Bruce Elliot

An Interview with Bruce Elliot at his home in Van Buren, Missouri 02 April 1998 interviewed by Will Sarvis Oral History Program The State Historical Society of Missouri © 1998 Collection C3966 Missouri Environment a.c. 21 NOTICE 1) This material is protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code). It may not be cited without acknowledgment to The Oral History Program of the State Historical Society of Missouri and the Western Historical Manuscript Collection, a Joint Collection of the University of Missouri and the State Historical Society of Missouri. Citations should include: [name of interviewee], [name of the interviewer], [date and place of interview], [audio recording or transcript], and [where it can be found, for example, The Oral History Program of the State Historical Society of Missouri, Missouri Environment Oral History Project]. 2) Reproductions of this transcript are available for reference use only and cannot be reproduced or published in any form (including digital formats) without written permission from the Western Historical Manuscript Collection. 3) Use of information or quotations from any Missouri Environment Oral History Project transcript indicates agreement to indemnify and hold harmless the University of Missouri, the State Historical Society of Missouri, their officers, employees, and agents, and the interviewee from and against all claims and actions arising out of the use of this material. For further information, contact: Western Historical Manuscript Collection 23 Ellis Library University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65201-5149 PREFACE Mr. Bruce F. Elliott was born on July 2, 1909. He began his Forest Service career in Michigan during the Depression era. In 1954 he transferred to Ava, Missouri, to manage livestock grazing on the Mark Twain National Forest during some of the final years of open range in Missouri. In 1963 he transferred to Van Buren to work on the Clark National Forest, where he stayed until his 1972 retirement. Mr. Elliott transferred to Van Buren just before Congress implemented the Ozark National Scenic Riverways under Park Service management. During the late 1950s and early 1960s a proposal that would have expanding Forest Service management along the Current River had, for a time, posed an alternative to Park Service management. This period witnessed an increase and diversification of Forest Service recreation facilities nationwide, and Mr. Elliott relates Clark National Forest examples in his recollection of the construction of Skyline Drive and various horse trails. The Ozark National Scenic Riverways made the Current and Jacks Fork the first nationally protected rivers, and acted as something of a precedent for the 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which included the Eleven Point River in its first round of inclusion. Mr. Elliott helped manage the Eleven Point under this new legislation. The interview was recorded on Sony type I (normal bias) audio cassettes, using a Marantz PMD-222 manual recorder (set on automatic recording level) and a Shure VP64 omnidirectional microphone attached to a floor stand. The audio quality is good throughout. The following transcript represents a faithful rendering of the entire oral history interview. Minor stylistic alterations -- none of factual consequence -- have been made as part of a general transcription policy. Any use of brackets [ ] indicates editorial insertions not found on the original audio recordings. Parentheses ( ) are used to indicate laughter or a spoken aside evident from the speaker's intonation. Quotation marks [“ ”] indicate speech depicting dialogue, or words highlighted for the usual special purposes (such as indicating irony). Double dashes [--] and ellipses [ . ] are also used as a stylistic method in an attempt to capture nuances of dialogue or speech patterns. Words are italicized when emphasized in speech. Although substantial care has been taken to render this transcript as accurately as possible, any remaining errors are the responsibility of the editors, Will Sarvis and N. Renae Farris. © The State Historical Society of Missouri [Tape meter, 000. Begin side one, tape one of one. Begin interview.] WS: I‟m in Van Buren, Missouri, where I‟m in the home of Mr. Bruce Elliott, who worked for the [U. S.] Forest Service for many years. Was it the last twenty years of your career you were here in Missouri? BE: Yes. WS: I see. Mr. Elliott, to get started, I thought maybe you could just give us an autobiographical sketch; tell me your birth date, and where you were born, grew up, and that kind of thing. BE: I was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, on July 2nd, 1909. We lived there in Fort Collins, and then finally my dad and another man, in covered wagons, went down to Texas. The family followed later on, after he got a place to stay. So we down and lived in Texas for five years. Then we came back to Fort Collins. I went to school at Fort Collins schools, and then went to Colorado State University and took forestry. I graduated in 1935. I went to Michigan to work with the Forest Service in the CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] program. I was a forester in a CCC camp there. I spent a number of years at that, and then I was made ranger in the upper Michigan national forest. I was up there for about, oh, thirteen years. Then I was transferred down to Ava, Missouri. What they wanted was somebody who knew something about grazing. The fact that I had gone to a western college, they figured I knew grazing. (Laughs) Of course I didn‟t, and I told them that, but they said, “Well, you‟ve been exposed to a certain extent, so go down and try it.” So I did. Over at BE = Bruce Elliott; WS = Will Sarvis 1 © The State Historical Society of Missouri Ava it was open range; cattle, hogs, and sheep running everywhere. We did have some permits for grazing, and laid out some grazing allotments, and leased them out to the various farmers. We had quite a bit of open land at that time, when the Forest Service got land. We had a big problem with fires. Everybody liked to burn. When you burn, it makes more grass. (Chuckles) So, our Forest Service lands, a lot of them were kind of targets for places to burn so people‟s cattle could have something to eat. As time progressed, working with the people there, it was quite a big project, but we reduced the fires by a big amount. We finally got people to where they didn‟t set so many fires, and where they could see, maybe, that is was helping -- not for grazing, but helping their land. So much of the country all through the Ozarks, back in those days, it was a policy to burn what you can. So all the hilltops, or one thing or another, were rock. There was no soil there. It was all washed away, pretty much. It was really very poor ground. But as time went by and these areas were protected, and fires were kept out, they begin to build up the soil somewhat. Things began to get better, and people kind of recognized that, and began to accept it. [Tape meter, 050] Eventually, especially over around Ava where we had our grazing area, so much of the country really did look awful. But through our program, not people necessarily on the [national] forest, but other people around -- the county agent was a big help, too, with the idea of managing their cattle, having rotation grazing on grasslands, and so forth. It 2 BE = Bruce Elliott; WS = Will Sarvis © The State Historical Society of Missouri kind of took effect. I have seen an improvement all through the years with how much better the land looks, and with how much more productive it is. Finally, the open range was taken out. In open range, your cattle could go where they wanted to. If you didn‟t want them on your land, you had to fence them off. But in closed range, they have to keep their cattle fenced in, (chuckles) and not get out. It was a big step forward to improving our lands. WS: Do you remember the year you were transferred to Missouri? BE: 1954. WS: So you retired in the middle „70s? BE: In 1972. I came to Van Buren in 1963. WS: When you were in Ava, was that the Clark National Forest, or the Mark Twain? BE: No, that was the Mark Twain. WS: And then over here, was it still the Clark? BE: Yes. WS: When did the two forests merge? BE: They merged pretty well, I think... around 1960, probably; late „50s, 1960. WS: What were some of the differences you noticed between Michigan and Missouri, in terms of the forest? BE: It‟s altogether different timber. Up there they‟re northern hardwoods. They‟re so much different than our southern hardwoods. They grow a lot of pine and fir and spruce up in Michigan. A lot of our work there was growing pulpwood. Especially a lot of the jack BE = Bruce Elliott; WS = Will Sarvis 3 © The State Historical Society of Missouri pine was pulpwood; and the spruce and balsam, pretty much so. All of Michigan, pretty much, was at one time pine lands, mostly, and big pine forests. Then they were all cut off. Of course, they were burned considerably after that. No fire protection. So it left a lot of barren areas; many big, barren fields and areas. So one of the big things up in Michigan was tree planting. Planting pine, mostly, altogether. We planted thousands of acres with the CCC program. [Tape meter, 100] I worked in the CCC program as a forester for a few years.

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