ESPN Hunting

"Club Warden Shot The Twelfth Time" read one headline in the Arkansas Gazette. "Big Lake Clubhouse To Be Fireproof; Col. Joseph H. Acklen Will Fight To The End," read another in Memphis' Commercial Appeal. Still another declared, "Quiet at Big Lake; Pinkertons Are There, However, And Further Trouble Expected."

Arkansas' Big Lake made big news at the beginning of the 20th century in a battle over hunting rights, specifically, duck hunting rights — a battle that would ultimately reach the White House.

More important, the battle at Big Lake represents the time when market-hunting and the rampant slaughter of waterfowl peaked. International treaties and federal regulations, especially from 1916 on, increasingly attempted to halt the waterfowl population crash resulting from the era.

By the late 1800s, dwindling supplies of game and fish were even being addressed by the Arkansas legislature. Various hunting and fishing laws were passed and repealed, with little effect.

For instance, one 1899 law declared it illegal to discharge firearms after sundown with the intent of killing, injuring or frightening any aquatic fowl in Mississippi, Crittenden, Cross, Poinsett and St. Francis counties. Fines of $25 to $50 could be levied against violators.

Modern technology was finally overwhelming the swamps. Railroads brought in sportsmen and market-hunters. And when combined with another modern convenience — ice-making equipment — the rails created new avenues for shipping game and fish to the major cities.

In 1873, New York City's Fulton Market posted these prices: Swans, $2; wild geese, 75 cents; canvasbacks, $1 a pair; mallards, 75 cents a pair; teal, 50 cents a pair; wild turkey, 15 cents a pound; deer legs, 11 cents; saddles, 18 cents; haunch, 20 cents.

Although sportsmen began noticing reduced numbers of waterfowl, it was difficult to mount any kind of conservation effort, simply because ducks and geese remained relatively abundant.

Consider this turn-of-the-century letter to Forest and Stream magazine from a St. Louis man:

No; wild ducks are not all dead yet, not if we may judge from the vast multitudes to be seen in the swamps of the sunk land of Missouri and Arkansas.

In October of 1894 a party of four from this city, and four from Cincinnati, shot over one thousand ducks in one week, and, from the hordes still seen, it did not look as if any were missing. To the average amateur, the piles of ducks would have looked like three times the quantity, as nine-tenths of them were choice mallards.

Nor were these all the ducks shot in this quiet and celebrated spot that week. Five market-hunters were in there all the time, and in this particular week averaged from 80 to 140 ducks per day each.

A netter was also at work, who made a shipment of twenty barrels of mallards at one time. Again, to the average amateur, or even to the semi-professional, this may sound fishy. If the receipts of the steamboat which brought the ducks to this market will be proof, they can be produced. The netter made no more shipments, for the natives forced him out of the country with Winchesters.

As noted in the Arkansas Gazette, ducks were bringing about 50 cents each at Big Lake in 1910. Common laborers at the time were paid only a few dollars a day. A 1909 Gazette advertisement for M.M. Cohn Co. listed Hart, Schaffner & Marx men's suits on sale for $16.75 (regularly $20 to $25) and shoes for a dollar a pair. Obviously, if you could kill 100 ducks a day, you were making good money.

Organized during the summer of 1900, the Big Lake Shooting Club attempted to effectively end that lifestyle for market-hunters at the lake in 1901. The group of wealthy men behind the club, mostly from Memphis and Nashville, included no Arkansas residents.

A deed was executed on July 2, 1901, between the Chicago Mill and Lumber Company and the Paepcke-Leicht Lumber Company, both headquartered in Illinois, and the Big Lake Shooting Club. For the sum of $5, the club purchased the rights to a 10-foot strip of land around Big Lake, and claimed control of the waters within it by riparian rights. The property was to be used solely as a game and fish preserve by the Big Lake Shooting Club, and the two lumber companies retained rights to the timber.

In short, the Big Lake Shooting Club was attempting to lock out the market-hunters, including James Beckhart, a battle which would last for almost 15 years.

It first moved to the courthouse in 1903, with the market-hunters contending that Big Lake was a navigable part of Little River — and thus not subject to ownership.

The Big Lake Shooting Club won initial victories in court, but paid a heavy price: Its 20-room, $8,000 clubhouse burned to the ground in July of 1904.

A bigger and better clubhouse was built in its place but fire again destroyed it, the boat docks and boats in 1910, at an estimated loss of $50,000.

After that, Col. Joseph H. Acklen, the Big Lake Shooting Club member who led the fight against the market-hunters, declared he would rebuild the clubhouse better than before, this time using concrete and steel to make it fireproof, if necessary.

Acklen also made a visit to the governor's office in Little Rock. Newspaper stories the next day reported that Governor Donaghey might "order the Blytheville company of the state troops to the scene."

A third clubhouse was built, though not of concrete and steel. It included a large dining room, reception rooms and 24 bedrooms, each with a private bath. The Big Lake Shooting Club hired six Pinkerton men to guard the area.

The burned clubhouses were just one indication of the violence that resulted from this confrontation.

In the initial court case — Frank G. Fite and J.H. Acklen, Trustees, etc., vs. W.H. Harrison, et al. — Acklen testified Harrison told him, "the market hunters intended to take 85 cents of Winchester rifle shells (the price of a box at Manila) and settle the whole matter."

Acklen claimed Harrison told him that Big Lake Shooting Club members and their paddlers would be shot if they went on the lake. After making his threats, Harrison "then pulled a flask of whiskey out of his pocket, took a drink and left," according to Acklen.

Those threats weren't just talk. Newspaper articles reported, club caretakers and watchmen were the targets of several shooting incidents.

Although Acklen was determined to win this war, it became apparent that local market-hunters would never abide by the various court orders. They believed they had God-given rights to hunt and fish on Big Lake.

In 1913 when President Woodrow Wilson took office, he appointed Acklen to the office of Chief Game Inspector of the United States, a new position under the Department of Agriculture that headed up the United States game wardens. With federal power on the club's side, additional legal battles were won against the market-hunters. But the violence continued.

By the next year, Acklen realized the animosity would continue against the club. Wanting to stop market-hunting and to protect the waterfowl, he convinced President Wilson to make the area a game preserve.

In 1915, Wilson signed an Executive Order creating Big Lake Reserve, and made it unlawful for any person to hunt, trap, capture, disturb or kill any bird of any kind within the reservation.

More interesting, the period from 1900 until 1916 is considered the time waterfowl populations first became endangered. It coincides almost exactly with the years of the Big Lake battle.

Around the U.S., more effective ammunition and automatic shotguns increased the efficiency of market-hunters, in particular, but also sport hunters.

Declaring Big Lake a federal refuge didn't completely stop the slaughter of ducks there. However, it signaled, as did the 1916 international treaty on migratory birds, that the problem had been recognized and efforts would be made to do something about it.