The forgotten early history of Springhouse Magazine. (Revisionist History)

In 1977 this old seadog "sold the boat" and cast his anchor far inland on Possum Ridge in Southern Illinois. I thought I might swallow the anchor permanently and live on dry land like a normal human being for a change. This called for a job, and there are only two ways to get a job — either go out and find one, working for someone else, or make one of your own. Decent-paying regular jobs are scarce as hen's teeth in the neighborhood of Possum Ridge, and I wanted to avoid long commutes, so that meant I would have to try to manufacture my own job. The first thing I did was to follow one of my father's leads making a Eli Terry antique clock reproductions while upgrading the farm into something more or less productive.

Not really a dedicated farmer, and unsatisfied with clock-making as a full time occupation (too much like regular work), I decided to try my hand at publishing. I had a book to publish about my Semangat sailing adventures — but to publish such a book would require much more money up front than I had available. So rather than jumping into book publishing, I thought maybe I could jump into magazine or newspaper publishing, which I hoped would provide quicker returns with smaller start-up costs. Then, having established a livelihood, I thought, I could publish the book later on, eventually initiating fulfillment of my long-held dream of becoming a professional writer — maybe even a latter day Melville or Conrad. (Needless to say, I haven't made it yet.)

I perceived the lack of any periodicals on the market devoted to Southern Illinois which, in my opinion, was a region so rich in history and natural beauty that it deserved its own regional publication. The nearest thing we had was Dan Malkovch's Outdoor Illinois (Later Illinois Magazine, "The Magazine of the Prairie State," now defunct). I wanted to publish something a little out of the ordinary, and attempt to make it into something that almost everybody would enjoy and appreciate. It wouldn't be modeled after Yankee or any other regional magazine, but sort of a Yankee, back-to-the-land Mother Earth News, and Grit-type newspaper combined, with some serious editorial content for good measure. Though I never came up with a name, I thought I might call its form a "papazine" (part newspaper and part magazine) — a revolutionary new type of regional publication. It's format would be home-spun and non-presumptuous, on newsprint, like The Nation, but its content would be totally unique. It would feature and promote local writers, artists, and craftsmen and their work, as well as publish history, legends and lore of the Illinois Ozarks. Additionally, I hoped to blow my own political horn a little, too, since I took serious issue with so many of the country's political and economic trends.

One of my oldest and best friends was (and is) Gary DeNeal. We'd been neighbors and had known one another since school days. While I ran off to sea, he went off to college and followed the literary road, and became a writer. Having authored many poems and magazine articles (including a book of poems at about age 17), and having authored the successful book, Knight of Another Sort, Prohibition Days and Charlie Birger, he was the first to hear of my publishing idea, and was very enthusiastic about it. Gary encouraged me, but wasn't interested in being a full partner in the proposed publication. However, he said he would be glad to play a more or less detached roll in the enterprise. He said he'd help in every way he could — and he did.

Another good friend and neighbor was Ken Mitchell. Ken was fairly new to the area, having moved here from Arizona with his wife, Janeine (a native of the area), only a few years before. He loved Southern Illinois and shared many of my own interests with regard to "back-to-the-land" and woodworking crafts. He had business and marketing experience, and was currently working as an advertising salesman for The Money-Stretcher, our local free classified ads newspaper. At his then current job Ken had learned how to go about laying out and pasting up a publication.

I had some drawing ability, and a strong hankering to write. Among the three of us, I figured we had all the talent needed to launch the publication I envisioned. In early 1983 I broached the idea to Ken, offering him full partnership in the enterprise. He accepted, and we both agreed that we ought to try to get Gary into the project on an official basis. Gary was still a little hesitant, but agreed to a limited (sort of "behind the scenes") roll.

Then came many meetings with the three of us figuring out how to come up with a magazine. First, we had to give it a name. We went through hundreds of potential names until Gary suggested "Springhouse." That was it, and I set up the Springhouse, Inc., with Ken and I the major, and co-equal, shareholders, and Gary a minor shareholder (40/40/20% ownership). I was editor/publisher, Ken was managing editor, and Gary was the somewhat reluctant associate editor. Initially Gary wasn't too eager to have his name on the masthead, since he had something of a literary reputation to uphold, and the Springhouse magazine was as yet of unknown quantity. He was also a little leery of the political commentary I proposed to churn out, since I was (in his view), a dangerous conservative — maybe even a "true believer" — and he an avowed liberal. Ken was somewhat concerned about getting into political controversy too, and didn't want me to try to start any revolutions. So, in the interests of harmony, I promised that my "View From Possum Ridge" would be rather benign and toothless.

Before long we were neck deep in putting the first issue together. We all did some writing for it, and started searching out other contributors. I did the cover design and most of the artwork. Ken did the layout, paste-up, and got out and sold quite a few ads. Gary started getting the word out to the local literati and potential contributors. We had Creative Communication Services of Harrisburg do most of the type-setting on their IBM computer, and we got B & W Printing, of Ledford, to do the printing of the premier issue.

When it really looked as though we were going to have a magazine that met his approval, Gary alerted the news media. We got some excellent coverage. All the local papers gave us a boost, and the three local TV stations all came out to Possum Ridge to do a story on the new publishing venture.

Within days of the TV coverage, we started getting subscriptions through the mails. We were getting scores of charter subscriptions daily at the charter price of $6.50 a year for six issues. Money was rolling in. Ah, the euphoria of success!

Meanwhile the amount of work going on at B & W Printing, getting out the first thousand copies of issue number one, was beginning to be troubling. The collating and stapling was being done by hand, and what a job it was! I began to wonder how they could do all that work for the price we were expecting to pay. As it turned out, what we were expecting to pay had little relationship to the bill we received, and our first major business blunder almost killed us. We had been working from "estimated" printing costs given us by the printer, but we hadn't got anything in writing. The costs far exceeded what the printer had given as an estimate. He had made a mistake too, but billed us the full amount of his costs plus profits and we had no choice but to pay up. As the subscription money continued rolling in, our euphoria turned to near despair, as we realized that our charter subscription price was not going to come close to covering the costs of a year's subscription production cost of the magazine. So all those charter subscriptions were at a money loosing rate.

From that point on (in other words, from the beginning) our publishing enterprise was financially hard-pressed. But we didn't throw up our hands and quit, nor did it appreciably dampen our publishing enthusiasm. We gathered up our wits and learned how to do our own type-setting, collating, and binding — and we found a much cheaper printer. We bought a cheap Commodore-64 computer and daisy wheel printer and I began learning how to be a desktop publisher. The Springhouse perhaps became the area's first commercial desk-top publishing enterprise. We literally did everything, except the actual printing, which we continued to have to farm out. We recruited family members and friends for the big job of collating and stapling.

We moved our official headquarters from Possum Ridge to an old store front known as Fair Cliff, at Herod (which we got almost rent-free), and the Springhouse continued to be a "success story" — but not a financial success story. Soon we had a thousand subscribers, but we weren't able to pay ourselves — only the casual help.

Like many small start-up businesses, we were grossly under capitalized, and the local bank was only willing to loan us barely enough to get by on, but not enough to really launch us. We had three families involved and not enough "profit" coming in (after our initial difficulty) to support one person. Ken was the first to break under the strain of working for almost nothing. He bailed out after about a year, and I bought his share. This left Gary and I, and I was feeling the strain of debt — both my own and that of the Springhouse. Soon, I decided to return to sea to raise a little capital and get myself and the Springhouse out from under the debts we were accumulating before they became too burdensome. I fired myself as editor and promoted Gary to that position, and his wife, Judy, became associate editor. My name was to appear on the Springhouse masthead at the bottom as president of Springhouse, Inc.

Much to my surprise, Gary, expressed the desire to make his title "simply editor/publisher," and I acquiesced. I say surprised, because I had dropped the "editor/publisher" title for myself after the first issue in deference to my two partners (too pretentious), and Gary had been reluctant even to be mentioned as associate editor. We decided to simply call the Springhouse, Inc. the publisher. Gary's name appeared as editor/publisher for the first time with the March-April, 1985 issue (Vol. 2, No. 2), although I was the actual editor for most of that issue. I shipped out from New Orleans on the S.S. Genevieve Lykes on April 16th, 1985 (on a voyage around the world), leaving the magazine in the hands of Gary and Judy. Little did I realize at the time that my days as an editor of my own magazine were over. When I returned home in September, having been away longer than expected, Gary and Judy were firmly in control, and had successfully published two issues of the magazine — were enjoying their jobs tremendously — and they were doing a good job. They'd removed the Springhouse headquarters from Fairy Cliff to their home and begun to "refocus" the magazine on the things they could best relate to.

Originally, I had intended to resume being the editor on my return, and remain majority owner and chief executive of the corporation. At the time, I couldn't imagine it being any other way — after all, I was both originator and 80% owner. But it had become obvious that the magazine would not support two families for quite some time, if ever — and I knew I 'd probably have to go back to sea from time to time. Gary and Judy had proven that they could handle the publication of the magazine themselves, and do a good job, and I knew that I couldn't do it alone if I was to return to sea periodically. For this reason, with much regret, I decided not to reclaim my position as editor.

Leaving the editorial work in the hands of Gary and Judy, while retaining majority ownership and ultimate control over the magazine and corporation, however, soon started causing some slight misgiving on the part of those now doing the work. I could see that things weren't going to work the way I had hoped. (I had thought I might remain in the background, write "The View From Possum Ridge," and work on other projects.) Finally — and most reluctantly — (in the interests of the future of both the magazine and our friendship), I decided to opt out of the enterprise entirely. It was quite a difficult decision on my part at the time, but I choose not even to retain a token interest. I thought I'd probably start another publishing venture.

Thus, after being an editor and publisher for a year and a half, and with a very heavy heart, I totally relinquished the Springhouse, lock, stock, and barrel, to my junior partner. My name appeared as president of Springhouse, Inc. for the last time in the January-February, 1986 issue (Vol.3, No. 1). Thereafter it has appeared only at the top of the list of three founders at the bottom of the masthead page. That, plus a life-time subscription, was the only official condition I placed on the "buy-out."

Gary and Judy remade the magazine in their own image over the succeeding issues and years, and the publication has since become somewhat of an unofficial historical journal for Southern Illinois. Our "Journal of the Illinois Ozarks" and its "Unique Mix" evolved into Gary's "Adventure Shaped Like a Magazine," a fitting description. Some of my input lived on, however, in the form of vestiges of artwork in each issue — until the February, 1998 (Vol. 15, No. 1) which I call the "last vestige" issue. My drawing of the springhouse at the top of the masthead-contents page appeared in each issue from the very first one to the December, 1997 issue.

Ken and I are still listed as founders in the staff column of the masthead page, of course, but otherwise we've both largely been dropped into the memory hole as far as the public is concerned. Of course, we haven't done anything to keep our hand in, but local newspaper writer, Jon Musgrave, (staff writer for the Harrisburg Daily Register), in his Springhouse history web page fails to mention either Ken Mitchell or myself at all, and credits Gary and Judy with being totally responsible for the creation of the magazine.

Those things happen, and often unintentionally. Ken Mitchell wasn't mentioned in the The Evansville Courier article below, and felt the slight keenly — and that happened on my watch. Gary and I were so wrapped up in things, that when Joe Aaron interviewed us, we simply forgot to make sure he was aware that there had been three of us in the beginning — we just assumed he knew. Gary and I both felt bad about the oversight.

Contrast the above articles with the current Daily Register
(Official?) History of Springhouse Magazine, Excerpt from

The Harrisburg Daily Register, Harrisburg, Illinois
The Daily Register is a publication of Liberty Group Publishing
© 1998 The Daily Register, Harrisburg, Illinois

Springhouse publishes adventures shaped like a magazine

By JON MUSGRAVE
Staff Writer
    HARRISBURG, Ill. (Sept. 23, 1998) — Deep in the shadow of old Womble Mountain on the forested north face of Williams Hill, a spring gushes up from the earth.
    It sat unnoticed for years until an enterprising writer tapped it and built a house around it. All of a sudden, this fount of knowledge had a name — Springhouse.
    For over 15 years, Saline County writer Gary DeNeal and his wife Judy have published and edited "this Adventure Shaped Like a Magazine" from their home between Rudement and Herod. As a regional interest publication, Springhouse fills the gap once served by the old Outdoor Illinois, See Illinois, and Egyptian Key magazines.
    Unlike those which focused on "selling" Southern Illinois, DeNeal focuses more on telling about Southern Illinois, from its history to its literature.
    "Springhouse is so many people. It's not just history, it's philosophy," said DeNeal.
    Every issue is split into three sections, Here and There, Features and the appropriately titled, In Every Issue. The last includes DeNeal's opening which often focuses on the story behind the stories in the latest issue. Ozark Echoes represents the reader's point of view. The letters are often as interesting as the stories themselves as readers debate one another and add their own information to previous stories and topics.
    Over the last few months the Features section has included original research on Sturdivant's Fort near Rosiclare to a biographical sketch of Judge A. D. Duff, Southern Illinois' pro-Confederate Civil War judge. Here and There often reprints interesting tidbits from the region's history such as a letter to the editor of the Shawneetown newspaper written by a runaway slave, to an account of squirrels migrating across the Ohio River.
    DeNeal started the magazine after the success of his 1980 book, A Knight of Another Sort, a biography of local gangster Charlie Birger. The book far surpasses Illinois historian Paul Angle's chapters on Birger published in Bloody Williamson.
    After two runs of 10,000 copies, the book quickly sold out. Last year, SIU Press surprised DeNeal with an interest in republishing the book. The end result is a second edition ready to hit the bookstores in mid-November.
    "I never thought there would be a new edition to it," DeNeal admitted.
    The new book goes into more depth than the first one.
    "It's quite a bit different with different photographs and a lot of new text," said DeNeal. "It's a lot of new things."
    Jim Ballowe, an Illinois poet and a former dean at Bradley University, provides the introduction in the new edition.
    "He's a lot more of a name in literature than I am. He not only did it, he did it in great style," praised DeNeal.
    As pleased as he is about the book, DeNeal still wants to be remembered more for the magazine than being Birger's biographer.
    "I'm so involved in Springhouse. I get more involved in it than something I did 20 years ago.
    In addition to the Birger reprint and Springhouse, DeNeal continues to write.
    As one of his recent accomplishments he took first place out of 330 entries in the Illinois Times Short Attention Span Fiction Contest conducted in August. However, DeNeal admits he has more pride in who took the honorable mention award in the contest — his son Hugh, who currently resides in Bryce Canyon, Utah.
    Their winning entries were published in the Aug. 20-26 edition of the Springfield-based weekly newspaper.