Deep in the rugged Ozarks, a 76-year-old farmer named Lin Williams took a break from checking cattle to reflect on a storied piece of land many know as Camp Zoe.
Dating to 1929, thousands of children came from all over to explore trails, caves and streams there. More recently, the isolated camp became a giant outdoor music venue owned by the leader of a Grateful Dead tribute band from St. Louis.
“If the wind blew just right, you could hear it,” Williams, who lives several hollows away, said of the hippie concerts. “That didn’t bother me.”
Something else does.
“I don’t like the government trying to take over everything from the people,” he said.
In 2010, law enforcement officers raided the camp because of outdoor drugs sales. The owner, Jimmy Tebeau, ended up forfeiting the 330-acre camp to the federal government and going to prison. Meanwhile, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources snapped up the land at auction and added 100 acres.
This weekend, former Camp Zoe opened July 30 as Echo Bluff State Park.
Missouri invested more than $52 million in a new lodge, playground, primitive and recreational vehicle campgrounds, pavilions and two-bedroom cabins that cost as much as $450,000 a pop to build. An additional $10.5 million in federal grants helped pay for roads and bridges in the area.
Some early visitors are calling Echo Bluff a resort. A basic room at the lodge, which includes a full restaurant, will fetch $159 on weekend nights during peak season; a four-bedroom cabin will cost $339.
“The lodge and the other things are going to be for a different clientele than the average people around here,” presiding Shannon County Commissioner Jeff Cowen said in an interview at his regular job as a mechanic in Eminence, population 600.
Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, said parks were a “key” piece of his tenure as a two-term governor. He’s calling Echo Bluff a centerpiece to tourism in the region that will draw visitors from far away throughout the year, not just summer months.
“In essence, we turned it from a drug haven to a jewel of our state park system,” said Nixon, an Eagle Scout and former state attorney general. “It’s going to pay off huge dividends for a lot of years to come.”
Echo Bluff is about 150 miles southwest of St. Louis and southwest of Mark Twain National Forest on Highway 19. It abuts the Ozark Scenic Riverways, the 80,000-acre national park that draws droves of people here each year to canoe and fish 134 miles of the Current and Jacks Fork rivers. It also borders a forest reserve billed as “back country.” There’s more state land nearby, so much that independent locals such as Williams say private property owners are being squeezed.
If there were a book to be written about the area, longtime resident Jack Peters would be a likely narrator. He was one of the first rangers to show up in the 1960s when land was being acquired for the national park. He left that job to work at Camp Zoe, which he fell in love with and eventually owned until insurance became too costly.
“That property is unique, almost spiritual to me and to many, many people,” said Peters, 78, who now runs a canoe rental. “Anybody that property has touched recognizes it and senses it. I was happy when the state bought it because it still belongs to all of us. What’s the alternative? That it be chopped up into little lots with Keep Out signs.”
OPPORTUNITY AND COST
Some south-central Missouri lawmakers questioned the project as the price tag grew. They said decisions were being made with little debate in the Legislature.
Roger Dillon, editor of the Shannon County Current Wave newspaper, said some seemed to oppose the park merely because Nixon was for it.
“That’s taking politics too far,” Dillon said. “If it does half of what it is projected to do, it will be a good thing. We export logs and high school seniors. There’s not a lot of opportunity. Some are going to work for the state park.”
Guest Services is the company that has the hospitality contract for the park. It hired 24 people, most of them from the area. Janet Fossey, 64, is a clerk in the gift shop and said she was happy about it.
“It’s unheard of that jobs here pay above minimum wage, and you can get benefits,” she said.
Missouri Parks plans to staff six full-time employees there and as many as 20 seasonal workers.
Cowen, the presiding commissioner, said the county noticed a 10 percent jump in sales tax revenue in the past year. He suspects that is from park construction. On the busiest day, 125 people were working on it.
Some local businesses landed some of the work.
“It was really good for us,” said Tammie Hanger, of Eminence-based Crider Brothers Lime Co., which produced crushed rock for concrete and landscaping. “It’s probably 60 percent of our business the last couple years.”
Still, some question the money thrown at the project. They wonder if it could have been better spent. A $5 million bridge was built over Sinking Creek inside the park, while they say a new bridge is badly needed on Highway 19 just outside the park.
“I wish they’d made a park citizens of Shannon County and their visitors could afford to use,” said Barbara Lynn, stopping by the courthouse on a recent day.
Sen. Doug Libia, R-Poplar Bluff, said the park would be a boon to the area. It’s in the far western end of his district, which includes several impoverished counties stretching to the Bootheel.
“We need economic development,” he said. “It’s just a huge shot in the arm in Shannon County and surrounding counties.”
He said the park would bring “new money” in, including “first-class travelers” on their way to Branson. The park is also free to visit for day use, and campsites cost $15 a night during the busy season.
“If you don’t want to stay in the lodge, you can primitive camp and still have nice showers and stuff,” he said. “They have all the price levels, in my opinion, taken care of.”
Stacy Smith, of Carr’s Grocery and Canoe Rental near Big Spring Campground, is on board, but with one caveat: that the investment brings demand rather than competition. Outfitters were still uncertain, she said, if they will have direct access to Echo Bluff or if the park will have its own outfitter.
A parks spokesman clarified that there will be access for outfitters and that a canoe and kayak operation within Echo Bluff would be managed by Guest Services, the private company that is the concessionaire.
Nixon said in an interview that he suspected there was some level of disagreement over the creation of each of the state’s 88 parks and historic sites.
“You always have folks that don’t fully see down the field as other folks do,” he said.
Overall, he said, Missourians are notable for their support of state parks. A one-tenth cent sales tax that has funded the state park system was renewed in 1988, 1996 and 2006. It will be on the ballot again Nov. 8. Since he took office in 2009, he said, $69 million has been spent in upgrades.
He said park attendance was more than 19 million in 2015, a 30 percent jump since 2008. The state says visitors contribute more than $1 billion to the economy and thousands of jobs.
POWER OF THE OUTDOORS
Nixon grew up in Jefferson County enjoying the outdoors. He became an Eagle Scout at 13. As governor, he supported the addition of 9,400 acres of park land, including three new ones: Echo Bluff, Don Robinson in Jefferson County and Rock Island, a rails-to-trails project near Kansas City that is supposed to stretch across the state one day.
“It’s one of the things that’s been key for me,” he said.
In his second year in office, Nixon made a point to visit every park in the state, which he described as cathartic.
“Not everything that you do in the Capitol is fun, but when I am out at the parks, people are smiling,” he said.
Jimmy Tebeau, who pleaded guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premise at Camp Zoe, agreed about the power of the outdoors.
Even though he forfeited the property and spent nearly a year at a prison camp in South Dakota after the police raid, he wants to see Echo Bluff.
“It used to be my backyard,” said Tebeau, 48, who sports long dreadlocks and lives with his family near Carondelet Park in south St. Louis. His Grateful Dead tribute band, The Schwag, is celebrating 25 years.
“I’ll go down,” he said. “Shoot. There’s a lot of good memories there. It would be neat if they let me play music.”
He said as many as 7,000 people showed up for the biggest concerts at his former venue. Hippies would camp for days and dance in the woods.
Among the amenities the state built is a new amphitheater.
It seats 50.