I have been letting people know through this column of the outdoorsman’s swap meet I am holding at our now-finished ‘nature center-museum’ building a mile south of Houston MO on Hwy 63, come Saturday, October 26. We have spaces for a half dozen more “vendors”. Vendors, being someone who brings a table and sells outdoor gear… old fishing lures, old guns, etc. There is no cost so if you want to come join us, please let me know so I can save you one of those spaces. If you have an old gun or two, or only a few fishing items, or any kind of antiques (old tools, old paddles, etc), bring them and I will try to sell them for you at my table.
If you just want to come and see what we have, show up between 9 and 3 and you might win a valuable painting of the Big Piney River, done by nationally known Duane Hada, an Arkansas wildlife artist and river ecologist who has no equal in painting the Ozarks. He intends to do a painting that morning which we will raffle off.
Jerry McCoy, the Ozarks historian and antique fishing gear guru will be there to tell folks stories about the rivers he has been a part of and the experiences he has had. I also believe there will be several old shotguns and rifles on sale, and perhaps 500 fishing lures for sale, many of them antiques. You can’t miss the place, because we will have signs up and a big banner out front along south highway 63.
After the swap meet event we will begin putting in displays relating to old times on the Big Piney River. We are looking for a large aquarium, four feet long or better. We already have a big antique pool table which was made in 1920 called a Victory Table and was made by the St. Louis A.E. Schmidt Company and brought to Houston when it was new. It sat inside the pool hall where I worked as a kid until it was sold in the 1980’s. I bought it a few years later and in December of this year we will use it to have a pool tournament. There will also be a 15-foot johnboat on one wall, built by my dad and I and was used on the Big Piney many years ago. The real antique boat is the 22-foot aluminum johnboat that was the first one built in Missouri in 1951. It has a serial number of 0001 and was built for the old Missouri Conservation Commission to use on the Big Piney and Gasconade Rivers. It was said to have carried some of the most famous Missourians down the river, including Thomas Hart Benton, Harry Truman, Charley Schwartz and Stan Musial. I discovered it sitting in an old barn.
There will also be displays of many artifacts made by the early bluff dwellers from hundreds and even thousands of years ago, who lived in the many caves along the Big Piney River. That includes a 4-inch-round ivory disc pendant said to be the only ivory artifact ever found in the Ozarks. Radiocarbon testing proves it to be 8,000 years old, likely from a tusk of a mastodon. There will be lots of other things, from the history of the people, the fish, mammals and birds of the Big Piney River. And it is free for all who want to visit, even as we go about putting up the displays.
Anyone who wants to help can do so. We will put up a donation box so that those who want to donate can help pay the electric and water bills. We will have no cash register and our nature center will be manned by volunteers, free to all who come. It will be a place where old-time rivermen and float fishing guides like Charlie Curran, Dennis Whiteside, and me can tell about our river experiences. Charlie floated the Piney in the 1940’s. and Dennis once the Chief Naturalist for Arkansas, can tell you about his experiences as a river guide and fish and wild creatures in the Big Piney as well. In the winter we will have a big fire going in the fireplace, coffee and donuts, checker boards and domino and card tables for visitors and old-time Ozarkians who might tell a few good stories about the old days.
This place has been a dream of mine for many years and the Great Creator has allowed it to happen thru a series of miracles and some special people. From this article I am sure you can feel how excited I am about this Nature Center and Museum and I hope many of you can be with me to celebrate the beginning of many great days to come there. Contact me at email, lightninridge47@gmail.com or call me, 417 777 5227 to reserve a space at our swapmeet.
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