The importance of family was and still is a crucial part of life along the Buffalo River. Family systems were held together with love, care and necessity. My mother’s family settled along the Big Buffalo River in 1837. A wagon train of several multi generational families and all that was dearest to them, made the trek from North Carolina westward to Arkansas to claim land the government wanted settlers
to inhabit. After an arduous journey, they found the allure of the Big Buffalo River too captivating to leave, and in this rough and untamed land they made their home. Eight generations later, our family is still holding on to the land, tradition and culture of our ancestors, with each generation attempting to improve upon the land we steward.
My mother, Charlene Villines-Breedlove, was born in a yellow two-story house at Steel Creek, near where the rock house sits now. It was a share cropper’s accommodation. After living there with his growing family, my grandfather Boyd, with the help of family and neighbors, deconstructed an old log cabin, loaded it log by log in a wagon, and hauled it further up Steel Creek. Placed along the creek, just up from his own parent’s farm, that old repurposed log home became the center of my family’s world.
As a child I was let loose to run freely up and down the creek, hunting for minners and crawdads (minnows and crayfish), gathering enormous icicles hanging from rock bluffs in winter, listening to stories my granny and grandpa shared, singing with my granny, fishing with my grandpa and learning to gather wild plants in spring. It was a “raising” that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
And here we are nearly 200 years later, sharing our beloved land with you, our guests. We are very proud to invite visitors to our cabins and hope that in visiting and seeing the legacy that has been built, year by year, guests develop a kinship with the area. We want you to enjoy your time here, slow down and take it all in. Our hope is that guests leave with a sense of peace and appreciation for our beautiful
home, the Buffalo National River.