J. E. "Smokey" Crabtree grew up in Fouke (Fowk), Arkansas. At the age of eighteen he became a boxer, at nineteen he volunteered for the Merchant Marines, and by the age of twenty-five he was married and a father of four children. Smokey also played a major role in the fabulous Alaska oil pipeline stretching across the barren ice country from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez. Smokey welded the very first joint of 48-inch pipe laid on the 800-mile line. His life story and discovery of an 8-foot skeleton inspired his books and the movie "The Legend of Boggy Creek." To this day Smokey is still living in Fouke, and will never forget his upbringing.