trying to for about a decade, they're

785
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:36,239
Speaker 5: going to really really build things up and do a

786
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 5: lot of loud, splashy things to add to the National

787
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:44,040
Speaker 5: Park Service. And part of the new stuff is lake

788
00:49:44,120 --> 00:49:47,320
Speaker 5: shores and seashores and even rivers, so you've got a

789
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 5: lot of water stuff. It's not just these massive Western parks.

790
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 2: It's like a new way to think about the National park.

791
00:49:54,760 --> 00:49:57,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's not just it's not just Western stuff.

792
00:49:57,520 --> 00:50:01,879
Speaker 5: And a handful of things in Appalachia. So they first

793
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:05,080
Speaker 5: do Cape Cod in the early sixties. That's the first

794
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 5: of these modern kind of watery you know, National park things,

795
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:11,719
Speaker 5: and then they get into the river business. So that's

796
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:16,640
Speaker 5: what's happening. You've got this change of directions a little

797
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:18,760
Speaker 5: bit for the National Park Service in the late fifties

798
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:19,560
Speaker 5: and early sixties.

799
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:23,320
Speaker 2: Interestingly, the first person to plant the seed for the

800
00:50:23,360 --> 00:50:27,480
Speaker 2: Buffalo region as national park worthy was a writer named

801
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:31,280
Speaker 2: Glenn Green in nineteen forty six who published a story

802
00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 2: about the region. But it wouldn't be until nineteen sixty

803
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:38,359
Speaker 2: one when the first money seven thousand dollars was appropriated

804
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:40,920
Speaker 2: for the National Park Service to do a survey of

805
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:45,120
Speaker 2: the river. The first drawings of this potential park included

806
00:50:45,239 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 2: over four hundred thousand acres, but it would later be

807
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:53,920
Speaker 2: whittled down to about ninety five thousand. So now there

808
00:50:53,920 --> 00:50:56,839
Speaker 2: are two stakeholders with their site set on the river,

809
00:50:57,280 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 2: the Army Corps of Engineers who wanted a dam, and

810
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:02,319
Speaker 2: the National Park Service who wanted a park.

811
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:05,719
Speaker 5: So in sixty two, the Army Corps Engineers comes to

812
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:08,280
Speaker 5: Marshall and they have a public hearing and it turns

813
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:11,440
Speaker 5: into basically a pro damn public hearing. As a lot

814
00:51:11,480 --> 00:51:15,520
Speaker 5: of those early Army Corps of Engineers hearings, did you know,

815
00:51:15,760 --> 00:51:18,600
Speaker 5: just the boosters showed up. And so it's in sixty

816
00:51:18,640 --> 00:51:22,520
Speaker 5: two when you have the creation of a local booster group.

817
00:51:22,840 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 5: It's called the Buffalo River Improvement Association the BRIA, and

818
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:29,360
Speaker 5: they're basically just the damn boosters, is what they know.

819
00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:32,560
Speaker 2: They're not the people, primarily, not the people who are

820
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:33,200
Speaker 2: living down there.

821
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:35,920
Speaker 5: They are not landowners. Probably not a one of them

822
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:39,080
Speaker 5: in the BRIA is a landowner. It's led by a

823
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:42,560
Speaker 5: local newspaper editor. And in reaction to that, you get

824
00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:46,320
Speaker 5: the creation of the Ozark Society with Neil Compton, who's

825
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:50,319
Speaker 5: a medical doctor from Bentonville in far northwestern.

826
00:51:50,080 --> 00:51:53,000
Speaker 2: Probably fifty miles from the headwaters of the Buffalo.

827
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:57,480
Speaker 5: And what the Ozark Society represents their canoeist and you know,

828
00:51:57,640 --> 00:52:01,920
Speaker 5: just people recreation people pe who were interested in the Buffalo.

829
00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 5: And Compton was a guy who for years had been

830
00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:09,080
Speaker 5: canoeing the Buffalo. So that's the Ozark Society. And then

831
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:12,600
Speaker 5: around the same time you get the Buffalo River Landowners Association,

832
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:15,239
Speaker 5: So you get a third organization in the mix. And

833
00:52:15,320 --> 00:52:18,279
Speaker 5: these are the actual landowners. These are the people who

834
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:21,359
Speaker 5: own the land up and down the Buffalo River who

835
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:27,879
Speaker 5: are initially against the dam, and then ultimately they will

836
00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 5: be against the National Park Service idea as well when

837
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 5: they realized well, either way we're you know, we're in

838
00:52:34,239 --> 00:52:36,000
Speaker 5: danger of losing their lanes.

839
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:38,840
Speaker 2: So these to lay out the players in the field,

840
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:42,319
Speaker 2: the b ri I these people that were pro damn

841
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:46,000
Speaker 2: did known land on the river. Then the Ozark Society

842
00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:49,680
Speaker 2: came in and wanted to They were anti dam, right,

843
00:52:50,520 --> 00:52:54,759
Speaker 2: but their interest in the river was recreation. And then

844
00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 2: the Buffalo River Landowners Association, which would have been people

845
00:52:58,320 --> 00:53:00,799
Speaker 2: that ultimately wanted no of it, right.

846
00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, if they had had a motto, it would

847
00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:04,319
Speaker 5: have been leave us alone. I guess.

848
00:53:05,440 --> 00:53:05,640
Speaker 2: Yeah.

849
00:53:05,960 --> 00:53:08,840
Speaker 5: Really, for the most part, it becomes a two person

850
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:13,600
Speaker 5: five because the Buffalo River Landowners Association they're way back there.

851
00:53:13,880 --> 00:53:16,920
Speaker 5: You know, if this is a race, they're almost out

852
00:53:16,960 --> 00:53:17,759
Speaker 5: of side, and.

853
00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 2: They don't have a big constituens. It's like picking teams

854
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:23,320
Speaker 2: for a game and you've got ten options where the

855
00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:26,799
Speaker 2: other team has one hundred thousand options. I mean, right,

856
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:29,359
Speaker 2: there's only so many landowners. There's only so many people

857
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:33,160
Speaker 2: that on the county records have a deed that touches

858
00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:34,160
Speaker 2: that river. Right.

859
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:36,839
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like I think I mentioned in that story. At

860
00:53:37,280 --> 00:53:40,920
Speaker 5: one of the hearings they do in Marshall, the speaker

861
00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:45,080
Speaker 5: for the Buffalo River Landowners Association is the scheduled at

862
00:53:45,360 --> 00:53:47,719
Speaker 5: very last, at the very end of the hearing. By

863
00:53:47,800 --> 00:53:50,520
Speaker 5: that time, most of the reporters had left, you know,

864
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 5: they were just. They didn't have any political cloud, any

865
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:56,360
Speaker 5: political pull, and everybody knew it. The corp of Engineers

866
00:53:56,440 --> 00:53:58,880
Speaker 5: knew it, The Ozark Society knew it, you know it

867
00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:02,880
Speaker 5: just and they were mostly most of the landowners were

868
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:05,400
Speaker 5: ignored throughout that process.

869
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:09,719
Speaker 2: This idea of the landowners being ignored is really the

870
00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:12,719
Speaker 2: whole point of this story, and if nothing else, our

871
00:54:12,840 --> 00:54:16,239
Speaker 2: efforts here are a hat tip to them. But the

872
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 2: truth is, I'm not sure where I would have landed

873
00:54:19,600 --> 00:54:23,680
Speaker 2: if I'd been around in this time. Historical revision is

874
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:27,719
Speaker 2: really easy and deceptive and often pains a false sense

875
00:54:27,760 --> 00:54:31,160
Speaker 2: of righteousness in us. The truth is that people were

876
00:54:31,239 --> 00:54:34,120
Speaker 2: all over the board. There were some landowners that had

877
00:54:34,239 --> 00:54:37,279
Speaker 2: just moved into the region, had no real roots here,

878
00:54:37,880 --> 00:54:40,239
Speaker 2: and they weren't bothered by a damn or a park.

879
00:54:40,840 --> 00:54:43,880
Speaker 2: Some folks were real estate people and they loved the

880
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:47,200
Speaker 2: idea of a dam It was a relatively small group

881
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:50,719
Speaker 2: of people who didn't want either, and in a democracy,

882
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:55,280
Speaker 2: small numbers of people get squashed, period.

883
00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:05,000
Speaker 5: But that's you know that all starts in about sixty

884
00:55:05,080 --> 00:55:07,680
Speaker 5: two is when the sides are drawn up and you

885
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:10,239
Speaker 5: really get the beginnings this battle for the Buffalo. And

886
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 5: that's when you start getting hard feelings and between neighbors

887
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:17,279
Speaker 5: and and there's a fight that breaks out at a

888
00:55:17,360 --> 00:55:20,719
Speaker 5: high school basketball game and some guys are arrested, and

889
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:23,919
Speaker 5: so you get It's also right around the same time

890
00:55:24,080 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 5: that Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, William Douglas

891
00:55:28,080 --> 00:55:30,719
Speaker 5: comes and floats the buffalo in a very public way.

892
00:55:31,560 --> 00:55:36,160
Speaker 2: Supreme Court Justice Douglas was anti damn, but in nineteen

893
00:55:36,280 --> 00:55:39,320
Speaker 2: sixty five, the table's turn and the pro damn people

894
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:42,560
Speaker 2: gain some major steam, and it looks like the river's

895
00:55:42,600 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 2: going to be damned until an unlikely hero arises.

896
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:51,600
Speaker 5: And so it's looking like sixty five might be the

897
00:55:51,719 --> 00:55:54,560
Speaker 5: year when they finally get this passed. And then in

898
00:55:54,680 --> 00:55:58,879
Speaker 5: late sixty five, the Governor of Arkansas, Orville Faulbus, who

899
00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:02,040
Speaker 5: is much known in a Erican history for other you know,

900
00:56:02,320 --> 00:56:09,440
Speaker 5: more unfortunate circumstances. He steps in and in effect saves

901
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:11,160
Speaker 5: the Buffalo from being damned.

902
00:56:12,000 --> 00:56:15,520
Speaker 2: If you don't know the name Orville Fabas, he became

903
00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:20,080
Speaker 2: the face of racism and segregation in nineteen fifty seven when,

904
00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:23,759
Speaker 2: as governor of Arkansas, he ordered the National Guard to

905
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:28,280
Speaker 2: block nine African American students from entering Little Rock High School.

906
00:56:28,840 --> 00:56:32,279
Speaker 2: These students became known as the Little Rock Nine and

907
00:56:32,440 --> 00:56:37,719
Speaker 2: are rightfully celebrated today as heroes. However, when it comes

908
00:56:37,760 --> 00:56:41,480
Speaker 2: to his natural resource policies, I think Fabas did as

909
00:56:41,520 --> 00:56:45,680
Speaker 2: a solid He wrote a lengthy and eloquent letter about

910
00:56:45,719 --> 00:56:48,200
Speaker 2: the natural beauty of the Buffalo River and how it

911
00:56:48,320 --> 00:56:51,040
Speaker 2: was unacceptable for it to be damned, and that he

912
00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:52,680
Speaker 2: supported a national park.

913
00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:56,920
Speaker 5: You know, Fabas's letter really puts the Army Corps of

914
00:56:56,920 --> 00:57:01,839
Speaker 5: Engineers back on their heels. And then John Paul Hammerschmidt

915
00:57:02,080 --> 00:57:04,399
Speaker 5: takes office in sixty seven, and one of the first

916
00:57:04,480 --> 00:57:08,000
Speaker 5: things that this new representative for Northwest Arkansas does is

917
00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:13,480
Speaker 5: he proposes a Buffalo River National Park bill. And it

918
00:57:13,560 --> 00:57:16,960
Speaker 5: takes five years for it to go through the political

919
00:57:17,080 --> 00:57:20,400
Speaker 5: process and eventually be signed by Richard Nixon.

920
00:57:20,720 --> 00:57:24,120
Speaker 2: It does March first, nineteen seventy two. Yeah, remember that

921
00:57:24,240 --> 00:57:28,160
Speaker 2: we said seventy two was a year of celebration and infamy.

922
00:57:28,800 --> 00:57:32,840
Speaker 2: It's all the matter of perspective, which will really explore

923
00:57:33,000 --> 00:57:36,200
Speaker 2: deeply on the next episode when we talk about a

924
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:41,680
Speaker 2: lady named ev or Granny Henderson. That's some foreshadowing for you.

925
00:57:44,560 --> 00:57:49,560
Speaker 5: It does eventually get passed. I guess from a landowner's perspective,

926
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 5: this all happens. Really, it just flips, and you know,

927
00:57:52,560 --> 00:57:56,120
Speaker 5: you go from fearing that your land is going to

928
00:57:56,160 --> 00:57:59,640
Speaker 5: be drowned and you're sort of elated, I guess when

929
00:58:00,120 --> 00:58:03,400
Speaker 5: you defeat that threat and then you turn around and here's,

930
00:58:03,600 --> 00:58:05,320
Speaker 5: you know, here's this National park.

931
00:58:07,160 --> 00:58:09,720
Speaker 2: It was. It's kind of portrayed as if it was

932
00:58:09,800 --> 00:58:12,960
Speaker 2: either one or the other, or like the National Park

933
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:16,280
Speaker 2: is what saved it from being damned? Was that ever

934
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:17,080
Speaker 2: really true?

935
00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:21,240
Speaker 5: You could certainly be justified in portraying the battle that way.

936
00:58:21,520 --> 00:58:25,000
Speaker 5: And here's why. When the Army Corps of Engineers backed

937
00:58:25,080 --> 00:58:28,760
Speaker 5: off a project, they usually didn't back off of it permanently.

938
00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:31,520
Speaker 5: A permanent backoff would have to They would have.

939
00:58:31,560 --> 00:58:33,880
Speaker 2: To actually wait till a new governor came in, or

940
00:58:34,520 --> 00:58:36,880
Speaker 2: the sentiment was different politically.

941
00:58:36,520 --> 00:58:40,080
Speaker 5: They could do that. What to to permanently get something,

942
00:58:40,080 --> 00:58:42,240
Speaker 5: To get a Damn project off the books, it would

943
00:58:42,280 --> 00:58:46,440
Speaker 5: have to be de authorized by Congress, and that rarely

944
00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:48,720
Speaker 5: ever happened. What they would usually do is they would

945
00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:50,840
Speaker 5: just just sort of put it on a back burner

946
00:58:50,920 --> 00:58:52,480
Speaker 5: and say this is not a priority.

947
00:58:52,640 --> 00:58:55,960
Speaker 2: And we know that they'll wait decades. Yeah, we know

948
00:58:56,080 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 2: that from from even this It's not it's not. If

949
00:58:59,840 --> 00:59:02,280
Speaker 2: it goes away for a year, that means nothing. Your

950
00:59:02,360 --> 00:59:05,200
Speaker 2: grandchildren might have that light in their backyard.

951
00:59:05,600 --> 00:59:07,880
Speaker 5: Yeah. And and if you follow a lot of the

952
00:59:08,760 --> 00:59:11,120
Speaker 5: as I've done a lot of the newspaper coverage of

953
00:59:11,200 --> 00:59:14,280
Speaker 5: these various Damn projects through time, from the from the

954
00:59:14,400 --> 00:59:18,720
Speaker 5: forties into the seventies, you can go a dozen years

955
00:59:19,160 --> 00:59:22,800
Speaker 5: without a Damn being mentioned in the press, and then

956
00:59:22,800 --> 00:59:25,680
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, here we are, you know, ten

957
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:28,080
Speaker 5: or twelve years later, here's a new hearing on a

958
00:59:28,160 --> 00:59:31,320
Speaker 5: Damn that I'd completely forgotten about. As I think it

959
00:59:31,720 --> 00:59:35,800
Speaker 5: in volume three, I compared it the Army Corps Damn

960
00:59:35,920 --> 00:59:38,880
Speaker 5: plans to like a monster out of a horror film.

961
00:59:39,120 --> 00:59:42,000
Speaker 5: You know, you think it's gone, but it's not really,

962
00:59:42,280 --> 00:59:45,000
Speaker 5: you know, it's it's it's just gonna it's gonna pop

963
00:59:45,120 --> 00:59:47,480
Speaker 5: back up when you don't expect it to. And so

964
00:59:47,680 --> 00:59:52,040
Speaker 5: that was the justification for the Ozark Society and yeah

965
00:59:52,400 --> 00:59:54,840
Speaker 5: and the people like that was we can't trust the

966
00:59:55,000 --> 00:59:58,160
Speaker 5: Army Corps engineers. They're not going to go away. So

967
00:59:58,320 --> 01:00:01,200
Speaker 5: the only the only safe way to keep this river

968
01:00:01,720 --> 01:00:04,680
Speaker 5: free flowing is to turn it into a national park.

969
01:00:05,760 --> 01:00:08,880
Speaker 2: In the next episode we'll learn if that was actually true,

970
01:00:09,600 --> 01:00:12,600
Speaker 2: and going back to our odd coincidence at the start.

971
01:00:13,120 --> 01:00:16,640
Speaker 2: In March of nineteen seventy two, Merle Haggard also released

972
01:00:16,680 --> 01:00:20,640
Speaker 2: his song Grandma Harp, which told about how her way

973
01:00:20,720 --> 01:00:24,760
Speaker 2: of life had gone. The region was now under control

974
01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:28,440
Speaker 2: of the National Park Service, which now had money appropriated

975
01:00:28,560 --> 01:00:31,520
Speaker 2: to buy land from the private citizens who owned the

976
01:00:31,680 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 2: ninety thousand acres that would become the park.

977
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:41,360
Speaker 4: We later sold the restaurant signing in Morning, and everybody

978
01:00:41,480 --> 01:00:43,000
Speaker 4: knew she'd done her part.

979
01:00:44,560 --> 01:00:47,840
Speaker 5: Don't get sucked here, no hidden let.

980
01:00:49,600 --> 01:00:55,440
Speaker 4: Just a song about the lives Grandma heart, just to

981
01:00:55,480 --> 01:00:58,160
Speaker 4: think about the times as she lived through.

982
01:00:59,440 --> 01:01:02,000
Speaker 2: I want to get back to the river with Willard.

983
01:01:03,760 --> 01:01:06,080
Speaker 2: Do you want to walk up to the old home place.

984
01:01:07,000 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, those smoke caps up. We can ride it forady.

985
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:10,520
Speaker 3: We get through here if you want to.

986
01:01:10,760 --> 01:01:17,880
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Yeah, we're at the fruit cellar and we

987
01:01:18,120 --> 01:01:20,240
Speaker 2: ride up the hill to the old home place.

988
01:01:21,920 --> 01:01:23,000
Speaker 5: So this year was where is.

989
01:01:23,000 --> 01:01:27,280
Speaker 3: Boring those smoke caps? The old house place was right

990
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:29,120
Speaker 3: back over here, just behind us.

991
01:01:29,640 --> 01:01:30,760
Speaker 5: What did the house look like?

992
01:01:31,960 --> 01:01:35,240
Speaker 3: It was a just a three room house. H had

993
01:01:35,320 --> 01:01:38,800
Speaker 3: out of one bedroom in the kitchen and the dining room.

994
01:01:39,320 --> 01:01:40,120
Speaker 5: Was it made of oak?

995
01:01:40,480 --> 01:01:41,960
Speaker 3: Is made of oak? Yeah? Board? Yeall?

996
01:01:42,080 --> 01:01:44,360
Speaker 2: Did it Did it have a rock foundation that went

997
01:01:44,400 --> 01:01:46,280
Speaker 2: to the ground or did it set up like set

998
01:01:46,360 --> 01:01:47,200
Speaker 2: up on rocks? No?

999
01:01:47,360 --> 01:01:50,640
Speaker 3: He had had a rock foundation, then wood forward and

1000
01:01:50,720 --> 01:01:51,560
Speaker 3: wood floor was right?

1001
01:01:52,640 --> 01:01:55,680
Speaker 2: And you were you were delivered by your grandmother, Yeah.

1002
01:01:55,520 --> 01:01:58,200
Speaker 3: My grandmother Hamson. Actually you were born right here, right.

1003
01:01:59,160 --> 01:02:01,320
Speaker 2: What's it like coming back in here? You ride this

1004
01:02:01,360 --> 01:02:03,080
Speaker 2: stretch of river a couple times a week.

1005
01:02:03,440 --> 01:02:07,840
Speaker 3: Heah, I come in here and reminiation show people around sometime.

1006
01:02:07,960 --> 01:02:10,640
Speaker 3: You know, some of the free answers talk to them, y'all.

1007
01:02:11,320 --> 01:02:13,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess in some ways it's better that it's

1008
01:02:13,960 --> 01:02:16,560
Speaker 2: like this than if it were under a lake. Somewhere.

1009
01:02:17,280 --> 01:02:20,880
Speaker 3: I've enjoyed it all my life, so yeah, I've been blessed.

1010
01:02:21,200 --> 01:02:22,919
Speaker 3: Yeah sure, hey, yeah.

1011
01:02:24,400 --> 01:02:27,920
Speaker 2: This is the first episode on the formation of the

1012
01:02:27,960 --> 01:02:32,000
Speaker 2: Buffalo National River, but this story is really about something

1013
01:02:32,200 --> 01:02:35,760
Speaker 2: much bigger. I'm sure many of you have family stories

1014
01:02:35,840 --> 01:02:39,840
Speaker 2: of people being forced from their land because of lakes, parks,

1015
01:02:40,000 --> 01:02:44,360
Speaker 2: or highways. The irony we wrestle with today is how

1016
01:02:44,440 --> 01:02:47,880
Speaker 2: seemingly happy many of us are that it happened to

1017
01:02:48,000 --> 01:02:51,520
Speaker 2: someone else, or at least it didn't happen in our generation.

1018
01:02:52,640 --> 01:02:55,440
Speaker 2: On the next episode, we'll go back in time and

1019
01:02:55,600 --> 01:03:00,000
Speaker 2: hear an original interview with the Buffalo Rivers first lange,

1020
01:03:00,600 --> 01:03:03,600
Speaker 2: who was featured in National Geographic in nineteen seventy four,

1021
01:03:04,280 --> 01:03:07,920
Speaker 2: Eva Barnes Henderson, or Granny Henderson as we know her,

1022
01:03:08,480 --> 01:03:12,520
Speaker 2: and will continue to discuss one of America's most valued

1023
01:03:12,800 --> 01:03:17,080
Speaker 2: public land doctrines, the greatest good for the greatest number.

1024
01:03:17,560 --> 01:03:20,640
Speaker 2: And let me tell you it's gonna get really personal.

1025
01:03:21,920 --> 01:03:23,960
Speaker 2: I'd like to take a minute and thank my friends

1026
01:03:24,360 --> 01:03:29,160
Speaker 2: Justin House and Kaylin Belions, both lifelong residents of Newton

1027
01:03:29,240 --> 01:03:32,920
Speaker 2: County who had lots of family on the river. Both

1028
01:03:33,160 --> 01:03:37,439
Speaker 2: helped me immensely in setting up these interviews and inspiring

1029
01:03:37,600 --> 01:03:40,760
Speaker 2: me with their family stories. I can't thank you enough

1030
01:03:40,800 --> 01:03:44,280
Speaker 2: for listening to Bear Grease and Brent's This Country Life podcast.

1031
01:03:45,120 --> 01:03:49,280
Speaker 2: Please share our podcast with a friend this week, and

1032
01:03:49,360 --> 01:03:53,120
Speaker 2: I look forward to talking with all those hillbillies on

1033
01:03:53,280 --> 01:03:54,919
Speaker 2: the Render next week