CHARLEY BARNES, famed James River fishing guide, with brothers John and Herbert

 James Fork of the White, Lens & Pen Press  No Responses »
May 122022
 

Robert Page Lincoln profiled Charley Barnes, James River guide and john boat builder, in a long article titled “Floating Down the River” in the March 1948 issue of Fur-Fish-Game magazine.

The caption from the 1948 article reads, “This photo of Charley Barnes and his two brothers, Herbert and John, was taken in 1909 about the time that the Barnes float trip business at Galena, Mo., was at the height of its success. Barnes told Lincoln that the bass shown in this photo are the same average size as those taken now. Reading left to right are Herbert, John, and Charley Barnes.”

Charley later developed a distaste for trophy photos. Fishermen would keep more fish than they could eat to take an impressive picture. All the early river guides were supporters of the conservation movement and fish and game laws as they viewed the protection of natural resources to be in their business interests and encouraged an early form of catch-and-release.

Barnes was born near Mount Vernon in 1878. The family moved to a farm near the James three miles from Galena when he was eight. He and his brothers spent much time fishing this historic river and their catches were such that Barnes conceived of the idea of making boats and taking out fishing parties. At the age of 26, in 1904 Barnes started taking out his first parties.

Though his big city customers may have considered Barnes a “hillbilly” – he not only built the john boats they floated in, but with his brother he also owned the Galena Ford agency.

 

Lens & Pen Press is having a half-price sale for all titles. James Fork of the White, Damming the Osage, Mystery of the Irish Wilderness and other titles– all are now available on our website at www.dammingtheosage.com for half the original price, postage paid.

THE OZARKS: Where It’s Been, Where It’s Going. Vol. 3 in Brooks Blevins’ Trilogy

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jan 022022
 

Brooks Blevins discussing the third volume of his trilogy, A History of the Ozarks, Dec. 13 at The Library Center in Springfield.

Brooks Blevins finds it endlessly fascinating why a modest uplift in the center of America is believed to be the homeland of a race of slack-jawed yokels in spite of compelling demographic evidence it is inhabited by a populace not dissimilar to those of surrounding states. Fans of Dr. Blevins will find in Volume 3 of A History of the Ozarks: The Ozarkers a definitive answer to that paradox and a good guess as to the durability of that region’s hillbilly identity. Given the long literary origins of the trope it seems unlikely associating the Ozark hills with old timey ways will completely die out even though the place is in a rebranding phase.

Professor Blevins is more familiar with popular culture than many historians—and more respectful of its influence. His lively writing style is animated by these cultural conflicts. He points out a year before Alice Walton’s (of Walmart) toney art museum opened, a violent meth film set in the Ozarks premiered: “The fact that the movie Winter’s Bone dominated national perceptions of the Ozarks during the year and a half preceding the opening of Crystal Bridges made the museum’s premiere that much more jarring and its impact on the region’s image that much more transformative … But the twenty-first century has certainly sparked a reimagining of the Ozarks and Ozarkers. It was inevitable that at some point the reality of life in the Ozarks would stray so far from the region’s stubborn image that the dissonance would be impossible to ignore.”

His two earlier volumes are solid reconstructions of the place’s past. Volume 3 brilliantly shows how legend and myth infiltrate our perceptions of the past. Such stereotyping displeases the business community but is a gift to novelists, folklorists, and souvenir makers. The hillbilly was once a tourist icon—and to some degree may still be in spite of greater sensitivity to negative regional profiling. Another reasoned, well researched, and fun read from Missouri State University Professor Blevins.

 

A History of the Ozarks: The Ozarkers is available at the University of Illinois Press or on amazon

 

Hogs and Hillbillies

 Uncategorized  No Responses »
Jun 272017
 

Real photo postcard by Hall. Probably taken in Stone County, Missouri, but Arkansas sounded more primitive. The hog’s board collar is to keep it out of fenced gardens. Cattle and hogs were released in the woods to feed themselves. The destructive rooting of feral pigs was, and still is, an environmental problem.

Though the hillbilly icon didn’t emerge for several decades, the Ozarks has been depicted as a primitive place inhabited by people living a pioneer lifestyle since the early 1800s. This mythos was rejected by progressive Springfieldians, but in Galena, and the White River Hills, it was a component of tourism.

Arkansas was held to be slightly more regressive than southern Missouri but only slightly so.

(Page 72 in the forthcoming book, James Fork of the White: Transformation of an Ozark River.)

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