Several years ago, I briefly mentioned on this blog President Truman's dedication of Norfork Dam and his same-day dedication of Bull Shoals Dam in 1952, and I might write more extensively about those events in the near future, but Truman's dedication of those two dams was not the only time a sitting president visited the Ozarks to dedicate a dam. On October 3, 1963, President Kennedy dedicated the Greers Ferry Dam at Heber Springs, Arkansas, on the southern edge of the Ozarks, just a month and a half before he was killed by an assassin's bullet in Dallas.
Kennedy was scheduled to speak at 11:00 a.m. on October 3, but several thousand people had already gathered at the site of the new dam two hours before that time. A few were protestors carrying sings, but most of those present were there to witness history.
Some officials estimated that as many as 25,000 people might turn out for the event. Although attendance probably didn't reach that figure, the crowd that did show up was likely the largest ever gathered in the history of Heber Springs, the town adjacent to the dam.
In his address, Kennedy praised those who helped fund and construct the dam. He vowed that America would continue to develop its resources, build its "strength and greatness," and "move ahead." He pointed out that the dam project would expand employment opportunities and stimulate the economy in the Heber Springs area and would be a benefit to the whole country that would eventually more than pay for itself.
In an ironic aside, at least one newspaper ran a brief article along with its reporting on Kennedy's dam dedication that said that military officials and the White House had issued a statement saying that things were going well in Viet Nam and that they expected they would be able to withdraw all US personnel from Southeast Asia within a couple of years. I can tell you from personal experience that that most certainly did not happen.
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