There was a confluence of events in the early 1960s that led to the rebirth of Stone County. Think Arkansas Folk Festival, the Arkansas Craft Guild, the Rackensack Folklore Society, the Ozark Folk Center and a colorful character named Jimmy Driftwood.
In a cover story for today's Perspective section, I write about a trip south on Arkansas 5 from Mountain Home to Heber Springs. That trip took me through Stone County, synonymous in the minds of many Arkansans with mountain music and culture.
What's now Stone County was part of the hunting grounds for the Osage tribe. Settlers from Tennessee, North Carolina, Kentucky and other states east of Arkansas began moving to the area in the 1830s. Because few area residents owned slaves, there was a strong Union sentiment there leading up to the Civil War. Stone County was created by the Legislature in April 1873 out of parts of Independence, Izard, Searcy and Van Buren counties.
A site in the center of the county was chosen as the county seat, and the name Mountain View was adopted. A log structure was built as the courthouse. It was replaced by a two-story frame building at the present courthouse site in 1888. The current stone courthouse, around which so many Arkansans have spent spring and summer evenings listening to music through the decades, was built in 1923.
"In the county's early days, the economy was based on small-acreage cash crops such as grain and cotton along with timber, trapping and livestock," Stephanie Lawrence Labert writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. "The residents of Stone County, like the rest of the country, suffered from the effects of the Great Depression. The self-sustaining lifestyle they were used to in this isolated area helped them survive. Due to poor road conditions, livestock and timber were shipped by rail or water. People survived by growing their own food, trapping, harvesting herbs, making corn whiskey and bartering with those who had what they needed."
With job opportunities limited, Stone County's population fell from 8,603 in the 1940 census to 6,294 in the 1960 census.
"Agriculture--mainly beef cattle and poultry--and timber have always been important industries for the Mountain View area," Edie Nicholson writes for the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. "But the community struggled to attract industry because of its inaccessibility. The roads leading out of Mountain View--with the exception of Highway 14 toward Batesville-- weren't paved until the late 1960s and early 1970s. Local residents feared that the county would decline if it didn't find a way to attract visitors."
Since bottoming out in the 1960 census, the population of Stone County has doubled. What happened?
Let's start with the Arkansas Folk Festival, which established Stone County in the minds of Arkansans as the place to go if one wanted to understand the mountain culture. The event had its roots in the Stone County Folkways Festival, held in 1941. Because of World War II, subsequent festivals weren't held.
"The festival was revived in 1963 during the birth of a regional tourism effort," writes Lori Freeze of the Stone County Leader. "The Ozarks Foothills Handicraft Guild--now the Arkansas Craft Guild--which represented a seven-county area, had held its first show the year before in Batesville. The local tourist and recreation committee had sponsored a regional dogwood drive the previous few years. It was decided to combine the different events into one big spring festival. Attendance at the festival peaked in the 1970s with the height of popularity of folk music and the free-spirited audience that followed it. The festival was extended over two weekends in its most popular phase."
The festival still attracts between 20,000 to 30,000 people to Stone County each April.
Meanwhile, the Ozark Foothills Handicraft Guild was incorporated in 1962. A Small Business Administration loan of $15,600 in 1963 allowed the guild to construct log cabins at Salem, Hardy, Clinton, Heber Springs and Mountain View. Stores were operating out of those cabins by 1964.
A fall crafts show, designed to complement the spring event at Mountain View, started in October 1966 at Heber Springs. That show ended in 1989, and the Mountain View show ended in 1993. The guild's Arkansas Craft Gallery at Mountain View continues to be a popular stop for visitors and cements the city's reputation as the best place to find Ozark crafts.
The next major player in Stone County's rebirth--Rackensack Folklore Society--was begun by Dr. Lloyd Hollister and his wife Martha. They came to Stone County from central Arkansas in 1962 and settled at Fox. Hollister set up his medical practice at Mountain View. In February 1963, Hollister held a meeting with six others to form an organization to promote mountain music. Driftwood suggested the Rackensack name. Famed editorial cartoonist George Fisher created a branch in Little Rock later in the 1960s. The society and Driftwood became key players in the establishment of the Ozark Folk Center.
Driftwood, who had been born James Corbett Morris near Mountain View in 1907, became nationally known in 1959 when Johnny Horton recorded Driftwood's song "The Battle of New Orleans." Horton's version topped the country charts for 10 weeks in 1959 and the pop charts for six weeks. At the second Grammy Awards ceremony in 1959, Driftwood and Horton won Song of the Year honors. Driftwood's "Wilderness Road" received a Grammy nomination for Best Folk Performance of the Year, and Eddy Arnold received Grammy nominations in the folk and country categories for his version of Driftwood's "Tennessee Stud."
In 1963, Driftwood returned to his farm near Timbo. He convinced U.S. Rep. Wilbur Mills of Arkansas to arrange a $2.1 million federal grant for construction of the Ozark Folk Center. It cost $3.4 million to build and opened in May 1973 as the country's premier facility for preserving Southern mountain folkways. Advanced Projects Corp. of New York won the contract to build and operate the center. The contractor ran into financial problems in 1972. The state later agreed to operate the center as a state park, which now covers 637 acres.
With so many feuding factions in these hills, it was inevitable that there would be controversy. Driftwood had become the center's musical director, but the state ended up removing him from that position. After leaving the folk center, Driftwood and a small following of original Rackensack members built a structure just north of Mountain View and held their own shows at the Jimmy Driftwood Barn.
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Rex Nelson is a senior editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Editorial on 03/10/2019