Horses in the hills: Elkins Creek Horse Camp attracts many across the U.S.
May 27—PEDRO — Rick McCleese grew up in a family of eight on a tobacco farm in Southern Ohio.
Originally from Olive Hill, McCleese said his family picked up roots to raise a patch of land. His family always kept a mule to work the fields, but they never wanted an animal that didn't work.
But McCleese wanted a horse — that's all he ever wanted.
"I started playing with little toy horses when I was little. I had a neighbor who used to try to take them from me," McCleese said. "That's all I wanted to do. Ride a horse."
When McCleese reached the eighth grade, he went to work at another farm. His parents still told him he wasn't getting a horse, but one day McCleese rode a pony home.
"And they said, 'where'd you get that?' I said, 'I bought it,'" McCleese recalled, "And they let me keep it. It went crazy from there."
For years, McCleese worked as a mechanic at various Chevy dealerships, making a decent living and buying a horse and a mule here and there. In fact, McCleese said his buddies at one dealership gave him a nickname for his passion: Mule Man.
He liked to ride trails. He'd go all over the U.S., from the mountains of Appalachia to the Great West, camping and riding.
McCleese was also looking — looking for the perfect spot to set up a horse camp of his own. A place he could invite trail riders to camp, fellowship and enjoy one another's company.
He wound up finding it practically in his own backyard — up a holler in Pedro, butting up against the Wayne National Forest. He put money down on a patch of nine acres — the future home of Elkins Creek Horse Camp — on a former tobacco farm that was home to a moonshining preacher back in the 1930s.
"The guy up there had 14 kids and he was taking the money and building a church off of moonshine," McCleese said. "They were stealing gas off the gas line and they were running the still and there wasn't no smoke, so they had a hard time catching them."
By 2007, McCleese, about 50 at this point, had enough with working at a dealership. All he wanted to do was go riding. He told the guys at work he was going to auction off everything and ride a mule to the Grand Canyon.
Not at the Grand Canyon — to the Grand Canyon, 1,900 miles away.
"They said, 'ah you're full of crap.' So I called an auctioneer and said, 'hey, I want to sell everything I got.' He said OK. He come over and got my auction ready," McCleese said. "I had another mule and I went down to Kentucky and sold it to a buddy of mine."
That buddy ended up talking McCleese out of the trek. Instead, he got him hooked up with a touring outfit at the Grand Canyon. The deal was sweet — free lodging, free meals and a pretty good salary to take tourists around the rim.
When the summer was over, he came back to start building. He picked up another job at a dealership for a few years, but in 2010, he quit to focus on his life-long dream, Elkins Creek Horse Camp.
A Love Story
Jill McCleese spent most of her 20s and 30s sick in bed, being told by the doctors she wouldn't make it to 40.
Over the years, she'd dated some on and off. She'd dated some rather well-off fellows, ones that could fly her to Italy anytime she wanted. But Jill didn't want that, she wanted to meet a hard working Christian man.
"I had this crazy prayer I prayed for years," she recalled. "I prayed for a good man with one-room house, a cook stove and, well, it would be nice to have city water and electric and a pasture for horses and if he had children I would love them the same."
In 2009 some friends of Jill's introduced her to Rick.
"I walked up here and it was a one room house with a cook stove and no city water. It was well water. I knew I was home," she said. "I didn't want a big place to take care of, because when you're laying in there and you're hooked to everything and you can't see and you can't talk and you can't move and you got everything in every orifice, you just want to be outside," she said. "I had ridden horses since I was a baby girl — that was my sign, I knew I was home."
They met in September, by October Rick popped the question. He helped her as she took care of her mother, who had fallen ill, never complaining, always there by her side.
"He stood by my side every step," she said.
The two were wedded on the steps of the tack shop of the Elkins Creek Horse Camp. Rick recalled a thunderbolt touched down as soon as they said "I do."
A patch of heaven
Rick has always been good with his hands, while Jill is the talker. As they like to describe it, Jill is the heart, while Rick is the brute.
Together, they grew the camp from nine overgrown acres Jill described as a set piece from "Deliverance" to 40 acres offering 65 electric sites and 98 stalls. But it wasn't easy and didn't happen overnight — both described the growth as slow and steady.
In 2011, a tornado ripped through the camp, destroying nearly everything the newlyweds had built.
"We started from scratch, twice," Rick said. "It took us plumb out. We actually went ahead had a ride and the first year back we had to make shift everything — and everybody still came."
Today, the camp is booming, with visitors from 33 states and three countries in one year. There's people from Louisiana, West Virginia, Northern Ohio, Missouri and out west.
Stan Carper is one of those visitors. Donning mutton chops and a Stetson, he stands inside the tack shop chewing cud about horses — training them, trading them, riding them.
Carper's from Eastern Pennsylvania. When asked how he found this little spot in rural Lawrence County, he said a friend of a friend recommended it.
"They stopped on the way back from Texas and they said they liked it," he said.
The key to getting all those folks is the trails, Rick said.
"You can have the most beautiful camp ground in the world, but it don't do them any good unless you have a place to ride," he said. "That's what keeps them coming back."
Jill stresses maintaining those trails takes a partnership between the camp, the Ironton Ranger District of the Wayne National Forest and the American Endurance Riding Conference.
"Nothing gets done without the forestry service," she said. "None of this would have happened had (Rick) not been here. The skills of the two of us together along with the people who have believed in us and stayed with us and encouraged us."
When Rick first showed up, the trails had largely fallen into disrepair, used only by a handful of locals. Over the years, the McCleeses were able to work with the forestry service to help maintain trails, eventually building new trails for the forest.
It took time. Rick said at first they let him start mowing trails, then cleaning mud off the trails. Next thing he knew, the forestry service had them maintaining and fixing trails.
It's not all on Rick. There are up to 300 volunteers who come through each year to pitch in and help, with a core group of about 20 who are certified to run heavy equipment and chainsaws. One comes all the way from Sandusky, off the Great Lakes, and spends weeks at a time helping Rick repair trails. Others come up in the winter time — when horses are barred from the trails by the forestry service — and stay a week or two pitching in.
The AERC has been instrumental in providing training and grant monies to help with the trails as well, according to Jill. She said the organization saw the hard work being done and came from Georgia to teach classes in master trail building.
"Long story short, like anything great, it takes breaking the rock and digging the ditches, being in the trenches with all the mud in your face," Jill said.
Rick said he doesn't do it for the money. In fact, he said he would be better off financially if he closed. But he enjoys making friends with folks all over the country who share a passion with horses.
"Horse people are a different breed," he said. "They come in, take care of themselves. If they need a saddle, they'll write it on their bill. When it's time to check out, I'll ring them up and they'll pay me. You couldn't run a business like that with any other type of people."
Jill said the idea is to build a sanctuary for folks who enjoy the outdoors.
"We prayed that everyone who crosses that culvert that this is a refuge. They can reconnect with themselves, they reconnect with their families, they reconnect with God and all the beauty in place here. Be a zone, a refuge," she said.
(606) 326-2653 — henry@dailyindependent.com
