It was a really hot, humid day when I recently stopped by a garage sale, and I silently cursed myself as I left the cool confines of my vehicle and trudged into the dim recesses of a jam-packed garage. The sign promoting the sale mentioned books, and that was enough to get my attention. As the sweat dripped from my nose, I perused two large boxes of books and magazines, seeking titles dealing with Arkansas history.
My efforts were rewarded when I found a copy of Walking Editor of the Ozarks by Tom Shiras. Before his death in 1947, Tom Shiras was well known as the editor of the Baxter Bulletin newspaper in Mountain Home--and, perhaps more importantly, as a freelance writer on Ozarks topics.
Like folklorist Vance Randolph, his friend and fellow student of the Ozarks, Shiras was a native of Kansas. Born in 1879, Thomas Spencer Shiras spent his early years in Kansas. His parents divorced when young Tom was only 10. His mother then married Percy Gehr, a most interesting character.
Shiras described his one-armed stepfather, known far and wide as The Captain, as "a likable, unpredictable, hard-drinking man who could never be fitted to any conventional mold." Among The Captain's numerous financial ventures was mineral prospecting, which brought him to the zinc mining district of the Ozarks in 1901. At his stepfather's urging, Tom went along, although reluctantly, which caused him to be described as "the boy who had followed an organ grinder and his monkey into the Ozark Mountains, and had never been able to find the trail back home."
Despite his reluctance, Shiras fell in love immediately with the Ozarks. He loved the beautiful countryside and developed a deep respect for the local residents. In many respects it was a raw and undeveloped frontier. For example, though the town of Cotter had train service, he had to ride a stagecoach the 10 miles from there to Mountain Home.
The tall, red-haired Shiras long had an interest in newspapers, so it was no surprise when in 1904 he traded 80 acres of land in Missouri for one-half ownership of the Baxter County Citizen, one of two weeklies then published in Mountain Home. He soon acquired full ownership of the paper, later renaming it the Baxter Bulletin.
Shiras became known as the "Walking Editor" when economic necessity forced him to scour the countryside in a desperate attempt to collect $400 in unpaid subscriptions. Roads were primitive in the Ozarks in 1904 and Shiras did not own a horse and buggy, so walking was a logical course. "To get that money," Shiras recalled in a 1937 interview, "I walked thousands of miles in two months, begging, pleading, praying, but I finally got it."
Shiras used his walks not only to collect accounts but to get to know the residents of the hills and hollers of Baxter and surrounding counties: "Every month I walked over the inland sections of 10 counties. I became acquainted with every man, woman, and child in the territory and . . . also formed speaking acquaintances with most of the dogs." His newspaper prospered.
Tom Shiras made his living as a newspaperman, and he also produced many freelance articles which appeared in Kansas City and Memphis newspapers as well as Collier's and National Geographic magazines.
One of Shiras' most interesting freelance articles was on the diamond mine near Murfreesboro and the man who in 1906 discovered the first diamonds, John Wesley Huddleston. Shiras interviewed Huddleston in 1924 at his home in Murfreesboro, taking along his large format camera.
Shiras' visit with Huddleston produced some extremely interesting quotes as well as photos. At age 63 in 1924, Huddleston was, according to Shiras, "a big man--six feet tall, medium in build . . . He had large ears and bright gray eyes." Huddleston also had a cleft palette.
Huddleston, recalling his discovery nearly 20 years earlier and probably embellishing, stated that he found the diamonds while prospecting for gold. "It was blistering hot that afternoon, and heat waves shimmered before my eyes every time I looked up. I was creeping along a little ridge . . . when my eyes fell on a glittering pebble." He suspected the pebbles he found might be diamonds, so "I hurried back to the house . . . saddled my mule, and started for Murfreesboro."
Shiras' freelance work could be called "boosterism" since he was unstinting in his praise for Arkansas and especially the Ozarks. Here is an example from a 1919 piece: "Every scintillating flash of water in the rivers as it breaks into a thousand silver pieces on the shoals' every outcropping ledge . . . every gentle undulating ridge, every uncleared valley ... every uncut body of timber and every mountain town and village breathe forth opportunity and potentialities of the section."
An especially strong advocate for damming the White River and other Ozarks waterways., he was part of a delegation that lobbied Congress in Washington, and his comments were forceful. Upon Shiras' death in January 1947, Congressman Wilbur Mills unsuccessfully sought to name the Bull Shoals Dam after Shiras.
Shiras and his wife, Mayme Case, had one daughter, Ethel, and a grandson, Tom Dearmore, who became a famous journalist and editor. Various nieces also went into newspapering, perpetuating the Shiras legacy in Arkansas journalism.
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Tom Dillard is a historian and retired archivist living near Glen Rose in rural Hot Spring County. Email him at Arktopia.td@gmail.com.
Editorial on 08/14/2016