Where Are The Beverly Hillbillies From?

Cafe Society
61

<----mad or has way too much time to waste. (:))

62

Ynnad, you’ve obviously done a lot of work to come to this point, but you need to stop right now, and I’ll tell you why.

I had hoped you’d be satisfied by my suggesting the Clampett’s were just pulling the city slickers’ legs, but the truth is much darker. The reality is that Jed and Granny were hard-core Doomsday survivalists, and were busy amassing a fortune before they headed back to the Ozarks to build an Armageddon compound.

They knew that suddenly flashing wads of cash in the Ozarks would arouse suspicion, and realized California was the one place they could be rich and still be left alone. Pearl came up with the cover story about moving out there to send Jethro to school; she knew the boy was dumb as rocks and would never catch on.

Moving next door to the Drysdales was a Devil’s bargain. Drysdale could manage the Clampett’s money money and put them up in a gated mansion where they could control who came and went. In exchange, the Clampetts could keep a close eye on him, flourishing their guns at frequent intervals just to remind him the price of trying to cheat them.

Their only miscalculation was underestimating the size of their oil holdings. They thought the field would play out in a year or two, then they’d build the compound, turn the remaining cash into gold, and patiently wait for the Apocalypse (remember, the Cuban Missile Crisis took place barely a month after they moved to Beverly Hills.) No one would be able to find them because of the misdirection they had spread ever since they started negotiations with Big Oil.

Incidentally, Miss Hathaway was the oil company’s mole in the whole operation. Her job was to make sure Drysdale kept the Clampetts happy (and more importantly, to keep him honest so the Clampetts wouldn’t cancel the deal before the oil company sucked the field dry.)

Now that you know this, you should also know that the Clampetts did move back to an undisclosed location in the Ozarks, and they did build their compound. The survivalist community they started still exists to this day, and the members DO NOT WANT their location to be known. As far as anyone is concerned the original Clampett home was flooded after Table Rock Dam was completed in 1958 and that section of the White River became Table Rock Lake. That’s all you need to know. Your research is complete.

Stop looking for more information now!

63

I suggest Kent Clark is telling the ‘rest of the story’.

Shh! Mums the word.

64

I like to think that they came from a mystical place called “The Hills”. Not a part of any state. Existing in another dimension but accessible from Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The hillbilly equivalent of K’un-Lun but without the time restraints.

65

When you take the devil into your mouth you’re doomed! For he is lying there in wait for you inside that bottle of whiskey. Waiting for you to take him into your mouth. Waiting to get down into your guts where he can do his devil’s work.

66

Too long for a Burma Shave sign. Nice try, though.

67

You should really lay of the meth for a while.

68

*“Virgil Caine is my name, and I served on the Danville train…”
*
– R. Robertson, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”

So, it’s in Dixie.

69

It was just a little coffee. That’s all.

70

btw

Botkin is a real person. A judge based in Springfield MO.
He’s mentioned in the book Ballots and Bullets: The Bloody County Seat Wars of Kansas. Botkin was involved in those feuds.

71

As someone who lives in the more rural part of the Ozarks in Arkansas, and actually knows a lot of the town references, it really does sound like it’s Northern Arkansas. Springfield and Branson felt like big cities when he was a kid, just over the border. I hear about Taney County a lot in the local news, and Silver Dollar City is a fun place to go. Eureka Springs was always that more “worldly” city that I’m surprised has as low a population as it does. Little Rock is the first state capital I think of, and it and Kansas City are the largest cities I’ve ever been to.

The references I remember from the show always felt like (my part of) Arkansas to me, to the point I didn’t realize that there was any contention about where they were from. The accents aren’t quite right (though Jed’s sounds quite familiar), but it otherwise just fits.

72

BigT: Do people use the phrase “fixing to” in the Ozarks? I know it is very common south of the Ozarks. Are you familiar with the terms “a hoot and holler from” and “clean over to” used as description of distance? I have watched so much Beverly Hillbillies lately I don’t know if they are part of my natural vocabulary or not. I do “reckon” from time to time. Also, I have noticed that people in the southwestern United States do not know where “over yonder” is nor do they know what a “dog trot house” is.

73

If Granny came from Limestone, TN she would have had to migrate a long, long way. Greene County is as close to Pennsylvania as it is to the Ozarks. Limestone, btw, is the location of Davey Crockett’s birthplace.

74

Deliberately ambiguous. If they wanted you to know exactly where, they would have said so.

Continuity is poor in many older TV shows. They had no idea that people would be watching reruns and recording episodes so many years later.

75

Some of my ancestors migrated from Greene County, Tennessee to Arkansas in the 1800s as well. Other branches of the family may have gone to Missouri.

76

Does absolutley no one know how to triangulate anymore?

They were from a small hamlet near Bugtussle and Hooterville. Any 5th grade geography student could do the necessary research. I happen to be a little on the busy side right now.

77

Maybe the original migrants left the hills, traveled across several miles of flat land, and stopped when they found more mountains. The migrations from the hills north via the “Hillbilly Highway” didn’t come until much later. I’d never thought about people moving all the way across Tennessee, but it makes sense that it would have happened.

78

I thought they lived about 45 minutes southeast of Thibodaux Louisiana. Or was that Tippitoe? :wink:

79

The Clampett’s were Hix From The Stix who outfoxed SoCal sophistos. It’s traditional; country mouse beats city mouse; common wisdom outdoes smarty-pants.

BTW I’ll go with northern Arkansas as a stand-in for The Stix, hillbilly country, wild and exotic turf no BH writers had ever visited but didn’t need to because imaginations. Then there’s continuity - what’s that? And didn’t Granny predict Trump’s election? :confused:

B.A. Botkin was a fine recording engineer, twisting knobs for The Doors among others. Any relation?

80

I know everyone of those terms. Bless your heart! (:))