While passing through a small Ozark town, it may surprise some folks to know its' history of times gone by. Recently, I came across this article while doing some research on a family member and thought it was worthy to share. The story is a small town that I am fond of, due to the fact that it was the first place I was a school teacher at...Yellville, Arkansas.
This story came from a traveling reporter who worked for The Sun in New York City. The date was September the 2nd, 1894. I have transcribed it word for word and did not attempt to correct the grammar or structure. It all is a testimony to our Ozark's History.
THE PEOPLE OF THE OZARKS.
Religion is General, Whiskey Is Not Sold
and Populism Is Unheard Of.
Yellville,
Ark., Aug. 21. - Yellville is in the very
heart of the Ozark Mountains and is the center of a little world bordered on
the north by Missouri and embracing the valleys of the White, Buffalo, and
Little Red Rivers, and the ranges between them. Here several generations have
lived and died, undisturbed by the great arteries of commerce or by the noisy
hum of the mill or factory. Scores of the people now living in Marion county,
who are past the age of 21, have never looked upon a train of cars.
Yellville is the county seat of Marion county, and Is
reached by an stage coach,which runs from West Plains, Mo., the nearest
railroad station, seventy miles to the northward. This trip is over a rough but
very interesting mountain road, and the stage is drawn by four or six horses.
It is the oldest town in northern Arkansans. It was in 1833 that the first
cabin was built on the bunk of Clear Creek, about twelve miles from its
confluence with White River. A trackless wilderness, with few habitations, then
extended over the region between the Osage River and Little Rock and the St.
Francis River and the Cherokee Nation.
The old Kentuckian who first settled here was a trapper and
a coon hunter, whose reputation extended throughout the region. He raised a
little patch of corn and tobacco before another white man ventured near him,
and as the settlement was established, his cabin become a sort of trade center,
and he was soon buying the skins and furs of other settlers, trading them
powder, tobacco, salt, hog meat, and the very few things which went to make up
their necessaries of life. He died, and his boys soon became prominent in the
political affairs of the times, and established a town which they named after
Gov. Yell, one of the first Governors of the State. The 700 inhabitants of
Yellville are nearly all natives of Arkansas, and most of them from Marlon
county. A few men have drifted in from the adjoining States on business
ventures, and are likely to live and die here.
One of the first experiences which befell the correspondent
of The
Sun, after arriving in this town, came in a search for a barber. One
was found whose shop occupied a corner in the office of the most prominent
physician of Yellville, This man of science was present during the tonsorial
performance, and sat on an empty cracker box sawing away at "Arkansaw
Traveler" on an old fiddle with only three strings. The combination of the
barber and the musician was sufficient to give a stranger the conviction that
the region was the abiding place of outlaws and evil doers, and that the
general moral tone of the inhabitants was low.
But with all this primitiveness the visitor will soon
discover that the people in this region are honest, scrupulously so. They are
also very religious, and a large proportion of the population are devout church
members. The Stale laws make it a misdemeanor to do any work on Sunday. They
are also very strict in regard to the sale of intoxicating liquors. Both laws
are strictly enforced, and in all this country it would require a constable and
a search warrant to find any anti-snake bite. It is very probable that the
village druggist keep a small amount for emergencies, but it requires the sworn
statement of your physician that it is necessary to save your life, and that no
other medicine can be used with safety, before you can get even an eye-opener.
When, a few year ago, the Methodist Episcopal Church. South, built a college
here, some of the leading citizens went before the Legislature at Little Rock and
passage of a law forever prohibiting the sale of liquor within six miles of the
college.
These conditions have not always prevailed in this region.
About twenty years ago it was a safe retreat for all kinds of outlaws. The
saloons were headquarters for the bandits and horse thieves. Not a week passed
without a man or two being killed. Finally a mass meeting was called, at which
the citizens declared they would take the law into their own hands. Notices
were served on the saloon keepers to close immediately, and on the bandits to
leave. These notices were quickly compiled with, and from that day to this
there has not been a place within the county where a drink of whiskey could be
bought.
Marion county is thoroughly Democratic. The Democrats here
know no political enemy but the Republican party; they have no knowledge of
Populist " reformers;" they wonder at the Coxey craze, and when
the regulars were sent to quell the Chicago Anarchist, an old gray-beard who
had fought under Johnston and Hood through the Confederacy, said:
"Wouldn't it be funny if the President would have to call old ‘confeds’ to
whip Altgeld and Illinois back into the Union. "
Work Cited:
“People of the Ozarks.” The Sun 62.2 (02 Sept. 1892): 10. New
York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundation. United States Library
of Congress, Washington D.C. 15 Nov. 2009
