Hootin an Hollarin celebrates six decades of the Ozarks
In downtown Gainesville, every fall for 62 years, the sights, sounds and smells of the Ozarks have taken center stage for a festival known as Hootin an Hollarin. You can taste homemade apple butter on a slice of fresh-baked bread, cheer your pet turtle on in a race to the finish line and square dance until midnight on the courthouse square. But the heart of this three-day event are the tributes paid to the pioneers from this unique part of Missouri.
Everything from the homespun dresses to the queen pageant to the blazing speed of the fiddle players to the crafters building everyday items including dolls, brooms and ropes recalls the heritage of the area’s early settlers. If you visit you can, for a moment, be part of an era which, at least here, is not long lost to the ages.
The fall of 2022 may have been Paula Rose’s first as the committee chairwoman of Hootin an Hollarin, but it was far from her first time at the annual festival. A Gainesville native, Paula has been attending the festival as far back as she can remember. The retired educator heads up the effort to bridge the “pioneer days with modern ways,” where costume parades, bed and outhouse races, pet shows and no end of games, contests and fun can be had by visitors.
“My parents were both teachers, and they both were square dancers, so we stayed every night until it was over at midnight,” Paula recalls. “My mom would always make me a Hootin an Hollarin dress for the costume parade, and we were really big into it.”
With so much firsthand knowledge and experience of the festival, Paula knows what makes the event stand out to visitors: demonstrators of the pioneer way of life. When Paula was younger it wasn’t uncommon to see locals making lye soap, preparing hominy and using large wheel-powered presses to squeeze cane and make molasses. She wants to preserve as much of that original spirit of the festival as she can for the next generation of Hootin an Hollarin regulars.
“Young people and even a lot of adults have never seen it done or ever heard of it — especially if you didn’t grow up around it — so it’s kind of an educational process for them,” Paula says. “We don’t want people to forget about how it used to be done and we’re pretty proud of our ancestors, the salt-of-the-earth people who made do with very little.”
Some of the crafters and artisans typically demonstrating at Hootin an Hollarin include a ropemaker, basket weavers, knitters, crocheters, quiltmakers, fly fishing tiers, twined rag rug makers, lye soap makers and dollmakers. One of the people carrying on an old-time tradition is Squires craftsman Darrell Wolf of Wolf’s Broom Shop.
Darrell demonstrates the 1874 method of building handmade corn brooms of nearly every size and application to visitors at his booth near the courthouse. He has a piece of broom corn on hand to show the seeds that sprout at the top of a stalk in the place of ears.
“I give these out to kids, and they love it,” Darrell says with a smile. Picking up a piece in progress, he notes where the different lengths are trimmed to make a finished product in his broom press. Darrell, a former mechanic for the H.B. Reese Candy Co., was introduced to the trade by a coworker who gave him a demonstration and swept up a brand new broommaker.
“I enjoy demonstrating, I don’t just want to sell brooms,” Darrell adds. “A lot of people ask me, ‘What do you make?’ and I say, ‘Mostly sawdust and wood chips.’ ”
One thing you won’t be able to avoid at Hootin an Hollarin is the food. Whether you’re in the mood for ham and beans, barbecue, burgers, ribbon-cut potatoes, fried ice cream or kettle corn, you have your choice anywhere on the courthouse square.
Wafting from one tent, however, are the scents of late summer and early fall that won’t be ignored: Fresh-baked bread and homemade apple butter. Gainesville resident Marilyn Tilly shares samples of the delicious flavors with visitors, along with a few secrets on how to make the best apple butter, free of charge.
“The secret is to cook it a long time and get all the juice out of it,” Marilyn says as she spins the peel from a crimson Red Delicious apple. “They make a lot of water, so you really have to cook it down and take the lid off to let the water out.” And, of course, you’ll want a slice of hot bread to go with it.”
Dora artisan Bobby Walker is no stranger to sharp edges. As the owners of Devils Backbone Knives, Bobby and his wife, Debbie, craft knives for deer camp and the kitchen with equal attention to detail, artistry and quality. Besides his unique creations, the “Forged In Fire” champion has a much older method of cutting to demonstrate for festivalgoers — flint and chert knapping. Bobby shares the ancient art of making an arrowhead or spearhead or bird point or stone knife as he chips away at a fist-sized piece of chert.
“Most everything is done by what they call ‘lithic reduction,’ ” Bobby says with a laugh in between strikes at the stone, “which just means we’re just taking pieces off here.” He deftly retrieves a few larger pieces as they clatter to the asphalt parking lot under his tent and sets them aside to be used for crafting smaller points. He notes that rocks off the ground or out of a creek bed typically aren’t usable because they have stress fractures caused by moisture held inside the minerals.
“You’re trying to take everything off of the outside to get to what’s on the inside,” he adds, removing another layer in a spray of white shards. “I’m not a sculptor, but I’d say that the same way: You’re having to remove material to get to it and be able to use it.”
So, if on the third Thursday of September you find yourself in the hills of Ozark County, listen closely for the sounds of laughter, dancing feet and old-time music, and follow it down the road to Hootin an Hollarin.
“We’re a small friendly little town in the Ozarks that’s been having this same event honoring the pioneers and our ancestors for 60-plus years now,” Paula says. “Music, food, crafts, demonstrations, all kinds of contests — I think it’s good for all ages. Pretty much everybody can enjoy something about it.”
This year’s Hootin an Hollarin is scheduled for Sept. 21-23 on the courthouse square in Gainesville. For more information or to view the annual festival guide published by the Ozark County Times, visit www.hootinanhollarin.com.