Weird history: JKF dedicated this road in the Ouachita Mountains in 1961

BIG CEDAR, Okla. ( KTAL/KMSS ) – It was Oct. 29, 1961, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy stood on the side of a road in the South’s largest National Forest.

And though the press widely reported that Kennedy said the purpose of his visit was to find favor with a politician, there was also another important reason for Kennedy to be in Southeastern Oklahoma. He was there to dedicate the Ouachita National Forest Road.

In the talking points memo used to create JFK’s speech that day, the Kennedy Administration explained they had doubled the amount of money requested by Dwight D. Eisenhower to plan and engineer the navigation projects for the Ouachita and Black Rivers. An additional $3 million went toward river bank navigation on the Arkansas River, and another $125000 came from the Kennedy Administration to plan the Ozark River Lock and Dam project. Another $100000 was requested for a pollution study of the Red River in Arkansas.

Kennedy was in Big Cedar, Oklahoma for the dedication.

“This forest was preserved for the people of this state and country by the efforts of a congressman from faraway Massachusetts at the turn of the century who recognized the importance of building for other generations. But this forest, and these rivers, and all that has been done here in Oklahoma, has been done by the dedicated men that have represented this state in the national capital.”

Kennedy said “these great national resources can only be maintained for ourselves and those who come after us.“

And his administration handed out a lot of information to the press about the region’s history, too.

The nearby river and mountain were named “Kiamichi” in the late 1500s by French explorers who believed they were seeing a bird native to South America. By the 1820s, the Choctaws had been resettled on the land after being forced out of Mississippi.

According to the White House, the Kiamichi foliage pageant in Ouachita Nation Forest is comparable to those enjoyed in the Berkshire hills or the Great Smokies.

“We hold the sword,” said JFK during the dedication speech on that autumn day. “And we are determined to maintain our strength and our commitments. But we also hold in our hand a trowel. We are determined to build in our own country so that those who come after us—as they surely will—will find available to them all of the great resources that we now have.”

“We open this north-south highway,” said Kennedy, “but in a larger sense, this meeting contributes to the education and well-being of the President of the United States.”

Kennedy predicted that by the year 2000, the nation would be home to more than 300 million people. And he was right. On that day in 1961, he told the crowd, “We want to build for ourselves and them. We want them to have the same assets that we have.”

A few days before Kennedy’s dedication, the American Automobile Association issued a press release and called the new Ouachita National Forest Road “a new American tourist frontier.”

Highway 259 still links Poteau, Oklahoma to the Red River. And it’s a stunningly beautiful drive, and it’s easy to understand a very sweet remark that Kennedy made about the Ouachita National Park Road.

“There is nothing more valuable for any occupant of that high office than to leave that city once in a while and come and see this country and to see what a great asset we have in these difficult times.”

JFK was killed in Dallas two years later.

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