Guest Column: Contractors, businesses pitch in at Hulston Mill

The historic Hulston Mill, near Everton in Dade County, is being restored with a little help from its friends, among them local contractors, suppliers, business-people and community groups.

After long days on the job, Dan Essary, of Essary Construction, has been spending his spare time hauling truckloads of wood chips from the Springfield Solid Waste Treatment Center to the Hulston Mill Historic Park just past Everton on EE near Stockton Lake. The chips will be used for a half-mile long scenic walking trail.

Essary's construction company built its first project the City Utilities Park Central Transfer Facility west of the public square in 1984.

Since that time the firm has completed several commercial and industrial projects in the area, and it is now working on projects for AT&T here in Springfield and for Southwestern Bell in Joplin, Neosho, Lamar and Carthage.

It wasHarrison, owner of Glenstone Block in Springfield, who brought Essary into the project. Harrison spent several days contacting various contractors in the area, extending invitations to participate.

A well-known children's book author and producer of an Ozark Public Television movie on the history of Springfield made last year, Harrison has a keen interest in preserving the heritage of the Ozarks.

Recently, Olle Jobe, manager for Springfield Seed Company and owner of Spring Fever Greenhouse in Linden contributed a supply of wildflower seed to plant along a section of spring creek that rambles through the park.

The flowers, now in bloom, will always spark a memory of Jobe's kindness.

In a conversation about the project with Rob Baird, owner of Concrete Company of Springfield, he said, "Let's have lunch sometime soon and talk about your project."

Into a hand-dug foundation ditch under the park's Samuel Weir Cabin (1840s), a truck from Conco's Bolivar unit poured 24 inches of concrete, rescuing the old structure from its demise.

As soon as we can round up the labor to do more, Baird will supply the concrete to pour pads for picnic shelters, the stage for the park's new amphitheater and the floor of a park maintenance shop.

Mike Van Pelt, president of Build Spec Inc. of Nixa, has offered to do the excavation work with his equipment in preparation for these structures.

Meanwhile, a group of Greenfield High School Future Business Leaders of America is learning the principle of giving back to the community from Mrs. Jeanne Wilkinson.

With materials from the Southwest Missouri State University Department of Recreation and Leisure studies, these youths took the initiative to develop a Web site for Hulston Mill, www.come.to/hulstonmill, that has now won two national awards.

The site displays photographs, a complete cemetery survey of Missouri pioneers who built and worked at the mill, oral histories from old-timers (the oldest being 102!) who visited the mill as children with their families, and much more.

Chandler Schooler, owner of Petra Rock Climbing Gym in Springfield, and his partner, Clay Frisbie, owner of Class Glass of Springfield,dedicating all of their retired rock-climbing rope for use in the park.

Using this material, SMS students have been constructing a low-element obstacle course in a section of the forest.

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges of the project is just keeping the meadows mowed so visitors can enjoy camping and walking through the park.Cobel Equipment of Springfield recentlya 1950 Allis-Chalmers tractor, a key in the success of keeping the park well-maintained.

Curiosity-seekers will have no trouble locating the park in the future.

One of Springfield's Office Depot managers, Theron Guiltner, just finished a beautiful oil painting of the mill to serve as a directional billboard sign at 160 and EE.

He painted it in his father's garage in Battlefield.

Guiltner, an SMS graduate in art, also used the design for screen-printed T-shirts and greeting cards for park fund raisers, and for the opening page of the Web site mentioned above.

Materials for the sign and T-shirts were financed by Springfield attorney and bank owner, John K. Hulston.was Hulston's grandfather who once owned, and was actually murdered at, the mill.

That story will be the subject of a melodrama in the park amphitheater in the future, when the right theater group can be found.

Hulston and his family are not only funding an engine to drive the mill again, after it has lain silent for nearly 40 years, but also cedar siding which is well on the way to making the mill look like new.

In a recent letter, the 85-year-old Hulston said, "It is difficult for me to tell you how much I appreciate what you are doing for the Dade County Historical Society in connection with the Hulston Mill Park."

The restoration of the Hulston Mill and enhancement of the park have been on his mind for many years, and he may yet live to see this dream come true.

The Hulston Mill project still needs used windows for the mill, more mid-1800s log cabins, an old country store with fixtures, an old schoolhouse and a cherry picker lift on a truck so we can continue the cedar siding to the top of the walls. The project is also in need of good used farm tractors, a load of coarse gravel as a base for the concrete pads and 20 new weather-resistant picnic tables.

To witness the generosity and willingness of the business communitythan a little overwhelming.

It's great to live in and be a part of southwest Missouri.

(Steve Illum is a professor in the SMSU recreation and leisure studies department.)