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

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
My name is Clay Nukeleman.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
This is a production of the Bear Grease podcast called
The Bear Grease Render, where we render down, dive deeper,
and look behind the scenes of the actual bear Grease podcast,
presented by f h F Gear, American made purpose built
hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged

(00:37):
as the place as we explore.

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Brice Brince knows as he's got an oversized noteized I
stuff tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Man, Hey, I've been looking forward to this particular render
for a while. I really have, because as Misty Misty
will tell you, I like beg people to tell me,
you know, just to like talk to me about the podcast,
and uh, and she gets.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Tired of it.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Josh has to talk to me about the podcast because
it's his job. So I call him between the hours
of eight and five and can talk to him.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
But if it's like, if it's later, he's like, well, Clay,
maybe I'll talk to you tomorrow about it. So I'm
glad you're all here so we can talk about this.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
This episode with with Granny Henderson, we have some very
distinguished guests. We have aligned everybody Todays, so it's the exploiters.

Speaker 1 (01:39):
Versus the preservationists. Hey, we're on the outsiders.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Wait wait a minute, now, I don't know if y'all
in this context for the outsiders or not, but uh,
and the locals. But no, that kind of just happened
on its own. We have Lake Pickle from all the
way from the great state of Mississippi. You are our
UnBias like outsider. Officially he's the outsider.

Speaker 5 (02:04):
Yeah, I'm ten out of ten and outsider in this situation.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
You never heard this story before.

Speaker 5 (02:09):
No, I I yeah, I went into it completely because yeah,
I had nothing to base it off of.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
So yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I want to hear your thoughts.
And then we have Kyle Plunkett. So good to have
you from the Those Are podcast.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
I'm moderately biased.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Moderately biased.

Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yeah, well it's fair.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
And I wanted to invite you because I first heard Misty,
who I'm about to introduce on your podcast. And uh
and and so anyway, you guys had done some stuff
on the redesignation of the river and so good to
have you, man.

Speaker 4 (02:43):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
And now you're tell us about your podcast.

Speaker 4 (02:46):
What do you want to know?

Speaker 5 (02:47):
Plug?

Speaker 4 (02:47):
Little plug? Just yeah, well a couple.

Speaker 6 (02:50):
Of years ago, we were Kyle Vett and I were
really getting into bow hunting and bear hunting and fishing,
and realized that all of the media and all the tacks,
we're not for here, and so that kind of kicked
us into this whole world of trying to figure out
how to kill big deer and how to kill big bear,
and how to catch big fish in the Ozarks. And
one thing led to another, and we started uncovering the

(03:12):
history and the people and the conservation and the stories
and realized the Ozarks are way more than just a
pretty place to recreate in. It's a really really amazing
place to live and a really really amazing place to
come from. So we're both I think we're six and
seventh generation Ozarkers, so like years and years of family
heritage in this area, all that kind of stuff. And

(03:32):
so we interview guests who talk about the Ozarks pretty
much anything we find interesting, we go find somebody talk
to in that interview.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
So, well, you guys are doing a good job. I
appreciate it, but we don't want anybody to move here.
So stay where you're at. This is a terrible place.

Speaker 4 (03:48):
Good to have you.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Kyle thanks, Misty Langdon, you're really the guest of honor, Missy.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Well true true story, true story.

Speaker 7 (03:56):
Careful you let it go to my head.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
No, So, Misty was on on the was on the
on the feature guests on. Josh is really jealous of
people that are feature guests on because he never has been.

Speaker 8 (04:11):
Still.

Speaker 5 (04:13):
Has pustache, has a T shirt.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
But to be able to be a feature, to be
a feature guest means that you like have like, you know,
a fairly substantial contribution to the to the to an episode.

Speaker 5 (04:28):
Clay hasn't figured out what I can contribute.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
But but Misty was. So you were on both of them.
You were on both episodes. And and I told this
to Misty beforehand. I was I want to hear any
place I got it wrong, any place.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
That uh, there's any you know you brought the story.
The story needs some fixing. Yea, she has, Uh, she has,
she has a few things, I'm sure, but uh. And
and my wife, Misty will tell you that you were
the person I was most I was most like man.
I hope, I hope Misty is okay with this. It's true,

(05:05):
it's true.

Speaker 7 (05:05):
Maybe maybe you think I'm the meanest.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
No, I just, I just you're not too afraid.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Maybe maybe that's it.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
He's scared of girl's name, Missy.

Speaker 8 (05:15):
There's a lot of misty power. There's a lot of
Misty power.

Speaker 7 (05:19):
There's so many of us.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
No but but Misty's from Newton County and uh and
so she has a lot of real personal connections to
this story, big time personal connections.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
And so it's it's great to have you, Thank.

Speaker 7 (05:32):
Yous for coming, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
And then I have all these folks, I have my
lovely wife, doctor mister new great to have you, thank
you here, Josh Lambridge, Spillmak Brent Reeves.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Man, I just want to say that that this render
better be good because it's gonna be hard to live
up to the last one.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah, you guys did a great job.

Speaker 5 (05:53):
Yeah we did.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
We did, of course did a great job without Yep.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
We should make a habit of that.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
I would love to not be here sometimes we would.

Speaker 9 (06:04):
Okay, everybody in we're in.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Uh uh So you left off one guest, Oh Tim.
I'm not sure if on the video he can't figure
out whether or not see Tim, Tim the squirrel dog.

Speaker 5 (06:21):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
Let me tell you a quick story about Tim the
squirrel dog. Since we're all here, this dog was bought
at the same time as another squirrel dog of similar
similar lineage. You'll like this, like because your dog man, Brent,
your dog man, uh, and the other dog was way better,

(06:41):
like way more natural ability, to the point that we
had to keep her up, you know, kind of had
to pend her up because she would she would run
off and hunt and she would be gone. This lazy
dog stayed, stayed around the house and like worked its
way into becoming like the favorite dog in our family.

Speaker 8 (06:59):
Well it's waiting to becoming an actual member of the family, yep.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
But because of this dog's the dog never goes in
the pen, because of its exposure to squirrels around here,
this dog is in a really good squirrel dog, tim
you see, almost as good as like the Michael Jordan dog.
And that's an exaggeration, but for me, the Michael Jordan

(07:24):
dog I had.

Speaker 1 (07:25):
So the take home.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Is is that exposure and practice, Like that dog knows
what a squirrel's thinking right now, Like he knows that
that squirrel that lives over there will be down at
four point thirty to eat you know, horse apples out
of that bow.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Dark over there.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Tess is like Michael Jordan, tons of ability, great nose,
great instinct, great tree power, great drive. So exposure can
almost with just like natural talent. And that's where Brent
comes in, because Brent has no natural talent.

Speaker 7 (08:02):
Just a.

Speaker 4 (08:04):
Yeah, but I beat all those charges.

Speaker 5 (08:07):
The moral of the story, anybody can succeed. That's right, Abody, Yeah,
that's right.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
That's right.

Speaker 5 (08:13):
Now.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
I had to give Tim a plug.

Speaker 7 (08:14):
There lebron So you've got Michael Jordan's and.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Lebrony just there you go, there you go. So Phelps
is coming out with a new deer call.

Speaker 4 (08:26):
That's a great segue. Yeah, yep, left turn.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
Talking about Michael Jordan. Yeah, this is uh so last
year we came out with the Akron grunner spelled the
correct way a k e r n akron grunner. And
uh it's the it's the first call in the market.
That's the inhale exhale bleat and grunt call or grunt call.
I love a bleat call, like the like the old

(08:52):
primost can. I mean he's called in so many deer.
A lot of guys just carry a grunt call. This
has an inhale ex hell. You can adjust the reads.
You flip it and the call is opposite.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
Like there's one.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Way where when you blow and it's a grunt and
you suck and it's a it's a fawn bleat or
dope blea. You flip it and you blow and it's
a bleat and you suck and it's a grunt call.
The tones are slightly different, but I constantly am using
a bleak call and don't want to carry two calls.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
And so anyway, this is the acren Pro.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
And it's the it's h it's from Phelps and it's
an acrylic call and you can you know, like totally adjustable.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
So anyway, these are coming out like real soon, the
acren Pro, the acorn Pro.

Speaker 6 (09:40):
Fancy you want some free marketing on that one, Clay, Yeah,
I have to give it to you. No, No, I
used your your wooden acron Oh yeah, but the one. Yeah,
I was one of the guys that you got on
the it's limited, you got to get it quick, and
I was like that, I'm buying it. It's happening, yeah,
And I used it to call up that big ozark

(10:00):
buck I killed. I heard him down on the on
the ledge and was bleating at him. I mean it
was like peak right was starting. He was he sounded
like a train coming through the woods, and he turned
and came.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
Right up the hill.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
Really, you bleeded at him?

Speaker 4 (10:12):
I did?

Speaker 1 (10:13):
You didn't ground at him. See, I think that that they.

Speaker 5 (10:16):
Didn't know which end of the call he had.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
So I.

Speaker 4 (10:20):
Was just breathing through it.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
What was going to happen?

Speaker 5 (10:23):
What happens?

Speaker 4 (10:24):
We got to bleed? He turned and came right up
I mean his opening rifle, dad, I mean perfect. Oh yeah,
that's a good plug. I saw that it was.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
How big was that deer?

Speaker 6 (10:34):
Thirteen points one hundred and sixty three inches. That's a
big Deer's the biggest deer.

Speaker 7 (10:39):
I remember that one from Instagram.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
Yeah, it kind of made its round. This is like,
this is this is weird.

Speaker 6 (10:44):
I never posted something on social media and everybody's clapping, like,
you did a good job killing that thing.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 8 (10:49):
Yeah, Oh, that's very fun funny story about akorn. Just
to you know, since I saw it spelled out there
this I guess in the last two weeks, wordle the
New York Times game had the word of the day,
Like the first word was akron or I don't.

Speaker 5 (11:05):
I don't play the game.

Speaker 8 (11:07):
Oh, akron was the word and everybody a k a O.
But Clay's niece couldn't get it even though she knew what.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
The word was.

Speaker 8 (11:18):
And everybody and we got so many messages that day
like your favorite word and everybody else. Uh, there's a
family thread where Clay's ants and his mom they all
play they all play it together and they were like,
it's Clay's favorite word, and everybody was like akron and
his niece couldn't get.

Speaker 5 (11:34):
It right, because.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
We're educating the whole generation.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
Great one direct sounds like it one direction?

Speaker 2 (11:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well, man, I think enough with
all the maloney.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
We need to we need to talk about this episode.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
This Uh, this episode to me is like if at
this point and I get excited about every episode, like
anyone that I'm doing is something that I'm like really
interested in, and so in a given time.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
Period, you would be like, hey, Clave, what are you
thinking about?

Speaker 2 (12:11):
And I'll be like, man, we just I'm doing the
most interesting research I've ever done in my life, and
I'll talk about the episode that I'm working on.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
But this one is different. This one.

Speaker 2 (12:22):
I told Misty just a little bit ago that in
the original Bear Grease list of potential episodes that I
did before the podcast ever started, that was one of
the exercises that we did.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
It's like, okay, you're going to start a podcast. Okay,
mock out episodes, and all it was was a title.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
But I wanted to do an episode on Granny Henderson.
And that was four years ago, and I really didn't
know much about her at that time. I just knew
what probably a lot of our Kansons know is just
that you know, she lived on the Buffalo, she she
had to leave. You know, I didn't know much, but
I knew that that was a good story. And then
the way that this all came about, and I just

(13:03):
told I told Misty this just a little bit ago
was I hadn't quite figured out the angle on it,
and it wasn't even on my mind actually, But I
was riding mules with Justin House, a friend of mine,
friend of Misty's, over on the Buffalo River and just
me and him were riding that day and for eight

(13:25):
miles down the river. He was telling me stories of
all the different home places and he knows it exceptionally well.
Justin's a pretty young guy. I think he's like twenty
six or something. And man, he knew just like every story,
every home place, every every little detail of who owned
the land that is now the Buffalo National River. So

(13:47):
we're riding through, you know, just big woods, and it's like, well,
there's a home place there, and he'd take me up
and show me a barn or a footing of a
house or this, or a smokehouse or And I came
home that night and I told my daughter.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
River, who's on the last episode. I said, Man, da
da da da da dada.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
I started telling about the river, and she said, you
need to make a podcast about that, and I immediately did.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
Started.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Some of these episodes were doing like the preparation really
is is a year in the making, honestly, like and
not that I researched something for a year, but.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
The next episode, that's serious, that's going to come out.
I read the first book about that over a year
ago and it just kind of stews. This one like came.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
Up quick, but it had been brewing for a long
time and uh. And I was able to get in
contact with the right people, one of which was Misty,
and then Misty helped me get in touch with Jane Kilgore,
who is Grant Henderson's granddaughter, and then uh, just just

(14:57):
all the pieces fell in And I say all that
to say, this episode to me is kind of like core.
I feel like I love some of these that I
don't know, they just they there's there's. I've been trying
to figure out what it is I really like about
certain stories, but this one's close to the top of

(15:17):
the list, I think.

Speaker 4 (15:19):
Ye.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
But what's a what's a good way to to start
talking about this?

Speaker 4 (15:28):
Misty, doctor misty?

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Okay, thanks for the help.

Speaker 4 (15:34):
I remember that. I remember that National Geographic.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah, do you really?

Speaker 9 (15:38):
My grandfather had all my life he had a subscription
the National Geographic that was given to him for Christmas
every year by my uncle, his his son, and I'm
I'd love to get and my grandfather would.

Speaker 4 (15:53):
He was.

Speaker 9 (15:55):
Not highly educated formerly, but very well educated, very well
read man, very smart man, and he would read a
National Geographic from cover to cover. Anything that he could
pick up and read, if it was a popular mechanics
or the instructions on how to build something, he read everything.
And I tried to emulate that and read that, and

(16:15):
I can remember that in US talking that National Geographic
and another one that highlighted some stuff from where we
were from in Bradley County. I remember talking to him
about those, but that was one of them that I remember.

Speaker 4 (16:29):
I don't remember. I didn't remember Granny Henderson's name. I
remember that from later on in life learning about it.
But in seventy seven I would have been eleven years
old and I remember that story.

Speaker 3 (16:41):
Amazing photographs. Yeah, I think they did a great job
kind of capturing who she was and her lifestyle just
by that handful of photographs.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
Yeah, that portraits the little famous one, isn't it.

Speaker 7 (16:56):
Yeah, it's a good one.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
Now, Misty, have you seen the other There's other photos
I think from this photo shoot that weren't in this magazine.

Speaker 7 (17:05):
I've seen a few that I think Jane had let
me look at, probably when I was a kid at church,
that she she'd let me see a few. I have
a few that she let me copy, and some of
them have the National Geographic stamp on the back. And
then there's some others. Blair Deetering did a book called
Down the Compton Road, and it highlighted her. It highlighted

(17:29):
ev and all of her neighbors, it's a really good
Did I give you that one clay House? I think so.
I think it's there on the bottom, and that's a
black and white copy, but it's got all of her
neighbors in it, and it's a really good. Yeah, Gertie
stud of then you just passed her. That was EV's
best friend. And there are a couple of oral history

(17:51):
recordings that have the two of them together.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Oh really those are camo.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
Ca Yeah, little Jones, what do you call them?

Speaker 1 (18:01):
You know?

Speaker 7 (18:02):
Side note, My Grandpa Boyd, he always wore camouflage. I
mean it was constant. That's all he ever wore. That
was his uniform unless he went to church and then
it was britches and a and a button up shirt.
But I still have some of his coveralls that are
the old pattern, the old cameo before they started getting
the crew.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Back in the day.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
That was pretty progressive though that camo probably first came
out in the sixties and seventies. So Granny there'd be
like Granny wearing like bottom land.

Speaker 8 (18:33):
First, like cash, she's got converses on it, I mean, yeah,
also pretty good.

Speaker 7 (18:37):
I guarantee if somebody gave her that hat, and I'd
love to know who gave it to her.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
I asked Jane if she still had that, and she
said they didn't.

Speaker 7 (18:45):
Austin Williams is a great grandson of Ev and he
called me after the first episode landed and he said
that when he was a little boy and he would
take her shirt that's in one of the pictures that
they have to kindergarten to show and tail, and he
showed all the kids at school, so anytime they would
have a show and tail that he would bring something

(19:07):
of his grandma's. I thought that was really.

Speaker 1 (19:09):
A sweet Josh, we're gonna play some trivia.

Speaker 5 (19:21):
Yeah, okay, we kind of we kind of have a ring.

Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah, here's the questions you want to do him?

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Yeah, I'll do them. I'll do them.

Speaker 8 (19:30):
You already know the answers.

Speaker 1 (19:31):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
The way this is gonna work is, uh, how about
we just do the first person to.

Speaker 4 (19:42):
We kind of have a kind of have a ringer.

Speaker 7 (19:45):
I love trivia.

Speaker 4 (19:46):
Single the two of us out though.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
I think I think is fair game because because it's now,
you didn't put.

Speaker 1 (19:54):
The answers on here, Josh, you knew the answers. I've
already forgot that.

Speaker 5 (20:02):
That would be part of the game is Clay has
to answer it to Oh, well.

Speaker 4 (20:10):
It's easy for you and I have to talk about
this layer.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Okay, all right, So the first person that blurted out
gets the point. The person who wins gets something very special.

Speaker 7 (20:23):
You may want to turn me down because something.

Speaker 5 (20:28):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
First question, how tall was Grannie Henderson? For seven for seven?

Speaker 4 (20:34):
I said that first.

Speaker 8 (20:35):
I said it before him was miss.

Speaker 5 (20:39):
That was it?

Speaker 1 (20:40):
She knows well according to Jane. According to the Jane Kilgoor,
Granny was four foot seven.

Speaker 7 (20:49):
Then we go by Jane.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Okay, I'm telling you, I said.

Speaker 5 (20:52):
That was pickle first.

Speaker 8 (20:57):
The mustache speaks, Oh my goodness, take back?

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Who do you say? Brent stood by the by the
camera man, judge.

Speaker 5 (21:10):
He doesn't even know how to say compass true?

Speaker 4 (21:15):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Question number two, what was Granny's Indian remedy for stopping bleeding?

Speaker 1 (21:24):
It was.

Speaker 5 (21:26):
Sugar and sugar was I didn't know about the sugar
got out of three?

Speaker 4 (21:30):
I don't know if that can.

Speaker 8 (21:31):
I got two for three.

Speaker 5 (21:32):
I did not know that one.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
Did you get it right?

Speaker 4 (21:35):
So?

Speaker 1 (21:35):
What was it?

Speaker 4 (21:37):
Sugar, sot and turpentine? That's right, right? Scores?

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Heero so much for me being a ringer. Yeah, oh
I do. These questions are pretty they're they're pretty specific.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
I think Brent has some insider information. I can't believe
I got.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Well that Brett does have an incredible memory. Yeah he does.

Speaker 5 (22:01):
He probably could gauge your height from that picture in
the magazine.

Speaker 4 (22:05):
Yeah, she is right here you have answers written on
the inside of ye.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, okay. Question number three, how big was.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
One hundred and sixty seven acres?

Speaker 8 (22:17):
Was going on here?

Speaker 1 (22:19):
So big was Granny Henderson's farm?

Speaker 5 (22:22):
I think it's sixty seven.

Speaker 4 (22:23):
I was going to say seven, but that was for
the you're going to say one, cause it was.

Speaker 7 (22:29):
A little over the one sixty that everybody used to
get when they would do the Homestead Act. They everybody
kind of would get one hundred and sixty, but it
was a little bit more than that.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
It is sixty seven, is what is what we said
in the episode. Yeah, and that's that was for the
records that I found, one hundred and sixty seven acres.
Next question, Now, there may have been something I got wrong.
Was there farm bisected by the river? Did they own
land on the other side of the river too?

Speaker 7 (22:56):
I don't know, Okay, I know that they owned. I
know that one side of their place, the river goes right,
you know, right along it, and I would think that
they probably had to afford it. I mean, that's a
Jane question.

Speaker 2 (23:09):
Yeah, well, for sure it was. My understanding was that
it was bisected. But it's possible. I got that mixed up.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
With Jane's Famili's farm because their farm they had, yeah
stuff on the other they had like crops and gardens
on the other side of the river. Said the cross
the river to go to their gardens.

Speaker 7 (23:27):
And that was really really common because landlines didn't really
mean a lot back then. That land was so unused
and a lot of people considered it worthless. It was
really cheap land. In certain places it is so rugged.
I mean, people think they're going to go there and farm.
You can't crop, you know, you can't road crop or

(23:48):
anything there. But people would take up somebody else's homestead
and just work the land. And when those people came
back any improvements or anything that they had made, the
people that had built it, they would get paid for
it from the land owner and they just move off.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah, you know, and they.

Speaker 7 (24:02):
Called it floating. They would float from one place to
the other just use what would right, but use what
was just laying, you know, follow and they would take
it up and work it. And then when the people
that owned it come back, if they ever came back,
they would just you know, scoot over give it back.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
It's so interesting to me that what years ago, when
people were making a living off the land was very
non valuable land now has value basically because of recreation.
I mean, that's the story all over the country. I mean,
all this mountain land around here in the Appalachians. I
mean that you couldn't give it away, you know, seventy

(24:43):
five years ago, and a.

Speaker 7 (24:45):
Lot of people did give it away. And I talked
to one fellow and he said that his I think
when he bought it, it was twelve dollars an acre. And
that wasn't back in the twenties or the thirties, you know,
it was. It was maybe the fifties. But a lot
of people moved when when they started seeing that a
living could be made without literally killing yourself. The people
that wanted an easier life, they moved off. A lot

(25:07):
of people went to Kansas City. But then the ones
that wanted a farm and stayed, you know, they just
they they stayed and it was rough, but the land
wasn't worth much. And now you know it's insane. If
you try to buy land in Newton County, you'll you'll
find out it's not twelve dollars.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure. Okay, Question number four, what year.

Speaker 4 (25:35):
And what.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Relationship? Okay, what year was that?

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Don't don't blurt out the answer until I'm done with
the question, because this is a two part question.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
What and you can't answer, Josh, I can't. I mean,
you already know the question.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
The only reason I know it's because I listened to
the podcasts well and nobody told me that.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
Okay, two part question. Don't answer until till I slapped
the table.

Speaker 4 (25:59):
Okay, until you bleep?

Speaker 1 (26:02):
What what year.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Did was the land purchased that Granny Henderson ended up
selling to the park and what family member bought it?

Speaker 5 (26:15):
He hadn't slapped the table yet. It's pick nineteen o
five and nineteen oh five.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Nineteen oh five was corrected. What'd you say?

Speaker 4 (26:26):
Nineteen oh three?

Speaker 9 (26:27):
Oh and her mama, that's the first time she looked
at it was nineteen oh three?

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Missing did you did you the dates?

Speaker 2 (26:35):
I heard a lot of different dates on that, but
from based on the interview with Granny when she said
her mother bought it nineteen oh five, she was Granny
was married when she was sixteen years old, and so
I did the math, which would have.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
Been like.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Nineteen oh nine or something, because she was born in
eighteen ninety two. I don't remember actual birthday, but I
didn't ever know that. But and then they moved on
to that land two years after she was married.

Speaker 7 (27:11):
Did you know, two years after she oh her and Frank, Yeah,
moved back on to that Was that.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
What you well, the sequence was her mother bought it
in nineteen oh five when Granny was thirteen.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Three years later nineteen oh eight. She was married to
Frank when she was sixteen, and she said in an
interview that two years after they got married they moved
on to that one hundred and sixty seven acres.

Speaker 7 (27:37):
It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't move either in
with her mother or build another house. I don't know
when her mother passed, but people, you know, multi generational
families were common, very common, So it wouldn't surprise me
at all if they hadn't moved in with her mother.
And I'm just spitballing here. I'm not sure, but that
goes back to that thing of people kind of taking

(27:58):
up land. They may have moved, there's no telling where
they may have been living. They may have been living
in a weening house that was just right close and
then moved in with her. I'm just not sure.

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Well, because I read in a lot of the books
said that she that she built that house in nineteen
oh five, which I mean based on what Granny said,
I don't think that. I think I don't think these
people are doing their research.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Anyway.

Speaker 7 (28:26):
It's pretty common to get different stories, you know, you
really have to with dealing with things this far back.
You really have to do a lot of digging. You
might even talk to the saint the family and get
two different storm.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Well, or maybe I'm wrong. In the house what was
built in nineteen oh five and they didn't move into
it until nineteen thirteen, because by by my calculations, nineteen
thirteen is when they would have moved on to that land.
Her in Frank her family owned it since though five.

Speaker 7 (28:56):
I would think that the Park Service would probably be
a really good place to look because when they did
a lot of the inventory and the allocation for that
for the home sites. They did their you know, they
did their research on that, so they may very well
have a date built. I know in the nineties they
did some work on it and did a kind of

(29:17):
a revamp. I've seen the photos of that through the
park archives, and so in the nineties were the last
time that they had done, you know, real substantial work
on it.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Okay, Okay, okay, last question, what's the score?

Speaker 4 (29:32):
Branch three and he's got one.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Three to one zero zero, lot of zero.

Speaker 5 (29:37):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (29:38):
Well, actually, maybe a couple of other questions after this. Okay,
this is a two part question. Don't answer until you
hear the grunt. Two part question. Don't answer it. Which
which president was Granny Henderson related to what year did

(29:58):
he become president?

Speaker 4 (30:00):
The boom bom bomb app.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
And what relation was Granny to this president?

Speaker 8 (30:07):
Great niece Buchanan eighteen sixty four, Oh lord, okay, we'll
extract we'll extract us the Buchanan Granny's mother the great niece.

Speaker 7 (30:23):
No, I think I think ev was she was the
great niece. Maybe her daughter was the niece.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
I think Granny said.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
I think Granny said her mother was the great president Buchanan.

Speaker 4 (30:36):
That's great.

Speaker 9 (30:36):
She would have been the great great niece and it
was Buchanan. But I can tell you that you.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Yeah, I don't know. So who got that one?

Speaker 4 (30:42):
Right?

Speaker 1 (30:43):
I think we all know nobody two for three? But
you said great name.

Speaker 8 (30:47):
And I was one year off on his presidency.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Wow, for real?

Speaker 7 (30:51):
Sixty five after I said.

Speaker 8 (30:53):
Sixty two, didn't I Oh, I was worried way more
than one year old.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Okay, great job guys, Brent, you w in. Congratulations, you
get something. You're gonna get something really special.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
Here we go.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
Uh, like you've met you were unfamiliar with this story.
What were your impressions?

Speaker 5 (31:16):
I was about as conflicted as a human could be
at the end of it. I mean because obviously, I
mean it's stuff that you hit on yourself in that podcast.

Speaker 4 (31:27):
Right.

Speaker 5 (31:27):
It's like, obviously we see the value in national parks,
especially working for you know, on X and being just
really you know, very a big supporter of public access. Right,
But then there's the whole side with all those people
that lost their homes and Granny story, and you just
can't help but sympathize with them. And I guess where

(31:47):
my head was. It's like, you just wish they're even
if a happy medium was possible, I don't think there
was one, but there's just there's definitely things in there
that you just could have been handled different like I
think probably one of the most like sympathy, like where
I felt the most sympathy or was the story about

(32:08):
when the woman wanted to go back to her old
home place just to see it, and she was ninety
six and they were.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
Wanted her to write a mule.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
Yeah, that was one of my favorite parts when Jane
said she can't write a mule.

Speaker 7 (32:18):
Have you have you seen the photos of them taking
her down the river in a raft?

Speaker 1 (32:23):
No? No, I saw your your video of taking They
used to take.

Speaker 7 (32:27):
Arby Jane's mother, the one you were referencing. They took
her and they would put she was so frail and
so cold. They would put a bean bag in the
middle of a raft and make a big nest for her.
And she was a frail, little, tiny woman and they
would just set her in there. And I've seen photos
of them, you know, all hanging off the side of
the raft and then there's a little Arby in the middle,
and that's how they would take her.

Speaker 5 (32:48):
To see her family sit and just out. The human
side of you is like I understand that that's the rule,
but just make an exception. Man, you know it just did.
But that's how Yeah, the end of that podcast, it
was just like it's just tough one conflicting.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, I.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Mean we we've said it, like the the national the
idea for national parks and setting aside beautiful, pristine wild
places in America. It was really American genius. Like if
you just look back at all the things that our
government has done that we now are like like.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Thank god they did that.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
That's one of them. But the conflicted part is that
it costs people something. And that's really the core of
this whole story is that the things that we love
cost somebody a lot.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
And uh, and yeah, there's really no answer.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
I mean it's not like we can go back and
give it to the give the land back, or even
that that would be a good idea.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
I mean that's that's probably not a good idea.

Speaker 4 (33:56):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (33:56):
Everybody can agree that sometimes somebody has to take one
for the team, unless you're the guy that's taking it. Yeah,
that's when it's hard. It's hard to understand that. And
I spent a lot of time years ago up there
in that area it just enjoying the not just the scenery,

(34:18):
but the land. And we made we'd camp and we'd
make tea from a spring right there beside us where
was at? And you think, man, I'm so glad to
be here. Now, I'll think back after hearing this story,
even being somewhat familiar with it over the years. Now
I think that gun, you know, maybe I was in
somebody's pasture, or I was in somebody else's barn, lock

(34:41):
were on per was and you just think, there's there's
always there's always been somebody there before you. And how
that came about is what is the biggest problem. And
we talked about that on the last render when clay
Bow was when you wouldn't hear was It's hard to
think about something someplace that you enjoy so much without

(35:06):
now thinking about how it was before and how and
how it came about. You can't think about how good
it was without thinking how bad it was for somebody else.

Speaker 4 (35:15):
I can't.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, yeah, well and then and then I mean, this
thing can keep rolling back too, to the displacement of
Native America.

Speaker 4 (35:25):
Sure, you know, it's like we said that too.

Speaker 9 (35:27):
You know, they wasn't the first folks there, and the
last Native Americans had it before we get there. They
wasn't the first somebody else got They got it from
somebody else.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, so the thing could just
like keep keep rolling back, Kyle?

Speaker 1 (35:44):
What stood out to you man.

Speaker 6 (35:47):
There towards the end you were talking about if if
the timing had been a little bit different, didn't seem
like the dam was coming that got pushed back, Did
we really have to make it a national river?

Speaker 4 (36:01):
That shoot out to me, because I don't think I've
ever heard that right.

Speaker 6 (36:05):
You know, I was familiar with the story of the Buffalo,
growing up, floating the buffalo and around it. I was
kind of in the early eras of the save the
Buffalo stuff with the pig farms and the you know,
we're getting water qualities bad and all of that. So
I knew it as a this is the gem of Arkansas,
the crown jewel. Got to save it from getting ruined

(36:25):
by a tourist or beer cans or hog feces whatever
else that was a problem. So I had this idea
that it was this pristine, perfect kind of hallowed ground
right where it's always been Arkansas's crown jewel. We've always
kind of deserved to have it. It's what puts our
state on the map a little bit. So we enjoy it.
We're supposed to enjoy it, that kind of thing. And

(36:47):
didn't realize that there was any conflict around it until
we went and talked with Misty last fall about the
potential redesignation. And I will probably talk about that here
in a bit, but the redesignation and kind of the
fight to change it to something different and all of that,
and and what that could mean for the river. And
so I've just it's for the last year or so
been thinking on it in the Buffalo River, but did

(37:08):
not know that fact that there was a potential that
it wasn't going to become a national river in the
first place, which.

Speaker 4 (37:14):
That just has a lot of implications.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Well, now, Missy, did you know did you know that?
Had you ever heard that sequence like that? If they
because they saved the Buffalo people, a big part of
their what they said was that we're saving it from
being damned, and to do that, we have to turn
it into a national park.

Speaker 7 (37:33):
From my research, and that this is and I'm not
talking about academic research, just talking to folks. The word
on the street is is that we were about two
decades out away from it being damned. So for twenty
years we didn't mean everybody thought, well that that miss
is over, the dam and mess is over, and we're

(37:55):
just going to keep going the way that we're going.
And everybody would talk about a park, but we all
just thought it was taught because the dam didn't materialize,
so why would the park materialize? But we always thought
it was about twenty years past damning.

Speaker 1 (38:11):
So that threat was gone by the seventies.

Speaker 4 (38:14):
Gone.

Speaker 7 (38:15):
Yeah, actually by the some people say decades, but I honestly,
I think by the sixties. That's for me, that's my cutoff.
I feel like that by the sixties.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
They knew that they knew that.

Speaker 7 (38:28):
Nothing was going to happen, and I think that that
push had kind of backed off and there were more
conservationists and they didn't want to damn certain places because
of that. I think maybe they learned a little bit,
maybe they didn't, But for me, I always feel like
by the sixties that was kind of over. Now you
can find stuff, I'm sure to prove me wrong, But

(38:51):
as far as the locals go. That's kind of what
I've always been taught and heard.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, yeah, what did for the people that would have
heard the name doctor Neil Compton? Do you think I
treated him fairly.

Speaker 7 (39:16):
For myself, I own my family, and growing up, I
always had kind of that he was kind of the boogeyman,
you know, in our community. However, I get to talk
to all kinds of people. And I was talking to
a neighbor of mine, and she's not a generational local,
but she is local. They some of the back to

(39:37):
the Landers, and they were from the Fayetteville area, and
she said that doctor Compton took care of her grandfather
and he met her somewhere I don't know how to
market or something, and he spoke to her and she
introduced herself and he said the last name, and he
said her grandfather's name, and he remembered caring for him.

(39:58):
And this had been years ago, in it meant so
much to her, And I think that goes to all
the things that we've talked about in this series. Whether
it's the park Service, whether it's Neil Compton, whether it's
the locals. Whatever. You can't do black and white. There's
a lot of gray in there. There's a lot of
really good people that do things that I'm going to
think is bad, and there's a lot of really bad

(40:19):
people that are ever now and then going to have
a good day. Yeah, And you know, you have to
look at it not as somebody's a total villain or
somebody's a total hero. You've got to kind of wade
around in that middle ground a little bit.

Speaker 4 (40:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
Well, it was the first time that I would have well,
I would have just known Neil Compton as kind of
the father of the Buffalo River, which you know, in
his book the foreword of his book, Ken Smith said
like John Muir is of Yosemite. And when he said that,
I was like, ah, I get it. That's kind of
the way I viewed him.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
And then.

Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, all this story kind of put him in a
little different light, and I really went out of my
way to not villainize the guy, because there there are
people that like are to this day in this area,
like students of Neil Compton, you know, just like his
environmental any kind of his conservation legacy and and uh

(41:17):
and those are Society is still an organization as I
understand it, that's still going on today.

Speaker 4 (41:24):
But I did.

Speaker 1 (41:26):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
It was interesting going to Newton County and hearing people
like you said, like he was kind of the boogeyman
and uh and yeah that forward that I read when
it said, uh where Ken Smith uh said all over
the United States there are conservation or there there where parks.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Are being.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Designated and whatnot. It's always the same. It's it's the locals,
which he called exploiters, and the outsiders, which he called
preservation and people who have see the land it's like
a spiritual, you know, place of renewal. And like clearly
he was an outsider and they were coming to this

(42:11):
place and uh and and basically calling anybody that didn't
want to preserve it as as a local exploiter trying
to have like personal gain.

Speaker 7 (42:22):
Well, in order to gain traction, you have to have
a bad guy, and you have to have you know,
you have to have the guy in the black hat
and the guy in the white hat that's going to
come and save the day. And so you kind of
have to have a somebody that you're wanting to if
the if the popular opinion is going to be we
need to do this at this cost. You've got to
make somebody the bad guy, somebody's got to lose.

Speaker 3 (42:44):
Well, it didn't seem like there was a guy in
a white hat in this situation.

Speaker 7 (42:48):
Well, I think the foreword of Battle for the Buffalo
may suggest that a lot of people thought there was
a guy in a white hat.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
Yeah, I mean I think at that time those people
would have thought the government were their guy in the
white hat, right, I mean, the government would protect them.

Speaker 6 (43:01):
And or if I can interject it, just knowing some
of the history, it feels like there's the bad guy.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
Is the core of engineers even.

Speaker 1 (43:11):
If he wasn't gonna be they wanted to.

Speaker 6 (43:13):
If there wasn't a threat, But it seems like they
carry the threat enough just to keep the story going.
So if the core of engineers are the bad guy,
then you have doctor Neil Compton for everybody who's not
on the Buffalo but in the greater Arkansas areas like,
that's a good guy.

Speaker 4 (43:26):
He's the hero's.

Speaker 7 (43:27):
Which is the majority of thee Yeah.

Speaker 6 (43:29):
And then the people who are caught up in it,
I mean they're posed as they're the ignorant heibilities who
don't know what they have, right, It's.

Speaker 7 (43:36):
Like they can't manage what they have.

Speaker 6 (43:37):
Yeah, they're the in the Robinhood story, they're the ones
who are they need the help kind of thing. And
like it's easy to tell a story that way and
not let it be complicated as it should be.

Speaker 8 (43:48):
And so that's my problem with the with the whole
narrative and even some of the quotes that Clay read
me from from the book. Again, I don't think he's
a I don't think he's a terrible person, But I
think it's very easy to discount people and to label
them as exploiters. When you think about a woman like
Granny Henderson who's staying till the very end, and because

(44:10):
of her connection to the land, because of her connection
to the place, it's very difficult to say she's an exploiter.
It's very difficult to say to describe her in those terms.
And it's almost like they didn't see the way that
the land was used as a preservation of the land,
as a connection to the land's They just didn't see

(44:31):
them at all. And I think that's too common a story.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
I mean, in that damn building era, which was also
an era in this country when they were making a
ton of national parks, man, you just better hope that
your place isn't in the crosshairs because there was no
room for.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
I don't know, it's just one of those things.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
It really, as I boil the story down, it literally
is just the cost of living in a nation that
is that has what we have. I mean, it's it's
like that there was there's no gray area. I mean,
they didn't leave Granny a spot in the National Park
because she was a wonderful, nice lady, you know, and

(45:13):
and and they just couldn't do that. And it's, uh,
it's just one of those conundrums, or we're gonna say.

Speaker 7 (45:20):
This, Well, it's not unlike the interstate system either. You know,
when you start thinking of eminent domain throughout the United States,
you know, you're always at the whim of somebody else
wanting what you have or your area, not not so
much just coming and taking your belongings, but but your land.
So if you fall in, you know, in the crosshairs
of somebody's project, that's that's a precarious place to be.

Speaker 9 (45:43):
Yeah, well, how bad is it that those folks were
actually the epitome of what the American dream is exactly?
They were settled in a place that they were taking
care of and living and taking care of their family
and doing exactly the thing of westward expansion of what
the goverden and said, this is a good thing for
y'all to do. Go out here and settle these places

(46:04):
that that are supposedly uninhabitable. And then they go out
there and they do that, and then there they they
stayed there and they're successful to doing it. Regardless of
the little of success, they're still there and they're doing it,
and they're taking care of themself and they're raising kids
and cows and they're doing and if they're doing what
they're supposed to do, then they came in and said, well,

(46:25):
you did a great job, but you're exploiting the land.

Speaker 4 (46:27):
Get off.

Speaker 5 (46:28):
Yeah, get labeled as exploiter after all that.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
Yeah, uh, that's that was the toughest pill for me
to swamp. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Yeah, missy, I'm asking I'm gonna ask you the same
thing I asked these two guys.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
You've already chimed in. Uh is that mean?

Speaker 7 (46:45):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (46:45):
It's okay? Is it me? Who is it? It might be? Uh,
it might be somebody.

Speaker 4 (46:53):
I can't even.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Find my phone. No, it's me and I can't find
it that's all right, that's all right, he would.

Speaker 7 (47:05):
Talk to that was I probably shouldn't say who that was.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
Missy when you, like I said, when I made this
podcast and put it out to the world, I was like, man,
I hope Missy's okay with this?

Speaker 2 (47:22):
What what did you think? Any criticisms, anything that got wrong.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
That you'd like to talk about or just or what
what impact you what you liked.

Speaker 7 (47:33):
I think it came together really well. I think it
told e f story so that people could could put
a face on the displacement. With her being the very
last person, I mean, that goes to show you how
determined she was to stay. You know, if she could
have eked out a you know some more times, she
would have.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Let me stop you right there and forgive me for
being a hog here on the host. I was she
the last person? I contradicted myself because at one time
I said, like the latter in the In the process
of the several weeks I had towards the end, I
found that I thought I read that she was one
of the last.

Speaker 7 (48:13):
It's my understanding she was the last, okay, and that
was in it. And I could be wrong, but especially
because I only deal kind of with my area. I
don't know a lot about the middle and the lower River,
Upper River is kind of As a matter of fact,
I don't even know a lot about the Hasty Carver area.
You know, I'm more upriver. We all kind of tend

(48:33):
to our own. I've got a friend I've never floated
even past Carver ever in my life, and they were like,
good lord, what kind of representative of the Buffalo are you?
But we tend to our own, you don't, I don't get.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
Out of my territory. Well, it's to me, it's always
been said that she was the last.

Speaker 7 (48:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
But then when I was doing the research, I read
where maybe there was some other people way down river
that were still there when she was there. Well, they
certainly I could just find a definitive answer.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
So I didn't know if you knew. So okay, I
don't know for asking you that, No, continue on with.

Speaker 7 (49:07):
The Only thing that I wish I had done better
was give a more rounded opinion of the park from
my own opinion. I gave you a lot of what
I hear. Because of the work that I do with
the Remnants Project, I interview families who tell me their
displacement stories, right, and then then all of my community
already knows these stories. There's a lot of people that

(49:28):
are just now hearing them and learning about them. But
for our people, we know them real well, and I
think that I should have you know, let you know
how my dad worked for the park and how in
the nineties that was such a tight group of workers there,
the whole park worked together, and they were just a

(49:50):
huge part of our community. You know, they went to
our schools, our churches. I babysat for every park ranger.
I think that ever lived at Steel Creek and my
mom before me, and my greatest wish for the park
would be that the Buffalo National River could be funded
in all of the National parks and park properties could

(50:12):
be funded by Congress and afford to run in the
way and maintain what they have. That would be a
dream coming true because we're not going to get that.
Nobody's getting their land back. We don't even think that's
a notion. But I think for people like Sonny Boy
or Willard that if they just tended it a little better, well,

(50:36):
they can't tend it if they don't have the funds
for it. And so you know, I'm the last person
that's going to say they're anti park because they're my neighbors.
We have a pretty good relationship with them, I feel like,
and I think there are some of the best people
that I know that work at the park still to
this day. But you can't expect people to work for nothing.

(51:01):
You know, people have a job and they get paid
for it. And when they cut back so much of
the facilities, you know, the access areas, things like that
that they just can't maintain because they don't have funding,
that's that's something that the country as a nation. That's
something we need to address. But I think that would

(51:21):
make people feel a little bit better if it looked
more like it used to, or if the locals felt
like that they were tending to it, you know, letting
something go into you know, a dismal state that's hard
for for local people to tolerate. You know, they want
to see it, and you're.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Looking particularly talking about the historic structures, and the structures
some of them are just like falling down.

Speaker 7 (51:46):
Right, and even even at ev Henderson's place. I don't
know when you I don't know if you've seen photos
or not, but right now, all you've got pretty much
is the house, and then there's the cellar, and then
there's the trail that goes along. Back when I was
a kid, the whole front yard of hers that went
I don't know how many acres it was all still
cleared off, and the park kept it cleared off. They

(52:07):
mowed it. That was part of my dad's job. And
they had the big fruit trees were all still there.
We would ride our horses up and get you know,
pears and things off of the trees, and so it was.
It was well tended as a As a it looked
like a farmstead. Still, it wasn't just the house. And
I think that that kind of management lended itself to

(52:29):
a better view from the locals than then things falling into.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
Well, there's a there's a photo I put it on
my Instagram of Granny on her porch and you could
see off into a big meadow. You could see the
bluffs on the river on the other side of the river.
And today when you stand on that porch, I probably
post a video of me and Willard blinds at that house.
Oh yeah, just I don't think you.

Speaker 7 (52:55):
Could see six feet.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Oh no, it's immediate. It's just yeah, growing up.

Speaker 7 (53:00):
Yeah, And when you look at some of the books
of and I can't remember which one it is, I
think it's won by Neil Compton. It talks about the
pastoral views and the pastoral areas of the river. Well,
those are those are no more because they're not maintained.
That doesn't take very long for stuff to get Willy.

Speaker 9 (53:19):
Did that become part of the mission to just let
nature reclaim.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
Well, it's a part of the it was a part
of Technically that is is that wilderness.

Speaker 7 (53:30):
It is a wilderness. It is it is in the
wilderness area. However, it depends on which superintendent you have.
Superintendents can make sweeping changes within a park, and I
wasn't aware of that until we lost our last superintendent
because I was asking about the new one and you know, yes, yeah,

(53:52):
And I've heard through the grapevine that she has got
kind of a place in her administration for the historic
places that she is maybe bringing somebody on board that
deals specifically with that, and any maintenance or maintaining goes
through that employee. So I think that's a great effort.

(54:15):
But depending on which superintendent was in charge would kind
of depend on how things looked and when my dad
worked there, and when that was maintained, I believe it
was Jack Lanahan was the superintendent at that point and
there were things done that maybe the next superintendent didn't
like it managed that way. But I know a lot
of people wanted it to be to look just like

(54:37):
it did when everybody left, and for a long time
it did. We have aerial photos that prove, you know,
how long it took for things to grow up, but
when it did, you know, it's just it's just greenbro.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
It's pretty interesting.

Speaker 2 (54:52):
The study on successionary plants in the st Yes, it
is like how things regrow. Yeah, lot of cedar groves
that used to be pastures where the eastern red cedar
would grow up.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
Uh, Misty, what was your favorite part?

Speaker 5 (55:08):
Oh?

Speaker 8 (55:08):
My favorite part, man, I really I did. I really
enjoyed hearing Jane Gilbert talking about her her her grandma.
I loved how you had that recording of her showing
up in the seventies asking where the where the spring
was and then you fast forward and you hear a voice.
Now that was super awesome.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
You were the first one that before I listened to
the episode. You Uh you you were like Jane shows up.

Speaker 7 (55:36):
Yeah, and that's that was the you know, I've got
several audio I've got several audios of e F and
that was the one I wanted to give you because
then we were I was trying to get you in
with Jane and and uh and so yeah, it worked
out really good. But I thought that was really sweet
to hear it because I don't remember her Jane's young voice.

Speaker 5 (55:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (55:56):
You know, as you grow up, you just forget how
people sound, and it was really nice to hear her
young voice.

Speaker 8 (56:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Speaker 8 (56:02):
No, that's fine, that's fine. That's just that was my
favorite part. And and just everything about Jane Kilgort. You know,
she's a character. You didn't really talk about it, but
she's a big hunter. Yeah, I mean, she's a she's
a she's she's a character. She's and you can she's
kind of see that same that same thing in Granny
Henderson and her yea, and I love it.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Did I made note of it in the podcast, but
always listening stuff like this. So Granny is sitting there
talking to a National Park Service, uh employee or you know,
historian like she she's probably in a pretty uncomfortable situation.
She didn't seem uncomfortable. But just if you're being interviewed

(56:41):
and there's a there was a video camera. What I
learned is that that interview was videoed, and so she's
she's probably talking in like her most proper voice, and
then when Jane comes up, she's like, I'll tell you, Jane,
down there on the down on the creek, you can
hunt it and we can find it and you cross
the ford.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
You know, she she I heard it. Yeah, that's she
totally changed her dialect when she was talking to Jane.

Speaker 7 (57:06):
I heard that little bit of like the Lord, you
ought to.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Know that you can't help but find it.

Speaker 7 (57:15):
But now Dwight Pakaithley was the interviewer and at that
time he that was before he was actually the historian,
so he was doing that just as a college kid
from Texas Tech, and he was there to record her,
and he he did record several oral histories with other folks.
And it's funny because I think it was Jane that

(57:35):
mentioned sometimes she would talk to folks and sometimes she wouldn't.
She would suss people out and if they passed her
her smell test, then she'd sit down and visit with them.
And people would return, you know, people they became her friends,
and and so I think Dwight was definitely one of
those people that was in her kind of trusted little

(57:55):
circle of strangers that she met.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
I'm so glad he kept the interview on when they
were interrupted, like you'd have been attempted to turn it
off or something, because in the moment, you wouldn't have
realized that that would be something that fifty years later.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
Would be valuable. You know, it just would have been
just like a random interaction.

Speaker 7 (58:15):
And I warned you about the roosters.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
Oh my gosh, yeah you did.

Speaker 8 (58:19):
They were very very well.

Speaker 5 (58:21):
Recorded, the roosters.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
Okay, there's another part of the interview where the hogs
come up.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
This is not a joke.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
The hogs come up and she's answering a serious question
by this interviewer. They're like, I don't They're talking about
something legitimately serious, and you hear it's like roote, and
it gets closer and closer and closer, and it feels
like it's right under the porch, and you hear just
us to the point that the interviewer goes, you sure

(58:51):
have a.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
Lot of pigs, like you kind of like has to
like address it, and she goes, uh.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
She goes, that's a sound with a left piglets. And
then he was like, what are you gonna do with those?
And she said, I guess I'm just gonna give him
away and she talks about the pigs. But it was
like chaos, just like but.

Speaker 5 (59:10):
All that though the here and actually getting to hear
her voice and the roofs and every bit of that.
For me, especially not again not having any attachment to
the story, it was another layer of humanizing.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
All of it.

Speaker 5 (59:24):
Yeah, because even you know, even if you didn't have
a picture of her to look at, you know, you're
just kind of hearing this story, you still get attached
to it. But actually getting to hear it it was
you could connect to it better and.

Speaker 7 (59:33):
You could put your mamma's face that voice exactly.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
That's That's the thing that I really picked up on
is we were really close with Christie's my wife, Christie's grandmother,
and I think about she she lived in her house
for you know, decades and decades, and it was I mean,
really it was just kind of a shack, you know
what I mean, just a shack and rule Oklahoma, Oklahoma
and uh, the idea of you know, my my in laws,

(59:59):
my mother and this is my mother in law's mother. Like,
they talked to her about building her a new house,
and she said, why do I need a new house?

Speaker 1 (01:00:05):
You know, didn't they have dirt floors?

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Well, when she first got married, her first two houses
had dirt floors. But but I think of the idea
of moving Grandma Vaughan out of her house would have
been like unthinkable, you know what I mean. She lived
to be ninety I think she was ninety three or
ninety four, lived by herself and carried in her all
her own firewood, you know, basically till the day she died.

(01:00:31):
And the idea of her being forced off of that
land that she'd lived on for fifty sixty years, you
know what I mean, would be unthinkable.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Yeah, you know what that brings up something interesting. Granny
Henderson was a type in that period like she was.
I'm not saying she wasn't unique, because she was very
unique where she lived and lived as a widow and
all these things. But I've had a lot of people
say to me, she reminded me of this person, and

(01:01:04):
all those people aren't here anymore. I mean that we
just don't have people alive that were born in eighteen
ninety two and lived their life without electricity, without.

Speaker 1 (01:01:12):
Phone, without running water.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
But it brought back memories of all these people, and
and and and now this well anyway, just that she
was she she represented something, you know, that that was
important to them.

Speaker 7 (01:01:38):
And the fact that her mother. You know, I do
a lot of research and I only know of and
I'm in a small community. I'm not I'm not saying
the whole river, but in a small area. I know
of two women who bought home places, and one was
quite a bit later than EV's mother.

Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
But that's very on that.

Speaker 7 (01:02:00):
That that's you know, the early nineteen hundreds, a woman
buying property and being able to maintain that property.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
You know.

Speaker 7 (01:02:09):
One thing that she did was when the pencil company
came in and my great uncle and a lot of
the other locals that cut the cedar trees and floated
those down the river. She they worked Ev and her
mother as cooks for those workers, and so they would
do a full I mean all the full grub, you know,
morning to evening, and they would travel with them down

(01:02:29):
the river. So they would go all the way down
I think, Gosh, I don't know if they stopped at
Woolem for some reason. I'm thinking Woollem was their ending point,
but then they would come back. But they lived in
tents and went all the way down to the river.
That was EV's mother and Ev she would have that
she brought her on to help because you know, all
hands on deck and that was her job, but she

(01:02:50):
insteaded her own place.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Well, yeah, that was so. Yeah. So EV's father died
when she was fourteen. That should have been a trivia
question fourteen months old. Yeah, Josh, what was your favorite
part or a terrible criticism?

Speaker 3 (01:03:07):
I think I think just the I loved the audio.
I mean, I don't know how you can get away
get away from that. That that is that is such
a treasure to have that and to be able to
to It's like it's like if you could go back
in time. It's as close to being able to go

(01:03:29):
back in time and to get a view of her life,
what life was like on the Buffalo. And I feel
like I feel like the Dwight Pitt cat how do
you say his last name, Kailey, I feel like he
did such a great job just being disarming, you know what.
I mean in the way that he interviewed her that
that kind of just brought you in. So when you

(01:03:50):
listen to it, you feel like you're there, and I
think that that's really meaningful to me.

Speaker 7 (01:03:54):
Yeah, and that's something in a lot of the oral histories.
There things that from our childhood as gen xers that
you're going to hear that you've forgotten, the way a
screen door collapse when it shuts, water dripping out of
the sink, or water running continually because a lot of
it was gravity flow. And so there's these little things

(01:04:16):
from my childhood that I've forgotten, and there's things from
even before my time that I'll catch when I'm listening
to those, and sometimes I don't know what they are
and I have to really isolate it. But that is
a treasure to me all in itself.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
The one interview that I didn't I couldn't use much
of the audio from it was the interview with Roy
and Katie Keaton. I was so glad that you read
that transcript like you did, which I thought was a
really powerful part of the podcast when because it really,
you know, we had this personal connection to Granny. But

(01:04:54):
then when you read about the keatings and we saw
all the details and we didn't even go into all
the but there is it's over two and a half hours.
I'm pretty sure between those three three segments of the
interview where in nineteen eighty four, so this is twelve
years after the redesignation of the park. They had been
moved out, and there's an interview with Roy and Katie

(01:05:17):
and they it's pretty it's really neat oddly and this
is not like a conspiracy theory the second they start
talking about the park, because finally the interviewer goes tell
me about when the park came and I'm serious, I
think they actually like bumped the recorder or something because

(01:05:38):
the audio quality just plummets and it was unusable. I
was going to try to use her actually saying what
you read because I heard it, but you bet it's
but the but the audio is not usable for something
like this.

Speaker 7 (01:05:51):
I'm working with MSU. There were a couple of those
that it was odd, how the audio would you know,
mess up? And they were able to actually clean up
one because they have the original tapes and so they
are working on cleaning that up and getting that to me.
So when I get it I'll send it to But

(01:06:11):
one thing, you were talking about westward expansion a little
bit ago. Katie's story is really unique in that her
parents were one was from Lithuania, the other was from Czechoslovakia,
and they came. Her parents came to Kansas, and I
don't know if Katie was born in Kansas. I kind
of think maybe. And then they moved to Arkansas. They
didn't speak a word of English, and so when they

(01:06:33):
got to the Buffalo River Valley they had to go
into school, these children who spoke no English with a
bunch of my people, and my people can be really honrey.
I mean, you know, you start thinking about some of
the mean pranks your grandpa played on you the generation
before that. They were even on rear, you know. And
they speak to Katie and they asked her if the

(01:06:54):
kids would have her teach them words in her language,
and she said no. They made fun of us. We
didn't talk. And then for her to become such a
huge and her whole family is such a huge part
of our community there. I deal with people that are
her descendants all the time and they're some of the
best people. I mean, you're ever going to mean and

(01:07:15):
I'm kin to the Keating side, so her husband's side,
I'm kin to. But their story of coming all this
way and then getting a knock on the door, you know,
that's your American dream, just going right down the toilet.

Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
When you listen to the interview the whole thing, you
get the point that we made, but you actually hear
it and see it is that it's almost like they
were trying to It was the first person that they
serve papers to, the first of what they know is
going to be ninety thousand acres.

Speaker 7 (01:07:45):
Well, it was the first of the declaration of taking right, well, right,
there were only like two or three declarations of taking.
Oh really, Yeah, they were very sparse, and so when
they come with a declaration of taking, it's over and done.
There's you know, that's wow, They've got it. And their
place was at Lost Valley. You've probably everybody's Lost Valley.

(01:08:05):
It's a gorgeous spot. But it was kind of the
it was it was a real i don't want to
say the crown jewel, but it was a real feather
in their cap to get Lost Vallete.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
Then what's so wild is that their neighbors they didn't
take the land.

Speaker 7 (01:08:18):
Well, they did some of it, but they you know,
back in the I think it was in the late
eighties or the early nineties. Jim Lyles worked for the
Park Service. He was an assistant superintendent. He's a real
good friend of mine.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
I hope he considers me from author of this book
right here, which I referenced quite a bit.

Speaker 7 (01:08:36):
Which is all folks talking is is is the next
book down from the Bible. For me, that's my genealogy
Bible right there, and he is. He and his wife
both Susie Lyles, his wife was a historian at the
Park Service, and they gave so much to our community
through that book and through the other work that they

(01:08:56):
did of recording histories and and Jim was the one
that kind of came up and created the leaseback program
in Boxley Valley. So a lot of the reason why
you still see residential occupation in Boxley is because of
Jim and what he came up with to let people
lease back their family farms. And that was wonderful, but

(01:09:17):
there were certain ones that just didn't didn't qualify. I
think with the declaration of taking, I don't know if
that would even make it, you know, an option.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
Yeah, it's so complicated and there's so many little facets.
One thing that was on the interview with Katie Keaton
is she told about seeing a black panther.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
Yeah, I'm not kidding. I got it.

Speaker 4 (01:09:39):
She changed her mind.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
Well, when it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
Came from her, I was like, well I might have
believe it might be real.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
Yeah, for real, she told she told the story of
seeing a black panther. We up in Boxley or somewhere.

Speaker 7 (01:09:52):
There's no manner of critter that we don't have. My
grandpa was one of the best trappers on the river.
That was his. That was his whole life was fishing
and trapping and hunting, and he's talked about killing panthers
and now it hasn't been recent. Yeah, and don't know
that it was a hawks bill, but it was definitely.

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
You find me a picture of a black panther that
he caught, and we're gonna take it to town. I
don't have that, Okay, Hey, Lake, I mentioned venomous snakes
getting bit by venomous snakes. I've got two fools in
our presence who has been bit by venomous snakes. One
was just acting the fool when he was bit how'd

(01:10:31):
you get bit by a venomous snake?

Speaker 5 (01:10:32):
Mine's not much better, oh much better at all?

Speaker 1 (01:10:37):
Which category would you be in? So I said, if
you want to get my attention, tell me how many
venomus snakes you've been bit by, But not if you
were just goofing around with one.

Speaker 5 (01:10:45):
I was goofing around, but I was not. This is
it is the only interesting twist to it. I was
goofing around, but I was not goofing around with a
snake because I did not even know I had been
bit true story, So do tell. So we were out
about doing country kids stuff at night and the next

(01:11:06):
days in Mississippi at summertime, which is just venomous snakes central.
We were tall grass and I had on like flip flops.

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
Lord, and so if you get bit wearing flip flops.

Speaker 5 (01:11:17):
And I was supposed to play in the band in
a wedding the next day, and so I'm play drums, yeah,
in my former life, So I mean I'm sitting there
behind the drums. I mean like the bride has walked
down and they're doing the ceremony, and I remember being like,
ankle hurts, and I reached down, I felt my ankle.

(01:11:40):
My ankle just was swollen. And then I was like,
something is wrong. And I went to stand up and
I couldn't put any weight on that leg. And I
thought spider or something that had bit me or whatever.
And get home. I look and I mean I saw
the two marks, but still I was like, snake. Would
you know I would see a snake bite me. I
went to the family doctor and tell him, like something

(01:12:00):
bit me, a spider or something whatever. He walks in
and looks at it and he said, that's a snake bite.
And they, I mean, they had to put me on
and I couldn't walk on it for five days.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
But so when did you get bit the night before?

Speaker 5 (01:12:11):
Just just walking through the grass, he said. I said,
because when he told me that, he said that ain't
spider by it, that's a snake. And I said, doctor Rowland,
you're the doctor here. But I always figured if I
got snake bit I would know about it. And he
said it happens more often than you would think.

Speaker 4 (01:12:24):
Is that right?

Speaker 5 (01:12:24):
And he said, basically it wasn't even like the venom
that got me is just more of like bacteria infection.
But yeah, I got a picture of it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:32):
It's kind of a soft snake bite story.

Speaker 5 (01:12:34):
I just weak.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
I just told you. No, I'm not doubting you.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
I was just hoping that you were like trying to
dove into the grass to like catch a deer.

Speaker 5 (01:12:47):
No, I mean it was the most bizarre. Yeah, I
wish that'd be the case.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
The hat tip to your snake bite. That's good, that's good.

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
That's good. Brent.

Speaker 4 (01:12:58):
How'd you get bit trying to catch one?

Speaker 8 (01:13:00):
Well?

Speaker 9 (01:13:00):
I actually I called him and then he called me,
and I wouldn't do anything you him.

Speaker 4 (01:13:06):
He called me a fool.

Speaker 9 (01:13:07):
Ago he did, but I don't have any videos of
me catching them on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
You know how many times Clay's been bitten by venom
of snake that punctured the skin?

Speaker 4 (01:13:17):
Zero?

Speaker 8 (01:13:18):
You know how many times Granny Henderson is by.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
Mistakeny wasn't messing with it?

Speaker 8 (01:13:22):
Twice?

Speaker 1 (01:13:23):
Three times? I remember twice, but on the on the podcast,
Jane said three.

Speaker 5 (01:13:29):
But yeah, and then stone cold fed him to the pigs.

Speaker 1 (01:13:34):
Yeah, yeah, take that, yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:13:35):
Because you don't let nothing go to wait, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:13:37):
Right, Yeah, fed him to the pigs, fed him to
the pigs. Yeah. My snake handling days are numbered now
that we have good insurance.

Speaker 4 (01:13:49):
I ain't called one since then.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
I messed with him a little bit.

Speaker 7 (01:13:52):
Did your insurance agent listen to.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
This, hope not?

Speaker 4 (01:14:01):
What?

Speaker 5 (01:14:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:14:02):
Do you want to tell people who would be interested
in supporting.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
Yeah, at the end, we're going to do that. We're
almost there, Misty. Is there any any other any anything
else you'd like to say? Just give you the open
open mic here.

Speaker 7 (01:14:20):
We had visited when you were at the house, and
I had said something about I was surprised that it
didn't end in, you know, gun a gun battle or
gun shots or something like that. And I had visited
with a gentleman in Voxley Valley and I won't mention
his name because he didn't tell me I could. I
didn't ask I should have, but I asked him that question,

(01:14:42):
and I said, how in the world did we, you know,
avoid somebody getting shot? Because with everybody who you know,
everybody hunted, so everybody had I mean everybody had guns.
And he said, because we were good Christian people and
we knew better. And I thought, well, you know, I
guess I was that was it?

Speaker 1 (01:15:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:15:01):
And that was I really think that that was was it.
There was a case in Serse County and if you
want to hear it, I'll read it, and if not,
that's fine. But there was a case in Sersey County
where the person who was moved off, they said that
they were held at gunpoint. And I spoke to their
I think it was the great granddaughter, and I asked

(01:15:22):
them if I could read it here, if time permitted
and all that, and she said yes, but it was
something that was really difficult for their family. Of course,
it was Curse County, so it's it's out of my realm.
I had heard about it, but I didn't know. I
didn't even remember their names. But so there was a
case where one family was held at gunpoint and they

(01:15:43):
received a declaration of taking as well. So they were
one of the few of those that was you know,
that was given out and it and it was strange
whenever those were given out, it seemed like that the
property value was a lot less. So for the Lost
Valley and the Keatons, the initial amount that was deposited
in there in the holding account for them for that

(01:16:06):
property was thirteen thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
Wow, and this was like t far.

Speaker 7 (01:16:11):
I would assume it was one sixty just because that
was the homestead amount of land and so, and we
all know what Lost Valley looks like. It's it's absolutely incredible.
And I don't know that they owned all the way
up there, because the Primroses did own some up there
and the way land lays it's different. But it was
around the Beechwood School and the opening part of Lost Valley,

(01:16:35):
you know, for thirteen thousand, Yes, and they and the
slaves in Sarcey County, along with a few other families,
did take them to court to get a more fair amount.
And they as far as I know, I know the
slaves one and I know the Keatons one. I don't
know the outcome for the others that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:53):
They can you can you summarize the story of the Gunpoint, Well,
let me look.

Speaker 7 (01:16:58):
And see how long it is, real quick, and i'll
if you guys want to chat for just a second,
I'll find it. I think I've got it marked. Well,
it's not it's a couple paragraphs. Basically, the slaves were
wanting to do some blasting and the park was saying

(01:17:20):
that it was in an area where they were going
to blast the bluff, and they were saying, no, it's not,
it's so far away and so there's not going to
be any impact to the bluff. So just let us
do what we're going to do. And he had went
mister slay, I think his name was Emmett. He had
went to the park and they didn't even tell him
that they were going to serve him with a declaration

(01:17:41):
of taking the very next day. So he was there, say,
on a Tuesday, and then they served him on the
very next day and nobody said anything. And meanwhile his
wife was sick and I believe in bed, and he
had went out looking for a sick calf. And while
he was out looking for that calf, these two men

(01:18:02):
approached him. And as he was going to that place,
he was listening on the radio and it said that
there were two escape convicts. To be on the lookout
for these two escape convicts, And so he was, you know,
as we are around, you know, well will you pay
a little extra attention if you're out and about And
he was looking for that calf, and two armed men

(01:18:22):
with shotguns stepped up on him and said, you need
to We have taken this land as of ten o'clock
this morning. You need to go back home. There's a
man there with your wife and he let out, and
his statement says that their fingers were on the trigger

(01:18:42):
of the shotguns. And I believe it was the superintendent
of the Park Service, who wasn't even in town at
that time, denied that and said they weren't, but I
believe it was marshals. I don't even know if it
was actual park Service employees, and I think that happened
a lot where things were contracted out. But either way,
the these men showed up at gunpoint, and when he
got to his house, there was somebody with a gun

(01:19:05):
in his home and they were told to get out
of their home. That at ten o'clock that morning, it
was no longer their home. Wow. So it's you know,
when we talk about the black and white and all
the gray and the muddy areas, there are good and
there are bad in all of this. But in order

(01:19:25):
to in order to get past it, we got to
own it. You got to own all that crap. You
got to own all the bad stuff before you can
come out on the other side. If you want locals
and people to get on board with preservation and conservation,
you need to acknowledge their hurt feelings and their lost

(01:19:47):
legacy because for us subsistence subsistence farming, you don't make money,
you know, you get by you grow what you eat.
And they would everybody would grow a watermelon patch and
they would that to town and that would be their
spending money. And so when you take their land, that's
their legacy, that's what they were going to give to

(01:20:07):
their children, their great you know, and it would just
be passed on. Like myself, I'm seventh generation to work
and live on the farm that my ancestors you know,
provided to me. It's been but now my parents did
a lot of work stitching it all together, because as
time moves on, you lose bits and pieces. And so

(01:20:28):
when you take, when you take so much from a people,
and then you know, we see a lot of threads
and stuff on social media that say get over it,
just get over it. That happened so long ago. How
would you deal with someone coming to your home and
saying I own your house. Get out, you don't own
it anymore, and you saying, well, yeah I do. I've

(01:20:51):
made all the payments, you know, I'm free and clear,
this is my house. And I think that a lot
of people need that need conversations like this to put
a face on it so that they can see their
mamma or see their self in that situation where if
I was in that place, how would I feel? Because

(01:21:13):
there's always a price to be paid, but until you're
the one paying the price, you don't really care what
the price tag is.

Speaker 2 (01:21:18):
H Yeah, No, that's that's great. I think we got
to talk about the redesignation a little bit, Kyle, what
do you?

Speaker 4 (01:21:32):
What do you?

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
I mean, we laid it out. I mean, the bottom
line is that there's there's groups in Arkansas. It's not
the National Park Service that are wanting to redesignate the
river and it would be an upgrade in national park
designation to right now, it's a the Buffalo National River
and the proposal and it's not an official proposal. It's
not like this is in law or it's come to

(01:21:53):
vote or there was just talk of, which is very
serious talk of from the groups that it came from,
about redesignating the river to a National park and preserve, which,
as I understand, it would mean that the Buffalo National
River would like ray elevate in status and and and

(01:22:13):
it basically it would attract a whole bunch more people.
But Kyle, what do we what do y'all think about that?

Speaker 6 (01:22:22):
I've got a lot of thoughts about it, but uh,
before before I give you some, I want to ask
the group what do we think is more exploitive?

Speaker 4 (01:22:31):
Is it the.

Speaker 6 (01:22:34):
Was it the original people who live there, or is
it a national river or a national park and preserve?

Speaker 4 (01:22:39):
What do y'all think if.

Speaker 6 (01:22:43):
We're gonna I guess we're gonna find exploitive. Yeah, exploitive
for the use of the land or the river.

Speaker 1 (01:22:50):
Hmm, unanswerable.

Speaker 4 (01:22:55):
I don't know how you answer that.

Speaker 5 (01:22:56):
Yeah, I don't know how you answered.

Speaker 9 (01:22:57):
What I wish is I left everybody alone and every
generation since then was still have that place.

Speaker 5 (01:23:04):
And I was best friends with them, so I could go.

Speaker 6 (01:23:06):
Down there so you can also enjoy it and photo.
You really can't answer it. But I just I've been
chewing on that since somebody brought it up, maybe earlier.
Of the exploitive quote, and and you know, you have
the exploiters and the preservers kind of kind of thing.
It doesn't seem like a fair dichotomy to place people
in because.

Speaker 5 (01:23:24):
I don't even think the original I think it exploited.
It called them exploiters. That was that was just poor terminology.

Speaker 6 (01:23:31):
It is, yeah, I would yeah, I think we exploit
the river now more than it was ever was ever
being done before as far as.

Speaker 4 (01:23:44):
Tourist dollars.

Speaker 6 (01:23:45):
Uh yeah, I mean people people wanting to float it,
people using it as they should. It's I mean, it's
a national river and it's it's public and they can
and uh Miss Misty's talked about the the cars lining
bumper to bumper to bumper down miles and miles of
road for people who just want to get a taste
of the Buffalo, they just want to experience it for
the first time. And so I think the redesignation to

(01:24:08):
go there the way it went about, and we've talked
about it before, and y'all have read about it and
heard about it and seen other people cover it.

Speaker 4 (01:24:17):
They seemed to do or want to do.

Speaker 6 (01:24:21):
They went about, I guess I should say the conversation
for redesignating it in a very similar way that happened
about fifty years ago, which was.

Speaker 4 (01:24:30):
Grassroots.

Speaker 6 (01:24:30):
Only a couple of people let the news spread as
it needed to, but it wasn't an official here's a proposal,
let's talk about it. And gather everybody, which is I
know why Missy, you know, called a town hall. We're
going to get everybody involved and we're going to figure
out what they're saying. And the language was masked and
hidden and not very readable or understandable. And that's not
to say, well, the people who live there don't know

(01:24:51):
how to read the question and understand it. You don't
know how to like it doesn't make sense in some ways.
It's just very very governmental.

Speaker 4 (01:25:01):
I don't know what.

Speaker 5 (01:25:03):
It's kind of.

Speaker 6 (01:25:04):
It's purposefully, purposefully deceptive, and yeah, a little bit a
little bit hidden, and so not to name all the
players that we've found out and have asked to interview
and they've declined and said no comment, all that kind
of stuff. But I think big Arkansas money, you can
let your mind go where you need that to go.
And Arkansas Governmental Power had this redesignation proposal on the table,

(01:25:26):
and I think wanted to I wanted to see it elevated.
I don't know if it's for more protection. I don't
know if it's for more hunting and fishing rights, or
I don't know if it's because they also just want
more control over it so they can increase tourist dollars,
and so it's I think I have opinions about it.
I know where I land on it, but nothing is

(01:25:46):
official enough to comment on it and then not come
back later.

Speaker 4 (01:25:49):
And you know, look the fool for talking about it that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
Way to me, And what I reported to the world
in this podcast was like the what the commute feel
confidence saying the consensus of the community is that they
don't want this.

Speaker 4 (01:26:05):
Yeah, it's a bad idea, I.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
Mean, and that's that's even more powerful than your opinion
or my opinion totally, because I mean, like for me
to have an opinion that I'm trying to push doing
the same thing that the group that's trying to push
their opinion. I mean, for real, Like if you notice
on that podcast, I didn't say whether I was four
or against it, but I mean, I think it's clear.

(01:26:28):
I mean, I'm against it, but I don't want that
doesn't matter. What matters was the clip that I used
where the it was the one of the board.

Speaker 1 (01:26:38):
Members of Farm BUA.

Speaker 2 (01:26:39):
Yeah, where he said, hey, we as a board and
not that Farm Bureau speaks for the county. But I
felt like he was speaking for the county in a way,
and he just said, we don't think there's any benefit
to this, and I mean, that's kind of where it
lands with me.

Speaker 6 (01:26:56):
BHA would say the same thing. I'm on the Public
Waters Committee of BHA. It's like, doesn't seem like it
helps anything. If anything, it seems like it could come
around to take away what we're fighting for, that kind
of stuff. And so but I'm like, y'all, I just
I enjoy it. I've grown up loving it, but I
don't live in it. And so I think I'm I
think I care enough about people being able to be

(01:27:18):
left alone. That's very Arkansas of me, very Bzarkian of me,
like leave us alone, that whole sentiment, that's America. Be
just American of me. But Misty, doctor, Misty, you are.

Speaker 8 (01:27:33):
I was just going to say, it seems like it
would further restrict the people who still live there right now.
I mean, that seems to be what they could do
on their own property. And if it doesn't produce a
massive benefit, I mean, I think it's worth a debate
even if it produced significant benefit for everybody else in
the world. And I still don't think it would be
a well, for sure, we should do it, but especially

(01:27:56):
since it does not seem to produce much benefit. I mean,
that's that's just I get, is that it doesn't really
what doesn't improve, Yeah, and it certainly would take away
some some thing.

Speaker 6 (01:28:08):
Almost won't value say what it would improve, at least
in the current stage. When we were uncovering it last fall,
I say, we a lot of people uncovered it, Misty
really uncovered it, and other people were talking about it.
But the proposal almost wasn't willing to say what it
wanted to do or what it would improve. It was
more just everybody agrees that a national park and preserve

(01:28:29):
is better than a national river, Like that's what we
do around here. We make things better. So of course
of course it's better. It's a higher designation. And when
you're trying to figure out what that means, that it
just doesn't it doesn't come out clear.

Speaker 5 (01:28:40):
But I in park and.

Speaker 7 (01:28:42):
Preserve it is such a new idea within the park system.
I don't understand why you would want to take the
nation's very first national river a scenic waterway and fiddle
with it when you don't really when you don't know,
and number one, when you don't have the support of locals.
It seems like the only I don't wait out into

(01:29:03):
it because that Lord, I've waited out so deep now
that i'm you know, eyeball deep now up to turn
back out to Shakespeare's But it seems like the only
thing it's going to do is line some people's pockets.
And it's some some big people that maybe don't even
need their pockets lined. And the communities that they're dealing

(01:29:24):
with are teetering on. You know, there's there's a lot
of poverty. There's a lot of people but nobody knows
we're in poverty. We're just poor and we just go
on kind of a thing. But I think there's a
lot of people who look at the commercialization aspect of it,
like who wouldn't want more? Well, you know, once upon

(01:29:45):
a time, all of this in town, you know, this
was all prairies, this was this was wilderness areas too.
And I know we have to have cities, and I
know we have to have civilization, but why would we
want to start messing around in our national park system
to potentially commercialize and bring more people in when we

(01:30:09):
are not able to manage the people we have now?
And if we're praying that Congress is going to fund
the National Parks? Why do we have to be redesignated
in order to do that? Why don't they just fund
the National Parks? Is every park going to have to
go through because it's not just the Buffalo National River
that has issues with facilities and access in different areas

(01:30:30):
that we're needing help with. That's across the board of
all the National Parks properties. Do they all need to
be redesignated in order to get a little bit of
cash to fund them? You know, to me, that's nonsense.
It's just nonsense to think that we're going to have
to go through some process in order to get some
extra money.

Speaker 4 (01:30:49):
Right right?

Speaker 2 (01:30:49):
I understand yeah, because that would probably be the first
thing that somebody would say is they would be like, well,
if you need more money, this is the way to
get more money. But then I've also heard that the
redesignation doesn't guarantee money.

Speaker 1 (01:31:00):
And I didn't want to. I mean, I'm not ready to.

Speaker 2 (01:31:04):
The podcast wasn't about all the details of the of
the redesignation, because I think.

Speaker 8 (01:31:08):
They would have talked, they would have been a part
of this. I mean, you're not You're not You're not
that's the point of your conversation.

Speaker 2 (01:31:17):
Is right, Oh yeah, oh yeah, we could have got
somebody to talk about the redesignation and that just wasn't
what we were talking about, you know. But but but
it was noteworthy and relevant to bring up at this point,
you know.

Speaker 8 (01:31:29):
And is it going to piss out the people? I mean,
those are the things I think about. Is it going
to price out the people like has happened in Tennessee,
for the people around the Smoky Mountains where their grandkids
can't buy land near them. Those are those are things
that we should I think. Yeah, whenever you're talking about progress,
it's really important to de find what progress is.

Speaker 1 (01:31:48):
And you know, people people like us take criticism, And
I will take criticism for even bringing up the Buffalo
National River because people will say that I'm like spot burning.

Speaker 2 (01:32:03):
Just just even by bringing it up, right, they'd be like, well, Clay,
you're doing what because people might hear this and be like, man,
I want to go check out the river. I don't
know what to say about that. This is a story
that needs to be told, and don't come leave Misty
alone and her family them.

Speaker 7 (01:32:23):
Well, you know, and I'm a cabin owner. So yeah,
you know, if anybody wants to call somebody a hypocrite,
I guess they can sling that at me. But I
look at it in a way that we have always
had tourism. I mean even ev and they would put
people up in houses for people and they would come down,
floaters would go down and she would cook for them

(01:32:45):
or you know, it was just that there's always been
there's always been somebody there wanting to see the river,
and we would just say like come on, you know,
but there is a threshold that that a river can
only take so much, you can only take so much
from it. And if we're looking at like with Neil
Compton in the Ozark Society, one of their biggest issues

(01:33:08):
was the horse ranch at Steel Creek, the Yarborough horse Ranch.
That was one of those things where they said we
absolutely have to get them off of this river because
they are destroying it. They are a nuisance. And I
forget all of the exact words, but there were some
pretty harsh words about that bunch of people, that family
that owned that and if we're going to commercialize it,

(01:33:31):
that's kind of like, well, you ran these people off
their land that they had legally bought and they had
a business there and they weren't affecting anybody, and people
came from all over the world to buy Arabian horses
from them. And so if we're going to commercialize it,
it doesn't seem like that we're really being conservationists. If

(01:33:53):
we take from one person, they're just not good enough
to do what we want. And then later on, fifty
years later, well let's do it something else and maybe
bring in a few more people and maybe do this
and maybe do that. You know, that's a little bit underhanded.

Speaker 2 (01:34:09):
I feel like, yep, well, this has been great, guys, Lake,
thanks for coming, Thanks for having me, Kyle, much appreciated,
Miss Ship, thank you for coming.

Speaker 5 (01:34:22):
And all you other people, all you local exploiters.

Speaker 7 (01:34:25):
Don't forget about the money.

Speaker 4 (01:34:26):
Follow them.

Speaker 1 (01:34:27):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Well so Buffalo River Partners.

Speaker 7 (01:34:31):
Yeah, I'd spoke with one of the one of the
people on the I think on the board, I believe
she's on the board, and she told me who the
president was, gave me his number, and the amount that
they have gotten. They've already they've already reached the amount
that they needed for Granny Henderson's house to do the
reconstruction or the repairs that they're going to do, and
that's supposed to start this fall and winter. But they

(01:34:53):
have a lot of other historic structures within the park.
One of them is at the junction of seventy four
and forty three and a lot of people know that
is the Beaver Jim Boyhood Home and that's one that
they're going to have to start working on soon. So
if anybody you had mentioned, if you know, people had
wanted to donate, if they do, it's not going to
go particularly to EV's house, but it will go into

(01:35:15):
a fund for the historic structures. So that's something you know,
I can put you in touch with them, and.

Speaker 2 (01:35:20):
Yeah, yeah it worked out so Buffalo River Partners. I'll
probably post a link on my social media. But that
had a lot of people wanting to contribute to Granny's house,
which is it's a good it's a good thing that
they already have the money they need to repair it
in the way they do, so that's big. But you
can still we can still gather up some money for

(01:35:42):
other there's there's lots.

Speaker 1 (01:35:44):
Like I said, I.

Speaker 2 (01:35:44):
Just cherry picked Granny's story and hers was the most famous,
but there's a ton of other other stories and other
historic structures on the river.

Speaker 4 (01:35:54):
You can just fix it once. You got to keep
it up.

Speaker 1 (01:35:57):
Yeah, that's true. So yeah, so look for some inform
of that, but it's the Buffalo River Partners. It's specifically
who is doing that. But uh yeah, thank you all
so much.

Speaker 2 (01:36:08):
Man, I kind of wish I'm kind of saying, I
always kind of get sad when some of these series
end because for a period of time, it's like I
was going over and riding mules with Justin for about
two weeks there. I was over over in Newton County
like every three days, you know, meeting people and talking
to people was a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 (01:36:28):
So but so for.

Speaker 5 (01:36:31):
Now, And if you want to leave us a comment.

Speaker 1 (01:36:34):
Yeah, you can email us at where.

Speaker 5 (01:36:36):
Bear Grease at the meat eater dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:36:38):
Yep, yep, yep. Thanks guys, thank you,

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Ep. 245: Render - All About "Granny"

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 245: Render - All About "Granny"