Park Service curation facility tells Ozarks story

~ There are only six National Park Service cultural resource centers in the country.

VAN BUREN, Mo. -- Some might call it a Supercenter for historical and natural artifacts.

The Cultural Resources Curation Facility is probably the only place in Southeast Missouri where a person can hear the story of D-Day from a soldier who lived through it, see a replica of a 1930s moonshine camp and read original documents signed by Lyndon B. Johnson establishing the Ozark National Scenic Riverways.

This collection is powerful not only because it marks historically significant events, but because it is told in voices of those who lived it and shown in artifacts held or created by their hands.

"Two hundred years from now, what will people want to know about the Ozarks?" asked Jim Price, cultural resources manager and acting chief of the resources management and education division of the Ozark National Scenic Riverways. "Our mission here is to put together collections not for this week or next week, but for 200 years from now."

The tens of thousands of unique and, perhaps, for now not-so-unique items held within the facility tell the story of the Ozarks and the people who have lived there.

The miniature moonshine camp was created by a Van Buren resident, based on one the man operated during the 1930s. It details everything from jars to put the moonshine in to a rifle leaning against a tree, and from stacked firewood to the condensing barrel.

"All of the ingredients of a moonshine operation are visible in that little model," Price explained. "We have thousand of hours of people talking about what life was like in the Ozarks. We have a tremendous amount of documentation for the Civilian Conservation Corps. We have arithmetic and reading books from local one-room schools. ...

"We're collecting a lot of things from the local culture. The collection for the park is much bigger than this building and its contents."

There are only six National Park Service cultural resource centers in the country, but it is part of more than 350 units established since 1904 to preserve a growing cache of some 105 million objects of cultural and natural significance, according to the park service.

The Van Buren offices also house a herbarium, containing specimens of plants found in the park and fish from the Current and Jacks Fork rivers.

Locally, the collection began in about 1975 with the forming of the park.

Some of the curation facility's most recent projects include collecting oral histories from elderly residents of Shannon County, recalling conditions in the Ozarks through their lifetimes, and World War II veterans.

Every measure is taken to preserve the collection, Price said, with many items stored in fire proof cabinets or wrapped in protective coverings, and protected by a state-of-the-art alarm system.