Otto Ernest Rayburn

Born in Iowa in 1891 and raised in Kansas, Otto Ernest Rayburn became a teacher, writer, magazine publisher, and devoted collector of Ozark lore. After attending Marionville College, serving in the U.S. Army during World War I, and teaching in Kansas and Arkansas, he settled into work that would define his life: documenting and celebrating the people, stories, and traditions of the Ozarks.

Rayburn found a lasting subject in the isolated communities of Arkansas and Missouri. In Kingston, Arkansas, he published Ozark Life: The Mirror of the Ozarks and later wrote long-running newspaper columns including Ozark Folkways. He went on to launch other magazines, such as The Arcadian and Arcadian Life, and became known for an enthusiastic, romantic style that mixed folklore, regional pride, and a promoter’s flair.

He is remembered for books including Ozark Country and the memoir Forty Years in the Ozarks, as well as for preserving a large body of research materials on folk culture. Later writers noted how much he did to spark public interest in Ozark folklore, and his work remains part of the story of how the region was presented to a national audience in the twentieth century.