Red Oak Lives as Ghost Town, Art Piece

Lowell Davis recalls the days when Red Oak was a real town, where scores of men, women and children lived and dreamed.

Then the town died, and it seemed destined to be a lonely memory, hidden beyond trees and corn fields as Route 66 drifts west toward the Great Plains.

But unlike the quiet deaths of many Midwestern communities, Red Oak survives--if only by force of Davis’ imagination. Relic by relic, he’s rebuilding the town in the middle of a corn field so visitors can step into a picture of a simpler life in southwestern Missouri.

“It’s like that field was a big canvas and everything on it is part of the painting,” said Davis, a painter, sculptor, author and friend of farm chickens.

“It’s a piece of art. That’s all it represents. I don’t care if people come here, but they can if they want.”

Neither Red Oak the ghost town nor Red Oak II has earned a dot on the state’s official highway map. The re-creation sits off Route 66--today’s Missouri 96--three miles east of Carthage and about 25 miles west of the original Red Oak, which is home now for hundreds of headstones but only eight living souls.

“Red Oak became a ghost town after the second World War, when everybody started looking for work in bigger cities,” said Davis, 55, a dry-humored character who hooks a corncob pipe on his belt loop.

“When I’d see an old building falling down--a corn crib, a privy or a chicken coop--I’d kind of get to feeling sorry for it, so I’d pick it up and bring it here,” Davis said. “I didn’t realize I was going to get the entire town when I started.”

Red Oak II is not laid out to replicate the original place, and not all its buildings came from Red Oak. Davis said he just wanted to create a scene that feels like the 1930s-era town he grew up in.

Davis believes country living broke down when cities and suburbs grew after World War II. For him, the buildings he’s refurbished at Red Oak II symbolize all a person should need: a church, schoolhouse, general store, blacksmith shop, saw mill, gas station, feed store, barns and wooden homes with wide front porches and obligatory white-picket fences.

Red Oak had about 250 people when Davis’ father lost the farm during the Depression. The family survived by running the general store, which now is the centerpiece of Red Oak II.

“It was such a close network of neighbors helping neighbors. It’s something we sure have gotten away from,” Davis said. “It was all self-sufficient. No one had any money. But with kerosene lights and wooden stoves it didn’t cost but quarters to live.”

Victor Charles, who has lived all 78 of his years in the real Red Oak, said America lost a sense of community when places like his home town faded into history.

“Back then if you needed a hand on the farm you could pretty well go into town and get somebody,” Charles said. “You can’t do it no more. There ain’t nobody here.”

His 14-year-old grandson, Adrian Garne, takes trips to Red Oak II to learn about the past.

“It’s nice to know what used to be here,” said Adrian, who is among the eight people still residing in the silence of Red Oak.

Down the highway, Red Oak II has become a low-key tourist attraction, drawing several dozen people each day.

Davis sells his art, books and greeting cards at the general store and has converted four pre-World War II homes into bed and breakfast inns.

But he doesn’t appear much concerned with commercializing Red Oak II. He said he built it for his grandchildren.

Davis won’t say how much Red Oak II cost him; he says he makes enough money selling his collectible porcelain figurines to pay for the project and live comfortably.