After completing an oral history interview in Jasper, Arkansas, I went to the interviewee’s former property in what is now Boxley Valley Historic District.

Author: Tommy Medford | Major: History | Semester: Spring 2024

My name is Tommy Medford, and I just graduated with a B.A. in History from the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. How the time flies! My mentor is Dr. Jared Phillips, Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of History. I have been taking graduate courses through the department’s 4+1 program, and intend to complete my M.A. in History here next spring. I began this research in earnest (for my honors thesis) in my Honors Methods class in the fall of 2022, and successfully defended it a few weeks ago. I will continue to write on this same topic – and hopefully publish in an academic journal – as a graduate student.

I am big on being in nature, especially hiking and floating. So, being a native Arkansan, I’ve spent a good amount of time around the Buffalo National River. On a visit to the library’s Special Collections a few years back, I heard that we had the papers of Dr. Neil Compton, a preservationist that played a big role in securing a park designation for the river. I figured this would afford a great opportunity to dabble in environmental history for my honors research. However, I learned quite quickly that Compton had written his own book about those years. But his dominant preservation narrative left out a lot of the story. Landowners that lost their land received little attention. So, for the next several months, I talked about the Ozarks with Dr. Phillips, conducted oral history interviews, and completed archival research in Special Collections and at Buffalo National River’s headquarters to learn more about the role of landowners in the long fight that led to a gem of a park.

I have found that landowners undoubtedly had something to say in the debate. While pro-dam and pro-park groups were the most organized and thus received the most attention from politicians and the press, landowners did organize to resist losing their land. It was just more localized and sporadic. But the situation was nuanced; landowner opinion varied. The rhetoric of preservation has led to the protection of a beautiful space for recreation in perpetuity, but it skewed how people understood the landscape. Not just a natural space, the Buffalo River and surrounding area was often pastoral. This means that people had been present farming and using the land for generations, in spite of claims of outmigration.

I learned early on that research questions can – and probably should – change with time. For me, it led to a great paper that fills a gap in the historiography. My research efforts have also given me a lot of valuable experience. For one, I’ve learned how special and useful oral history is. To come into someone’s home and discuss their life is a privilege, even if it is daunting every time. Nevertheless, it’s something anyone should employ when tackling a difficult topic in rural history where little has been written; it revealed things to me that I never would have considered when I first started researching. It changed what I was after. My project has also sparked a love for the archival research process. Reading secondary literature and learning about context is all well and good, but digging through primary sources is even more fascinating – it’s like creating a link to the past, to the historical actors who we should want to give a voice to.

Moving forward, I intend to contribute more to the academic literature about the Buffalo National River. There’s still much left unsaid. In a couple weeks, I will travel to Denver, Colorado to complete research at a National Archives location that has a lot of National Park Service files. I hope to eventually write more on land acquisition, the history of the park’s administration, and find out even more about landowner agency and rhetoric in the famous “Battle for the Buffalo.” These last several months, I have relied on my mentor and other fine folks with a passion for the history of the Ozarks, and I know that writing my master’s thesis won’t be something I do alone. Many thanks to the Honors College for helping to make my research happen!