> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://eurekaholler.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Bureau of Streams & Trees - URL: https://eurekaholler.com/bureau-of-streams-and-trees-vernon-tucker/ - Published: 2026-10-11T15:20:30.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-11T15:49:54.000Z - Description: Eureka Misfits: Vernon Tucker rides along with Larry “Washboard” Kolden and Bloody Mama, the Bureau of Streams & Trees, in 1973. - Author: Berkeley Barnhill Stewart ![Eureka Misfits](https://storage.ghost.io/c/44/0a/440a274b-a7a3-4d29-b3a8-8af06346fe33/content/images/size/w1200/2026/09/misfits.png) # Bureau of Streams & Trees by Vernon Tucker · 1973 ![Black-and-white portrait of Larry “Washboard” Kolden, long hair and full beard, outdoors in the 1970s](https://storage.ghost.io/c/44/0a/440a274b-a7a3-4d29-b3a8-8af06346fe33/content/images/size/w1600/2026/10/washboard-kolden-seeds.jpg) Larry “Washboard” Kolden. Eureka Misfits Collection. Photo © Vernon Tucker. Do not use or reproduce without permission. You’ve probably all seen Bloody Mama, a faded red Dodge ½ ton, boiling down a county road at a spanking 20 or 30 miles an hour. As you passed, it was probably the driver’s long blond hair pouring out from under a battered straw hat that caught your glance rather than the white logo on the doors where a Texaco star used to be. In circular lettering around a familiar-looking, five-pointed leaf, it proclaims: Bureau of Streams & Trees. This familiar sight is about to vanish from the countryside, and folks from Busch to Berryville know their lot’ll be the poorer for its passing. After two winters and uncounted miles, Larry “Washboard” Kolden wants to put the old Dodge out to pasture. Washboard’s the Bureau’s Carroll County circuit rider… self-appointed. Professor Kolden is what his art students at the University up north called him before he dropped out and moved into an abandoned log cabin near Blue Spring. “One morning I was outside drinking coffee when Moonbeam walked up looking for a ride to the dairy. We pooled our gas money and hit the road.” Washboard picked up a little more gas money from each of the families and communes that relied on whole milk from the Missouri dairy and went to bed that night with a round belly and a head full of ideas. “I had a quarter-tank of gas left the next morning so I made another run, and that’s what I’ve been doing since. I’m my own boss and I work almost any day I want to.” Washboard feels it’s time for another trucker to run his route. “There’s lots of folks without working wheels who have produce to trade or art to sell.” Kolden keeps his washboard behind the seat and has an uncanny ear for a jam brewing anywhere on the route. All aboard Hitching a ride is the best way to see what kind of service the Bureau provides. On shopping day, Washboard pokes through Eureka filling orders for “store boughts” at Perkins and Clark’s, lines up a couple of photography and light hauling jobs, picks up orders for farm goods at the Co-op and stops near the edge of town for a couple of hippies with their thumbs out. “Where ya’ headed?” he hollers. “Variableville,” they mumble. “Take ya’ part way. Climb in.” There’s a stop at the city dump on the edge of town to peruse the “merchandise,” then on toward Farm Yonder. The day’s mail covers the metal dashboard, much of it carrying the Bureau’s red-inked hand stamp guaranteeing eventual “First-Day” delivery in exchange for postage paid for with eggs or green goods. “Every day is the first day of something,” Washboard explains. There’s fresh-caught fish to pick up near the Kings River and baby clothes to drop off at Lothlórien before heading over the state line for milk and honey at the dairy, then back to The Altered State for a stop at the First Homely House and a communal lunch at a long table surrounded by back-to-the-landers. Sliding a funky foot-locker housing the Bureau’s lending library onto Bloody Mama’s tailgate, Washboard watches a passel of barefoot children rummage through stacks of donated books. Conversation turns to his rumored retirement and some of his more memorable visits come up, like the time he delivered the midwife who delivered Cow Pod and the time he hauled their goats through a two-foot snowfall to visit a “holistic” vet. Off to Beaver Town “Howdy,” hollers Fishhead Carter as Washboard eases up to a White River shack. “Glad you spotted my sign,” she chirps, pointing at a scrap of gingham hanging from her rural mailbox. Fishhead invites Washboard up on the porch for tea and a peek at her “collectibles.” He spots a plaster windmill for a collector in town and two antique postcards to sell at a fancy shop on Spring Street. On through Beaver and up Butler Hollow, Washboard eyes the roadside for “sign.” Spotting three red-tailed hawk feathers, he pulls over to haul in the signal and turns up a narrow dirt road that peters out atop an abandoned railroad bed. Easing around a washed-out trestle, Washboard lugs through the pines beyond the abandoned radium mine and is greeted at the edge of a high meadow by waving children who run toward the truck from the shade encircling three tall white tipis. Returning the feathers, Washboard delivers a bottle of horse liniment and the mail before inviting 14-year-old Rain into the cab for a ride to the bus station in Eureky. Rolling billboard Winding through the National Forest, Washboard zig-zags along the state line threading neighbors together until they roll past Gateway and turn off for a backroad run to an open-air silk screen shop set up on a bluff overlooking Beaver Lake. After a swim, Washboard picks up a stack of posters advertising a Wildcat Alexander gig at the Quiet Night and duct tapes one on each truck door. Rolling Bloody Mama down the mountain, Washboard pops the clutch near the bottom. The engine fires, propelling them over Indian Creek as they harmonize an old truck-start favorite, “You can rock it, you can roll it. You can laugh if someone stole it!” When they stop near the Busch Post Office, Rain marvels as Washboard barters with Mineral Bath for two plates of vegetables and a recital of her latest one-woman play, “God Calling Earth; Come In Elna!” The trading warms up as quilts, buckets and kerosene change hands. On the slow drive to Eureka with the sun setting behind them, Washboard asks Rain about her bus trip. She tells him she’s headed for Vermont and looking forward to it after so many months in the Ozarks. Washboard asks her how she’s going to cover her ticket and is dazzled by the exquisite turquoise and silver bracelet she slides out of her pack. Pulling over to admire the hours of artistry which went into the bracelet, he says old Doc Holland who moved down from Chicago has an eye for such work and a fair sense of its worth. Rain, it turns out, already knows him; he’s bought her family’s jewelry before. Rain’s smiling gaze directs Washboard’s attention to the doctor’s driveway just up the road past the White River bridge. “I’ll be,” Larry laughs as he puts the truck in gear. This time it’s Washboard’s turn to marvel as Rain deftly nudges the retired surgeon’s final offer to what all agree is fair value given and received. Rain repays the Bureau with her contribution to the gas fund as he pulls into the bus station across from the courthouse. Giving Washboard a hug, Rain asks him what he’s looking forward to this winter. “First of all, a few months out of this truck just collecting stillness. Then some afternoon when it’s good and cold I’d like to hear an old truck chugging up my drive.” “Oh Washboard,” she replies, “you’re just in it for what you can give!” “You didn’t think I moved here to watch people yawn, did you, Rain?” Author’s note: This story was inspired by Larry “Washboard” Kolden and originally appeared in the Oct. 10, 1973 edition of The Newspaper, one of the many independent newspapers published in Eureka Springs during the last part of the 20th century. “Bureau of Streams & Trees” © Vernon Tucker. All rights reserved. Shared with permission. Where’s Washboard now? The Bureau never filed a final report. Larry Kolden, born in 1939 in Osseo, Wisconsin, came to the Ozarks after earning his MFA at the University of Wisconsin and teaching photography and printmaking at Southern Illinois University. In Eureka he kept the Bureau’s rounds, played percussion with the Greasy Greens, and made prints. He went on to teach art for some fifty years, and from 1990 to 2004 he restored Edgar Miller’s Carl Street Studios in Chicago, a landmark of handmade art houses. The Chicago Cultural Center gave him a retrospective in 2015–16. He lives in Chicago and is still making art. *Eureka Misfits refers to Vernon Tucker’s vast collection of stories and photographs from the early days of our rich and peculiar community. The EurekaHoller newsletter will feature lore and images from Eureka’s checkered past, told by the folks who were there. Got one? 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