Many Ozarkers have the shared memory of picking-up black walnuts in the fall harvest each year, along with stained hands as souvenirs.

The black walnut tree has been providing extra income for folks in the area for generations. In the early part of American history, black walnut was a popular choice for furniture and cabinets. However, by the 1880s, lighter colored choices such as oak became the prevailing fashion.

A renaissance of black oak occurred in Europe in the early 1900s leading to a good business in exporting logs from the Ozarks. Items in the local Cassville paper would mention train carloads of black walnut logs headed for Hamburg, Germany, in 1910 from places like Wheaton, Seligman and Washburn. The outbreak of the First World War only increased demand for black walnut lumber, as the wood was used in gunstocks and in early airplane propellers, on both sides.

It’s fascinating thinking about all those who carried part of the Ozarks with them during that transformative period of history, and perhaps clung to a piece of Barry County lumber during their last moments. Likewise, when one considers the fancy and refined places that our trees ended up, it’s clear that a bump on black walnut log gets around.

The scarcity of the wood during the war years added to the economic windfall in the Ozarks, as the area was home to perhaps the largest population of black walnut trees still standing in the United States.

Commercialization of nuts from black walnut trees didn’t seem to happen until closer to the 1920s. While settlers and natives alike harvested the nuts to supplement their diets, supplementing income took a little more time to become appetizing.

Area fruit growers seemed to be the first to realize the potential of the nut. In 1917, Exeter orchard operator A.D. Tayor advertised that he was purchasing black walnuts. In the 1920s and 1930s produce companies from Kansas City and St. Louis, as well as local companies such as the Farmers’ Exchange, advertised that they were buying black walnuts.

A 1925 advertisement from P.B. Eidson of Washburn stated, “I will buy shelled black walnut meats from reliable parties; must be clean and free of shells. Will pay 40c per pound and will buy for several months.”

Back then, the seller was responsible for the hulling, cracking, and processing of the nut.

Picking-out walnut meats often became a family affair during winter evenings. The late Fredalene (Cooper) Horner recalled in Volume 7 of the Lifetimes of Memories oral history series published by the Barry County Museum that “One of the things we did to make money was pick up walnuts. We had a worktable in the living room and Daddy had made a ‘walnut cracker’ out of a log about three feet long. He bolted a handle and vise onto it, and to use it, you’d raise the handle, put a walnut in there and push down on the handle. That would make the sides of the walnut pop out. He would sit there cracking walnuts while Mother made supper. After we ate supper, we’d sit around the worktable and pick out walnut kernels until nine o’clock. We did this every winter evening by the light of a gasoline lamp. We would sell the kernels in Shell Knob, then they’d go to where the train would take them to cities all around.”

The annual black walnut harvest was another part of keeping families fed during the years of the Great Depression, along with local crops like strawberries and tomatoes. According to the local paper, in 1939, V.S. Day of the Barry County Produce Company shipped one hundred thousand pounds of black walnuts. Papers began referring to the nut as “Black Gold.”

Day credited the limestone soil of the Ozarks with numerous springs for the black walnut tree thriving in the area. In 1931, Exeter banker and orchard operator J.C. Ellston planted 20 acres of black walnut trees near that town, likely the first orchard of the tree in the county. By 1940 the trees were producing, and he decided to plant 40 additional acres.

Post-WWII, the hulling and cracking of walnuts became more mechanized and industrial in nature. Instead of relying on home remedies for the hulling and cracking of nuts, processing centers developed. In 1946, the Hammons family of Stockton, Missouri, entered the business and would end up becoming the dominant force in the black walnut processing industry for decades.

In the 1950s, Clovis Packwood started the Exeter Walnut Huller Company. Packwood built and patented a machine for the hulling black walnuts. He then built additional machines and would lease them to people in the surrounding area.

In 1961, Joe Packwood, of Ritchey, a cousin of the Packwoods, reported in the paper that from an initial investment of $500 he grossed $16,000 in six weeks with one of the Exeter Walnut Huller Company’s machines, selling the hulled walnuts to processors in Stockton.

While other crops such as strawberries, tomatoes and dairy no longer support the local economy like they did in the past, this fall, plenty of Ozarkers will continue the tradition of harvesting that “black gold.”

I guess when it comes to making a little extra money, you should take up what comes naturally, even if it is a little nutty.

Jeremiah Buntin is a historian at the Barry County Museum. He may be reached at jbuntin@barrycomuseum.org.