THE OTHER BAKERSFIELD

Danny Hayes owns most of Bakersfield, Mo.

 

The two-lane strip of highway followed the contours of the rolling hills, threading its way past pasture land and lakes and through a dense forest. At wide spots, fences would part, revealing the sun-splashed porches of farm houses.

At Caulfield, a right turn off U.S. 160 and onto Route 101, in Ozark County, led smack-dab into the middle of Bakersfield, Mo., a city of just a few hundred souls in spittin' distance of the Arkansas border.

It was 4 p.m. on a midweek day when I arrived in Bakersfield. Folks were coming home from work. Most who stopped to pick up their mail at the Bakersfield post office wore badges from Baxter International, a plant that manufactures kidney dialysis supplies in nearby Mountain Home, Ark.

Shirley Bodkin looked curiously at my car's California license plates. Strangers don't often stop in town. She laughed when I told her I was from Bakersfield, Calif. Yes, she had heard of it. Years ago, her husband had lived in Oakland and often drove by the Bakersfield exit on Highway 99.

She jabbed her finger into the air and insisted I meet Tony Johnson, who was walking our way, also wearing a Baxter badge.

"Tony's the mayor."

Suspicious at first, Johnson warmed up quickly when I told him I was from a Bakersfield in California and wanted to visit its smaller cousin.

Waving his arm in some general direction that he expected me to follow, the 60-year-old Johnson enthusiastically explained how he was born in the house across from the school. Pointing in another direction, at a now boarded-up building, he explained his father had owned the garage. With the exception of a few years spent working in West Virginia, Johnson had lived in Bakersfield all his life. He and his wife, who also works at Baxter, raised two kids in the city. Today their kids and grandkids live in bigger cities.

In 1984, Johnson became the city's elected leader. Last summer, after 27 years, he decided it was time for someone else to take over and opted not to run for re-election.

Johnson couldn't say that he had seen a lot of changes in Bakersfield over either his lifetime or time as mayor. What you see today is basically what it's been for decades -- a quiet, rural farm community, with a smattering of businesses and a high school, where kids from Bakersfield and surrounding communities get a downright fine education.

They had a famous Baker, too

A plaque next to the post office gives a quick history of the city: "In 1818, geologist Henry Schoolcraft, exploring White River County, met a hunter in this vicinity, who told of the area being called Bennett's Bayou and of scattered settlements. In 1830s, pioneers, mainly Southerners, settled here. Growth, halted by the Civil War, resumed in the late 1860s. In 1873, a post office was opened. The town name is for a pioneer, James A. Baker. In 1900, Bakersfield, a popular service center for travelers, had a population of 400. The town was incorporated in 1967."

Devona Pendergrass, writing in the White River Valley Historical Quarterly, filled in a few more details, such as the conclusion that the wealthy Baker, who once owned most, if not all of the land in the town, was a bit of a scoundrel. And there was considerable suspicion that the third of Baker's five wives was murdered.

Danny Hayes, who by all accounts is the major land owner in today's Bakersfield, explained that the town went through several names before settling on Bakersfield. Initially, it was called Waterville, because of its location along the Great North Fork of the White River. But that caused some confusion with a town of the same name in Maine. So then it was changed to Bakersville. But that didn't pass some unexplained government review. Finally, in 1885, townsfolk settled on Bakersfield.

But Hayes, who you can find most days standing behind the counter of his general store, laughed that no one seemed too concerned that the name Bakersfield already was being used by that time in at least a couple other states, including California.

And, yes, it has caused confusion. Hayes said it is not uncommon for mail destined for Bakersfield, Mo., to end up in Bakersfield, Calif.

Between selling beer, chewing tobacco and milk to customers, the 67-year-old Hayes explained that he was the eighth of nine children born to a truck driver and his wife, who lived in Bakersfield.

"Yep, in a house, over there, under a kerosene lamp," said Hayes, pointing in some vague direction and explaining Bakersfield was not "electrified" until the late 1940s. "My mother said I weighed 13 pounds. I must have. She never lied to me about anything, including Santa Claus."

Hayes, who never married, said he is the only one of his family still living in Bakersfield because "I was the dumb one in the bunch. I didn't do well in school. Everyone else left."

Median income: $29,000

As people moved out and businesses folded over the years, Hayes bought up buildings. His empire now includes 25 rent houses and an assortment of commercial buildings.

"This place has become a bedroom community for people who don't like the fast pace of a city," Hayes said. And with its low cost of living, it is a haven for people living at or below the poverty level. In 2009, Bakersfield's median household income was reportedly $29,000 -- about half that of the state of Missouri.

At the turn of the century, Bakersfield had a couple of hotels, several general stores, a livery stable, blacksmith, distilleries, a few cotton gins and mills, a bank, barbershop, newspaper and a few fancy homes that some described as "mansions."

Before World War I, Bakersfield had become a regional hub and its population swelled to 600. For a minute it was in the running to become the new county seat. But when that honor went to Gainesville, Bakersfield's future hit the skids.

A second nail was hammered into Bakersfield's coffin by a deadly tornado in 1928 that blew away many of the town's buildings, including its mansions. The wealthy people left to rebuild in Gainesville and West Plains.

Bakersfield didn't even catch a break with Depression-era building projects. The government's construction of a dam in Arkansas flooded farm land upriver, around Bakersfield, driving away even more residents. And Hayes said President Eisenhower delivered yet another blow with his 1950s federal highway construction plan that made it easier to live in other cities.

Despite having only a few hundred residents, townsfolk yearned for self-government and incorporated as a city in 1967. For a while, Bakersfield had its own police and fire departments. But the continuing exodus of residents required those to be abandoned.

In the 2010 Census, Bakersfield's population was pegged at 246 -- 10 less than in 2000, said Johnson, lamenting the resulting loss of tax revenue and the struggle to fund government services.

Bakersfield's town center resembles the hub of a wheel, with roads heading out in every direction. Slowly, but surely, that seems to be what the city's residents are doing, as well.

This story was published in The Bakersfield Californian on March 12, 2012.

https://www.bakersfield.com/news/while-we-re-still-the-biggest-other-bakersfields-still-have/article_d299d054-de4a-58f3-9db8-3060f2b40cc9.html