While organizing our extensive collection of Ozarks ephemera we found this June 1952 issue of the Ford Times with an article on “Missouri’s Irish Wilderness,” by Don Cullimore. As the article seems to be largely devoted to the springs and stream (“The Narrows”) where aquarium plants were harvested, we didn’t reference it in Mystery of the Irish Wilderness. Cullimore mentions the lost colony of Irish immigrants founded by Father Hogan in the article. The purpose of the Ford Times, however, was to encourage folks to drive their Fords to new places, so this article focuses on the Morgan family’s “spring-water moss farm” (Myriophyllum harvesting, for use in home aquariums) in a remote and scenic location, on the Eleven Point River in Oregon County, Missouri.
In 1951 and 1952, Cullimore and Dan Saults, editor of the Conservationist, with photographer Don Wooldridge, researched and published a series of 12 articles about the Irish Wilderness for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. They drove the roads with E. R. Barrow, step-grandson of original Irish settler, Billy Griffin, exploring the locations and recording the stories of that early settlement. The result of their deep dive into its history was a remarkable series of articles encompassing what was known or could be discovered at that time about Hogan’s settlement. Those articles we read and referenced in Mystery of the Irish Wilderness.
Their articles and the continued interest of Cullimore, Saults and a coalition of environmentalists led to the inclusion of these legendary forested hills in the national wilderness protection system: The “Irish Wilderness Act of 1984”. Sec, was passed by Congress, “2, (a) In furtherance of the purposes of the Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 1131-1136), certain lands in the Mark Twain National Forest, Missouri, which comprise approximately sixteen thousand five hundred acres, as generally depicted on a map entitled “Irish Wilderness”, dated March 27, 1984, are hereby designated as wilderness and shall be known as the Irish Wilderness.”
Today – the aquarium plant business is no more. The Morgan family opened the aquaria plant farm in 1951 and continued in business until 1978. The United States Forest Service purchased the area in 1972.
Mystery of the Irish Wilderness: Land and Legend of Father John Joseph Hogan’s Lost Irish Colony in the Ozark Wilderness is available on amazon.com or discounted on this website, postage paid.
To learn more about the remarkable Catholic priest who established this Ozark colony and later became the first bishop of Kansas City, our book “On the Mission in Missouri and Fifty Years Ago: A Memoir” reprints both of his memoirs in full. We included additional biographical information found in our research. Also available on amazon.com or discounted on this website postage paid.