Ozark Howler Was the Original Bull Moose
Encounters between Theodore Roosevelt and the Ozark Howler
If you’re going to talk about Theodore Roosevelt, the American logging industry, and a giant, horned monster with glowing red eyes called the Howler, you have to try to take a step back from the mythos of it all and look at the hard math of the situation. Specifically, what are the logistics of getting a sitting President inducted into a secret society of lumberjacks who worship a giant cat?
Because yes, that actually happened. Or, well, close enough.
Here is how the timeline of Teddy Roosevelt and the Ozark Howler breaks down.
The Setup: St. Louis, MO (1903–1904)
Roosevelt is checking out the planning for the St. Louis World’s Fair. Now, TR was a conservation nut, and I mean that in the best way possible. If you want to protect trees, you have to talk to the guys chopping them down. Enter the Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo.
Yes, that was their real name. No, I am not making this up. They are the oldest industrial fraternal lumber organization in the U.S., founded in Gurdon, Arkansas. Their mascot? It’s a great big black cat. Yes, it’s the Ozark Howler.
They dominated the Midwestern timber scene, and they made sure TR noticed them. Well, how could you ignore them? For the time being, Roosevelt avoided direct contact with these devotees of the Howler, but his people talked to their people.
The Indiction: Little Rock, AR (October 25, 1905)
Teddy hits Little Rock during his Great Southern Tour. The crowds are going absolutely nuts. Amidst all the handshaking and policy talk, the Hoo-Hoos corner him. They don’t just give him a plaque; they formally “concatenate” him as an honorary member.
Naturally, because TR is TR, they give him the most ridiculous, sci-fi-sounding membership number available: Member #999. It’s during this trip that TR gets a face full of their eccentric culture and, inevitably, the local campfire ghost stories.
The thing is, Roosevelt had already heard of the Ozark Howler, during his military adventures in the island nation of Cuba.
John C. Greenway was one of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, which means he was already a certified badass. But he also grew up in Hot Springs, Arkansas, which meant he brought a lot of weird, deeply specific regional baggage to the table. Specifically, he told Roosevelt about a dark, horned monster roaming the mountain ridges back home: the Ozark Howler.
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Now, if someone tells you about a bear-sized monster with glowing eyes, you probably think, Great, let’s avoid that ridge. Not TR. Roosevelt didn’t do terror. To him, this thing wasn’t a nightmare; it was what he called a “bully good beast.”
Seriously. TR looked at this terrifying, hypothetical apex predator and saw a metaphor for the rising American empire. He figured if the United States was going to become a global superpower, it needed to possess that exact same raw, untethered, fiercely dangerous energy. The Howler wasn’t a threat; it was a kindred spirit.
That obsession is exactly how Roosevelt ended up in the orbit of the International Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo. He wanted masculine old magic, bizarre rituals, and secret fellowships of men’s men. The legend of the Ozark Howler and the cultural practices that had developed around it reflected Teddy’s desires back to him like a burnished mirror.
The Flight and the Forest: Hot Springs, AR (October 1910)
Fast forward a bit. TR stops in St. Louis, becomes the first U.S. President to fly in an airplane (because of course he did). Then he boots it down to the Arkansas State Fair.
By this point, his conservation policies have kicked into overdrive. Two years earlier, in 1908, he officially established the Ozark National Forest. In his speeches on this tour, he’s preaching the “doer” mentality to the exact people living right on the fringes of that brand-new federal land.
What he didn’t say out loud in his speeches is what the Ozark National Forest was really meant to protect: It was all about the Hoo Hoo, the Ozark Howler, and TR’s bond with the Concatenated Order.
The Whistle-Stop: Deep Ozark Sweep (April & September 1912)
The season is turning into autumn, and TR is running hard on the Progressive “Bull Moose” ticket. He goes full campaign mode, doing a whistle-stop tour right through the absolute heart of the Ozarks. He draws 10,000 people at Drury College in Missouri, then rattles through Arkansas timber towns: Fort Smith, Ozark, Clarksville, Russellville, Conway.
He is breathing the local air, drinking the local coffee, and listening to the local folklore for weeks. That Bull Moose quickly became confabulated with the Ozark Howler itself. It was a real Hoo Hoo.
The “Hoo-Hoo” Correlation
Here’s where the weird sci-fi logic connects with history on the ground.
Deep in the Ozarks, locals talked about a demonic predator called the Ozark Howler (historically called the “Hoo-Hoo” or “Devil Cat”). It was described as a bear-sized, horned black cat with glowing red eyes and a roar that sounded like a total nightmare.
The lines between the fraternal order and the Howler legend were completely blurred by the locals. Just like that, a massive conspiracy theory was born. The rumor? The lumbermen deliberately weaponized the myth of the “Hoo-Hoo” beast. They stuffed TR’s head full of stories about this terrifying, majestic mountain monster to fire up his romantic imagination.
The goal? Get the federal government to protect the land.
Did it work? Well, the Ozark National Forest exists. The Hoo-Hoos are still around. TR is Member #999. The Ozark Howler will never be forgotten. You do the math.
