WEBVTT - Ep. 239: Battle for the Buffalo - A River's Erased Civilization 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:08.480 There are people all up and down the Buffalo River 0:00:09.039 --> 0:00:12.760 who feel like that they have lost something, that something 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.680 has been taken from them that they are never going 0:00:15.760 --> 0:00:17.480 to be able to get back. This is never going 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:18.240 to be restored. 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:23.640 In this series, we'll be examining the great American doctrine 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:28.920 utilitarian conservation, the greatest good for the greatest number, through 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:32.040 the lens of the formation of the Buffalo National River 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:36.160 in the Ozarks of Arkansas, touted as our nation's first 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:41.160 national river and celebrated without question, but will be looking 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:45.040 at a different side of the story, one rarely told 0:00:45.520 --> 0:00:49.040 or understood, as we focus on the families who got 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:53.279 the short end of the stick on this utilitarian doctrine 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:57.080 and had to give up their lands, being displaced by 0:00:57.120 --> 0:01:01.160 the strong arm of the government. In this episode, we'll 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.360 talk about human self interest. Take a mule ride with 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:09.760 Willard Vlynes, meet grassroots historian Misty Langdon, and interview our 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:15.360 longtime Bear Grease favorite historian and author and hillbilly doctor 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:19.760 Brooks Blevins about how the heck all this happened. The 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:24.120 water is ice cold and the story complex and windy. 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.080 Hang with us for a while, because I really doubt 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:31.000 that you're gonna want to miss this one. Where was 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:32.039 your house from right here? 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:37.280 Well? Let it for just about fifty yeards no foundation, 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:38.240 John left? Is it? 0:01:39.000 --> 0:01:39.600 Yeah? 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:47.560 Park till it down. 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.600 My name is Clay Nukem, and this is the Bear 0:01:53.680 --> 0:01:58.640 Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.400 for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:06.559 story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:12.920 Presented by FHF Gear, American made purpose built hunting and 0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:16.480 fishing gear as designed to be as rugged as the 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:28.320 place as we explore. I'm in the saddle atop my 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:32.040 trusty eight year old paint mule, Izzy, and we're following 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:38.520 behind another, perhaps even flashier sorrel a red paint mule. 0:02:39.880 --> 0:02:44.680 Willard's mule, Rosy, is about fifteen hands tall. She's good sized. 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:49.040 I feel like I'm following a glowing led light fifty 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:53.359 feet below the surface of a forested sea of hickory, 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:58.520 sweet gum, and walnut. We're completely under the shade until 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:02.040 the mule's hoofs the water as we entered the bright 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:09.800 sunlight crossing the river. Now, did y'all have y'all had 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.440 parts of the farm on both sides of the river. Right, 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:14.960 How did you how did you manage crossing it? Just 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:15.640 you just didn't. 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:17.919 If it was real high, couldn't. If it was real high, 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:18.880 it couldn't. 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:19.440 Get across the river. 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:21.000 Yeah, we said. 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:26.800 Willard the lines is seventy eight years old, born February twentieth, 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:31.120 nineteen forty six. He and eight siblings were born down 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.920 on this river, and two other siblings were born what 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:38.920 he calls up on the mountain, all in Newton County, Arkansas. 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:44.160 We're heading towards his old home place, but first we've 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.240 got another home place to stop at. 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:53.040 Grandma's maiden name was shown the line. It's nine a 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.920 year to tell about in a few short lines, down 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:01.520 in Newton County, down in Arkansham. And in nineteen one 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:04.960 she married Grandpa. That's where. 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:08.320 That's good. 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:08.880 Yeah. 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:17.960 Grandma's maiden name was Zone Blimes. There's ninety years to 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:23.400 tell about in a few short lines. Barn in Newton County, 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:30.160 down in Narkansas. Then in nineteen one she married Grandpa. 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.200 We lead her soul resting son in the morning. 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:39.159 And that greadbody new she tunner barn where that barn. 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:41.599 Don't get that barn is in pretty good shape. 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:47.520 Yeah, we always knowed this old Harper place. Merle Haggard's 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:52.640 grandma lived here. Her maiden name was Zone Vliines. Huh 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:53.720 she married a heart. 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:54.560 Some of y'all skin. 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:58.680 Yeah. She had been my probably great great ants in 0:04:58.720 --> 0:04:59.400 the real Yeah. 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.040 You know he's got a criminal background. 0:05:01.760 --> 0:05:07.560 Right, Well, I have too, in prison. 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:12.039 Doing life with U Bro. That was Merle Haggard's song 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:16.760 Grandma Harp. Her maiden name was Vlyines, just like Willard's. 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.520 She was born in eighteen seventy six and died in 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:24.040 nineteen sixty nine at the age of ninety three in 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:29.200 Newton County. Haggard released this song in nineteen seventy two, 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.040 three years after her death, and it talks about her 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:36.440 way of life dying, Which is an odd coincidence because 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:40.960 that year, nineteen seventy two would be significant for this 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:45.080 river and the people who lived near it. For most, 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:47.359 it would be a year of the celebration of a 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.800 conservation success. But for the people who had land that 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:56.160 actually touched this river, for many of them, it's a 0:05:56.240 --> 0:06:05.960 year of infamy. Here's Willard telling us about his so 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:10.520 called criminal record. Remember we're on mules standing in front 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:11.239 of an old barn. 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:14.440 Matter of fact, I paid my first fine right here 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:16.799 to the park rangers. Is that right? Right? 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:17.640 What happened? 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:22.480 There's about ten of us come in down here and camped. Now, 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:26.040 the eight of them was preachers. Well, the next morning 0:06:27.000 --> 0:06:30.360 the park rangers come up the creek. There's some horseback 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:34.239 riders down here. Where's all riding mules. There's some horseback riders. 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.200 They made fun of her mules. They went back up 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:40.560 still creek and told the park ranger we's camped here. 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.120 And the next morning they met us down here, and 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:45.919 you weren't a camp here, that's what he said. We 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:47.960 slept in the old barn. He said, we wasn't supposed to. 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:50.040 How that's it with you? 0:06:50.120 --> 0:06:51.320 Well, not very good. 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:54.720 The real question is why was he making fun of 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:55.360 your mules? 0:06:55.640 --> 0:06:57.839 I don't know. They just made light of her mules. 0:06:57.920 --> 0:06:59.880 Oh man, that gets under my skin quick. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.800 But I told that park ranger, I said, I want 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:06.600 you to just look here. I said, when my folks 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:08.640 lived here, I said, this was all clared land. I 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:12.760 said a rabbit couldn't get through here. Now, man, I said, 0:07:12.800 --> 0:07:14.640 I'll take the blame. I said, these are other people 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:17.640 didn't know. I asked him. I said, well, what's to 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.880 find thee and he said, be twenty five dollars. He 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:22.800 looked in his book and he said no, said he'll 0:07:22.840 --> 0:07:26.480 be fifty dollars. I said, you look in that book 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:28.800 and find something for twenty five dollars, and he did. 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:33.040 He charged me twenty five. That's honest. True. Of course 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.280 he left. They took up a donation. I've come out 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.640 of ahead and all the preachers pitched it. 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:43.800 I don't want to make light of breaking the law, 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:48.080 but this story captures something that's eluded ninety nine percent 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.840 of people, including me, who've enjoyed this area, which is 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:56.000 now public land. Many of the families who had to 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:59.720 sell their land to the government against their will are 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.400 wiel sore about the whole deal, though it took place 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:08.360 over fifty years ago. You see today Grandma Harp's land 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.800 sits in the upper portion of a ninety five thousand, 0:08:11.960 --> 0:08:15.320 seven hundred and thirty acre block of land designated as 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:19.400 the Buffalo National River in nineteen seventy two. Advertised as 0:08:19.440 --> 0:08:24.560 America's first national River, the government acquired over ninety thousand 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:28.520 acres of private land from over two thousand property owners, 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:31.679 some of whose families had been in the region since 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.160 this place was homesteaded. At one time, you could have 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:38.360 driven a car in here, but since nineteen seventy two 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.320 the nearest road is well over an hour's ride on 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:46.040 a mule. The fields once cleared by Willard's kinfolks have 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:50.240 grown up into secondary succession brambles en route in the 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.800 next seventy five years to return to the Ozarks Climax 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:57.200 forest of oak and hickory. When you ride down the 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:00.000 river with Willard and you hear the stories of his child, 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.079 childhood and what used to be his community, it's kind 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.320 of spooky. It might be what it's like to visit 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:11.439 Chernobyl in Ukraine. It's like a civilization erased off the map, 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:17.120 engulfed by the subtle violence of natural reclamation cycles, collapsing 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:21.800 barns and smoke houses, dilapidated homes in various stages of decay, 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:26.400 hayfields turned into cedar groves decay in nineteen forties, model 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:32.240 forward trucks laying around, and footprints of rock foundations of 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.680 buildings are scattered all down the river. But it didn't 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:41.040 happen because of a nuclear disaster. Or industry moving. It 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.920 happened because the place was so stinking beautiful that the 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:49.360 government decided to turn it into a national park. And 0:09:49.400 --> 0:09:53.040 trust me, you don't want to be in the government 0:09:53.240 --> 0:09:58.440 sites when they want your land. They've proven that from 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:02.560 the perspective of a human, nature's takeover of this place 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:07.079 seems sluggish and slow, but by how the earth measures, 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:11.320 it's as hot, tempered, and swift as a tornado. The 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:15.920 soil is an insatiable savage, engulfing dead organic matter. Above 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:20.400 it houses barns and flesh, while shooting rockets of living 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.720 cells to the sky. Jealous for sunlight. Anything in its 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:30.000 path be dead gummed. Its strategy is to outlast anything 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:34.920 in everything. The earth knows that in time it will 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:38.880 beat you, and in some ways, so does the government. 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:46.000 This story is about the modern American people, not just here, 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:50.600 who sacrifice their homelands for quote, the greater good of society, 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:55.640 slain by our utilitarian land use doctrine the greatest good 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:59.640 for the greatest number, which we including I hold so dear. 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.920 But if you've never had your land taken and your 0:11:02.920 --> 0:11:07.000 family uprooted, then it's hard to understand our national parks 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:09.840 are celebrated in our culture, and we're proud that our 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:12.920 nation had the idea to lead the world in preserving 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:16.480 such places of natural beauty. But the truth is that 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.640 the stories of land acquisition for the Great Smoky Mountain 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:24.000 National Park, the Shenandoah Valley National Park, and many many 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:29.000 others were downright brutal. The story of the Buffalo is 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.600 a lesser known story. Also, much like the hundreds of 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:36.760 thousands of acres of land taken for recreational lakes in 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:40.360 this country between the nineteen thirties and seventies, these are 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:44.760 not glamorous stories celebrated in our culture. But there was 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:47.760 a time when this country was hungry for land and 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:52.600 somebody had to fork it up. Ozark historian doctor Brooks 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.680 Blevins wrote that the land acquisition process of the National 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.559 Park Service when inquiring land for the Buffalo was at 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:06.040 best confusing and at worst deceptive. Before we get into 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.079 the details of how this river came to be America's 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:13.400 first national river, I want to talk with Misty Langdon, 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:17.840 a Newton County native whose mother was of Alliones related 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:22.600 to Willard. But Misty's a grassroots community leader who created 0:12:22.640 --> 0:12:30.520 the Remnants project, designed to document the history of Newton County. 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:32.760 People ask me all the time why I do this, 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:36.160 because it is so much work. And Richard, I know, 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:37.880 he pulls his hair out all the time at me 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:39.880 because I'm I'll go down a rabbit hole and I 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:41.439 might not come up for a day or so, and 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.080 and people will call in. He says, she's looking for 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:48.160 dead people. Just you know, let her be. But there 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.920 are people all up and down the Buffalo River who 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:55.559 feel like that they have lost something, that something has 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.439 been taken from them that they are never going to 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:00.880 be able to get back. It's never to be restored. 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.400 It's really interesting and kind of makes my head spin 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:09.120 backwards to hear someone talk about the Buffalo River this way, 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:13.680 because this is a place I've only heard celebrated. But 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:16.240 it turns out there's a lot of stories I didn't know. 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:20.240 I first floated this river in nineteen ninety eight, and 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:23.240 after I got married in two thousand, my wife and 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.120 I spent a lot of time here. We even named 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:31.440 our middle daughter River. I asked Misty, from the community's perspective, 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.080 how all this went from private farmland back in the 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.160 seventies into a national park. 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:41.640 I mean, you hear rumors that something's, you know, a foot, 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:47.720 but to actually get a notice of condemnation of your 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:53.480 property and have no formal letter or anything before that, 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.560 I think it was the shock and awe factor of 0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:57.000 how it was. 0:13:57.280 --> 0:13:59.360 And this would have been in the late sixties, early 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.800 seventies before there was i mean, any kind of internet 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:07.000 or the communication was just way different back then. And 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:09.160 so you're saying some of these people on the river 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:11.559 were just totally caught off. They are totally because it 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:16.120 had been embroiled in like at least twenty years of 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:19.440 murmurs of this is going to be damned, This is 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:21.280 not going to be damned, This is going to be 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:23.480 a wild and scenic river. This is going to be 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:26.920 and it probably just kind of after a decade or 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:28.560 so of that, it was just kind of like, what 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:30.800 is going to happen? Is it ever going to happen? 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:33.000 Well, it kind of goes back to that thing talking 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:37.840 about isolated communities too, because in Fayetteville, the way that 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.239 their town and everything was structured, they had all the amenities. 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:44.200 By the sixties, the late sixties and early seventies, there 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:48.120 were people in Boxley that didn't have phones, and some 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.040 probably still didn't have along the river. I know still 0:14:51.080 --> 0:14:54.359 didn't have you know, electricity, They were running off generators. 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:59.160 Fatdeville is the largest town in the region, about fifty 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.760 miles from the buffer. Low Boxley is a small community 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:06.400 at the head of the river. Interestingly, people from the 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:09.200 Fayedville area would play a big role in having the 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:14.520 river nationalized. Newton County was truly the backwoods of Arkansas. 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.920 And I can say this because I is one that 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.080 most of the people that lived here were white folks 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.840 of low financial means and what the world would call 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:30.520 hillbilly's people rich in land, love of country, family and hardship, 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:36.720 not money, education or political power. Later we'll see where 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:40.920 I believe the socio economic status would come into play. 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:47.440 So that isolation was a real, a real hardship for them, 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:50.720 and that was something I think tactically that the locals 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:55.480 could not get over, was the lack of organization. I 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:57.560 know in one of the oral histories that I had 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.800 listened to, the interviewer asks the lady, did you ever 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:05.440 sign petitions? Did you ever go to meetings? And the 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.480 answer was they had signed a petition once the word 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.560 had started to spread, but they never had meetings. You know, 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:13.920 those are the type of things that we look at 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:17.560 as a culture as being bad. You know, that's something 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:22.960 that against your government. You don't have secret meetings. And 0:16:23.360 --> 0:16:26.920 I mean it's like, these are people who were complete patriots. 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:29.360 They had fought in, you know, World War Two, they 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:34.320 had a Korea, World War One, and to think about 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:38.040 setting up a meeting to talk about your government, I 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:42.400 mean that was And especially you think about what went 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:45.480 through during the fifties about communism and how everybody was 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:49.240 so nervous about being, you know, branded as a communist. 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:53.080 I think that was just a little bit too far 0:16:53.120 --> 0:16:55.000 outside their realm of comfort. 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:58.760 They weren't really comfortable using the tools of the time 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.240 period RCT that would have been able to combat it. 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:03.040 It's not like these people would have been like, oh, well, 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:07.200 here's what we do to stop a major government action, right. 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:09.520 Like a town hall or a you know or whatever. 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:13.720 They just did not utilize that because and I'm putting 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:15.920 words in their mouths because I don't know, but in 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:19.639 my opinion, they didn't utilize it because that was just 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:23.880 a step too far against their against their own government. 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.040 And I think that by the time, because I spoke 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:30.160 with one guy down in Boxley and he's about my parents' age. 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.880 And I said, or how in the world did nobody 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.439 get killed over this? Because I know how hot tempered 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:38.679 I am. I'm a breed loving of the lines. That 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:44.199 is a terrible combination. And I can't imagine in the 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.520 time period that they were living, I don't know how 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.919 it skirted around and somebody didn't get killed. 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.199 Let's stop for just a second here. It's interesting that 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:59.880 this conversation starts from the angle that this government action 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.720 and to quote preserve the Buffalo is negative And if 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.280 you're from this part of the country, you'd be hard 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.680 pressed to hear anybody say, narry a negative word about 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:13.600 this place. This Buffalo National River is the crown jewel 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:17.880 of our state. But I'm learning that perspective can turn 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.800 the whole narrative one hundred and eighty degrees, So being 0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:25.080 your doctrine into the hypocritical ditch, And that's what makes 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:29.640 this story so interesting. We love public lands and national parks, 0:18:30.240 --> 0:18:32.520 but do we like how they make the sausage in 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:35.880 the back room? Are you a fan of displacement so 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:39.000 that our society will have a place to recreate? That's 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:42.520 a harsh question, but it's one we asked our society 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.440 and they said yes to. It's what we asked the 0:18:45.480 --> 0:18:49.200 American people before displacing the families in the Shenandoah in 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.560 Great Smoking Mountains National Park. And it's the question we 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:56.480 asked America before the Indian Removal Act of eighteen thirty. 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.960 It's just interesting what as a society we're able to 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:05.240 justify now. The Indian Removal Act was pure wickedness. Even 0:19:05.320 --> 0:19:08.960 David Crockett thought so. But the questions about national parks 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:13.400 are much more nuanced. Landowners were paid, and some got 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:16.520 market value for their land, and in many cases simply 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:19.960 moved right down the road out of the park. But nonetheless, 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:24.200 the question of heavy handed government power and property owner 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:28.439 rights is a big one. But let's get back to 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:39.119 the river. Willard Vilnes was born down here. We've passed 0:19:39.200 --> 0:19:42.680 Merle Haggard's grandma's place and we're riding down the rivers 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:46.639 edged the land Willard's father used to own and farm. 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.280 He's taking me to another barn. So tell me about 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:50.760 this barn. 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:54.639 Well, my dad and two brothers colder in me and 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:00.080 mister Daniels, they built his barn and they used a 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.760 handshaw to cut the rash prison. He didn't have no 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:05.560 electric tool to talk, but he'd be a load that 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:07.399 was born with handhol. 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:08.280 What year you think of this built? 0:20:09.400 --> 0:20:12.800 Uh? We moved. We moved out of here in fifty six, 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:18.200 probably probably then fifty. 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:21.480 I say you remember as little kid this barn? 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:25.520 Yeah I remember? Yeah, I member, Well, yeah, we would 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:29.080 we cut hay off down in there and Dad would 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:31.879 he would rake it and shock it and put it 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:34.639 on the wagon. I was just about I don't know, 0:20:34.800 --> 0:20:38.800 ship seven year old shummers in there. But he let 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:41.080 me drive the mules while they loaded the wagon. 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:44.520 What's it? What's it like coming to barn like this 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:48.280 that your dad built, that's now just like engulfed in 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.240 forest and all right, it's kind of it's kind of 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:52.720 a unique situation. 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:57.560 Will Yeah, here I visited. I probably want your class 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:01.200 here and KYI remind this a little bit. Yeah, I'm 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:03.359 brought the kids over here and took pictures with them 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:03.760 over here. 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:07.520 And now where was your house from here? 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:09.920 HiT's old trufher mitch cruching. 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.160 Yeah, we was able to go to your old home place. 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:13.440 Oh yeah, with crousty river. 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:16.280 Yell, is there anything still there, no shler. 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:21.560 Small custure there. Yeah, no foundation jo left of it. Yeah, 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:23.120 park tore it down. 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:28.040 The park tore down his old house. The Vilnes left 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:31.160 in nineteen fifty six, and I assumed by seventy two 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:36.000 the old house was in disrepair and not deemed historically significant. 0:21:36.880 --> 0:21:39.720 Some of the buildings of this civilization were left, while 0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:43.720 others destroyed. How the heck did all this come about? 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:47.320 We're heading to Willard's home place where he was born, 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:51.200 delivered by his grandmother. We're going to have to cross 0:21:51.440 --> 0:21:55.480 what the Ozarkians call the Buffalo kind of leaving out 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:59.879 the US Sound in Buffalo, it's a gravel bedstream with 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:04.000 headwaters bird in the highest elevations of the Ozark Mountains 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:08.520 in northwest Arkansas, the Boston Range, which reaches about twenty 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:12.320 five hundred feet. The Eurogeny of the Ozarks is the 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:17.000 work of incomprehensible time and erosion on an uplifted plateau 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:20.760 that was once the bed of a shallow ocean. Fossils 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:25.919 of fish and crustaceans are common here. Geologists and psychologists 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:30.160 agree that humans are incapable of understanding deep geologic time 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:36.560 beyond a shallow intellectual regurgitation of huge, meaningless numbers. It's 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.240 kind of like trying to explain to a grasshopper the 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.080 life span of a wide oak. The beasts of the 0:22:42.160 --> 0:22:46.560 Earth only understand time and segments congruit to their lifespans. 0:22:47.520 --> 0:22:50.560 Geologists believe the Ozarks are older than the Appalachians, with 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:55.480 origins reaching back one point six billion years, but even 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:59.919 to the world's top geologists, things are hazy back that far. 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:05.879 The Ozark Highlands or Mountains are in the central United States, 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:10.440 encompassing southern Missouri, northern Arkansas, and a small portion in 0:23:10.560 --> 0:23:15.440 eastern Oklahoma and Kansas, and it roughly encompasses fifty thousand 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.080 square miles. There are no natural lakes in the Ozarks. 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:22.320 In the rugged regions, we call them mountains, and I'd 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:26.359 challenge any outsider to come here, hike em afoot and 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:29.440 tell me they aren't mountains. But if you want to 0:23:29.520 --> 0:23:33.320 talk about the epicenter of beauty and ruggedness the Ozarks, 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:37.000 it's hard to deny that the Buffalo River country is 0:23:37.080 --> 0:23:42.119 its lifeblood. Starting in Newton County, the meandering River flows 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:45.879 through Cercy and Marion Counties until it enters the White 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:49.719 River in Baxter County one hundred and fifty three miles 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:53.080 from its head but as the crow flies, from its 0:23:53.119 --> 0:23:57.000 headwaters to its termination is only sixty miles. The river 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:03.160 is known for its pristine aqua blue green water towering limestone, sandstone, 0:24:03.200 --> 0:24:07.520 and dolomite bluffs some four hundred feet above the water's surface. 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:12.560 It's known for its caves and its incredible wet weather waterfalls. 0:24:13.400 --> 0:24:16.639 A couple hundred yards off the river, uphimned in Hollow 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:20.639 is America's largest waterfall between the Appalachians and the Rockies, 0:24:20.680 --> 0:24:25.919 which plunges two hundred and nine feet to the valley floor. However, 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:29.639 by the calculations of men when they judge wildness based 0:24:29.720 --> 0:24:33.359 upon lack of human footprint, this river is one of 0:24:33.440 --> 0:24:40.600 America's few remaining free flowing, undamned rivers. And this is 0:24:40.880 --> 0:24:46.520 truly something worth celebrating. They're over ninety thousand dams in America, 0:24:47.080 --> 0:24:50.520 and they dang there, damned the buffalo put in all 0:24:50.560 --> 0:25:17.040 these houses, barns and bluffs underwater. Doctor Brooks Blevins is 0:25:17.080 --> 0:25:21.240 a professor at Missouri State University and a prolific author 0:25:21.440 --> 0:25:24.760 about the Ozarks. In twenty twenty two, he published a 0:25:24.800 --> 0:25:28.280 book called up south in the Ozarks. In it, he 0:25:28.440 --> 0:25:32.560 has an essay called against the Current. I want to 0:25:32.720 --> 0:25:35.639 get into the deeper history of how the Buffalo was 0:25:35.760 --> 0:25:38.880 saved from being damned and how it became a national river. 0:25:39.880 --> 0:25:45.600 Here's myself and doctor Brooks Blevins well in your interest, 0:25:46.040 --> 0:25:49.600