Who Is a Hoo-Hoo? A Back Roads Oddity from the Lumber World
Who Is a Hoo-Hoo?
A Back Roads Oddity from the Lumber World
Dear Henry,
Every so often, you stumble across something so unusual that it stops you in your tracks, not because it demands explanation, but because it refuses to make sense right away.
That’s how I felt when I first encountered a group called The International Concatenated Order of the Hoo-Hoo, Incorporated. Naturally, my first question was unavoidable:
What on earth is a Hoo-Hoo?
The term was coined by B. Arthur Johnson, an editor for The Timberman, to describe a single lock of hair, twisted, oiled, and pointed, remaining atop the otherwise bald head of one Charles McCarer. The phrase caught on within the lumber industry as shorthand for anything delightfully odd, offbeat, or irreverent.
Before long, the term escaped its original joke.
In 1892, a group of lumbermen, B. Arthur Johnson, William Eddy Barnes, George Washington Schwartz, A. Strauss, George Kimball Smith, and William Starr Mitchell, used it as the foundation for a “secret” society formed in Gurdon, Arkansas. Thus was born the Concatenated Order of the Hoo-Hoo.
The stated purpose of the Order was simple and earnest: to promote the health, happiness, and long life of its members. But the way it went about doing so leaned unapologetically into the absurd. From the beginning, the Order embraced unusual symbolism, borrowing imagery and language from Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark. Their rituals, titles, and traditions reflect a playful seriousness, a reminder that fellowship need not always be solemn to be sincere.
Membership in the Order is open to anyone over the age of eighteen who works in the lumber or forestry industries, and today the organization boasts more than 100,000 members worldwide. What began as an inside joke became an international fraternity bound by forests, sawmills, camaraderie, and a shared appreciation for the strange.
It’s exactly the kind of story I love, one that reminds me how often American history hides its most charming chapters in footnotes, punchlines, and places you only find by wandering off the main road.
One of these days, I need to take a proper road trip to Gurdon, Arkansas, to visit the Order’s museum and monument and see where the Hoo-Hoo story took root.
Stay tuned for pictures.
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About the Author
a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller traveling through life
She shares her journeys at Take the Back Roads, explores new reads at Rite of Fancy, and highlights U.S. military biographies at Everyday Patriot.
You can also browse her online photography gallery at shop.takethebackroads.com.
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