It's 'Wagons ho!' as train blazes trail for Springdale

Jim Parker gets a mule ready Friday morning to pull a wagon in the John Henry Shaddox Wagon Train. This is the 37th year for the wagon train, which travels 71 miles over six days to arrive in Springdale just in time for the Rodeo of the Ozarks parade on Wednesday. Shaddox was Parker's father in law. Parker said he and his brother George have ridden in the wagon train every year since it began in 1977. Photo by Bill Bowden
Jim Parker gets a mule ready Friday morning to pull a wagon in the John Henry Shaddox Wagon Train. This is the 37th year for the wagon train, which travels 71 miles over six days to arrive in Springdale just in time for the Rodeo of the Ozarks parade on Wednesday. Shaddox was Parker's father in law. Parker said he and his brother George have ridden in the wagon train every year since it began in 1977. Photo by Bill Bowden

HARRISON -- Thirteen wagons and more than 100 horseback riders started Friday morning on a six-day, 71-mile trip to Springdale.

The John Henry Shaddox Wagon Train has been a Harrison tradition since 1977.

Every year, the wagon train leaves Harrison and arrives in Springdale just before the beginning of the Rodeo of the Ozarks' opening-day parade, which will be at 3 p.m. Wednesday. Then the wagon train joins in the parade.

Jim Parker, 72, said the wagon train isn't something to be done on a whim.

"I tell people you'll either love it or you'll hate it because there's a lot of work to it," he said.

Shaddox, who died in 1991, was Parker's father-in-law. Parker is a retired senior vice president from First Federal Bank in Harrison.

Parker said he has been on the previous 36 wagon train trips. Hasn't missed a one. Neither has his brother George, who married another of Shaddox's daughters.

The wagon train has fewer participants than in previous years, said Jim Parker. Five years ago, 18 wagons left from Harrison on the trip. A decade or so ago, it was 24 wagons.

"We've got five or six people here locally who've got wagons who've died recently," Parker said, referring to former wagon train participants. "Three of them died in the last year."

Shorty Ozier, 84, of Harrison said there are some people he sees only once a year -- on the wagon train. So it's painful when they no longer show up, for whatever the reason.

But children are taking the place of the older folks, said Ozier, who rides ahead of the wagon train to make sure the path is clear. Police officers along the way assist Ozier by blocking traffic. This was Ozier's 27th year riding in the wagon train.

Occasionally, to break the monotony of the ride, Ozier will pull an orange water gun from his saddlebag and squirt others in the parade.

"Everybody gets to whoopin' and hollerin'," Ozier said. "You squirt them, and they get to whoopin' and hollerin' just that much more."

Ozier said the parade would pick up two more wagons and 20 more horseback riders at the first night's camp at Carrollton.

The first day's ride is along rural paved roads, for the most part.

"A lot of them stay at Carrollton to keep them from riding this blacktop all day," Ozier said.

Some of the participants sleep in their wagons at campsites along the way. Others have family members who meet them at campsites with air-conditioned trailers.

Some years, the trip is 10 miles longer if War Eagle Creek is up, said Ozier. But this year the creek is down, so they won't have to go all the way to Withrow Springs to cross it.

John Henry Shaddox started the wagon train in 1977 after taking part in a wagon train ride the year before to mark the United States bicentennial. Shaddox made a point to pick a remote route that avoids traffic as much as possible. Many riders say it's an ode to their ancestors who traveled to the remote Ozark hills by wagon more than 150 years ago.

"It makes you really appreciate your forefathers because I just don't see how they did it," Jim Parker said.

Parker said they go out a few days early and clear brush off some of the more remote roads that the wagon train will take.

George Parker, 76, said he plans to sleep in his wagon at night along the way.

The Parker brothers plan to continue the tradition their father-in-law started.

Metro on 07/01/2014

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