The Hillbilly Head Restored: How This Piece Of Ozarks History Was Rescued (And Almost Lost)

It’s fair to say Cody West is obsessed with old things.

Last year, for his wife Emilee's 40th birthday, they and a small group of friends dressed up in 40s (that is, 1940s) attire and lit up the town. If you had seen them, you would have thought they were the best-dressed people you’d seen in awhile. People dressed better in those days, and that’s one of the many reasons Cody loves old things. They seem richer, better, full of character, full of beauty, and full of stories.

That passion is what led Cody to restore one of the Lake area’s most famous roadside signs, preserving a legend that would have been lost to the weathering forces of time.

Cody had loved the Davis Baskets billboard since he was a teenager. After graduating from Camdenton High School, he moved to Dallas County and drove a lengthy commute to his job at the outlet mall. He recalls how much he loved seeing those famous billboards on Highway 54 pointing drivers to one of the most iconic and quirky retail shops the Lake has ever known.

Eastbound 54 coming into Camdenton was riddled with Davis Baskets signs: that memorable hillbilly head with a corn cob pipe and a golden crown beckoning travelers to come and see what they might find. A few of the boards still remain today, though the shop — founded by Delmar Davis in 1947 — closed for good in 2020.

When Davis Baskets’ doors closed, Cody felt acutely the loss of such a legendary Lake establishment. Still living on family land in Dallas County, he continued to watch as the Davis Baskets signs slowly languished and decayed.

So for his 44th birthday, in 2024, Emilee commissioned a skilled painter to re-create one of the Davis Baskets signs for her husband. The result was astounding: a near-perfect replica of Cody’s favorite sign. He was thrilled, keeping the sign inside a large metal barn they are working to convert into a one-of-a-kind vacation rental.

Inside the barn is a treasure-trove of Cody’s collections. A vintage bar. A Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band-emblazoned drum set. A full diving suit with helmet (there’s a hilarious story behind this one, involving a full-body cast of Emilee — listen to Cody’s interview in the Take On The Lake podcast, episode 7, for the details).

Vintage gems are tucked into every corner.

So when Cody received his beloved birthday gift, he proudly posted about it in a Facebook group dedicated to the good ole’ days at Lake of the Ozarks. And that’s when the story took a wonderfully surprising turn.

Having seen Cody’s post, a man who had known Delmar Davis contacted Cody. He explained Delmar had gifted him one of the many roadside signs, and he had hoped to fully restore it. But, he told Cody — like so many lofty plans — it had sat in a corner, unfinished. He was afraid the job would never get started, much less ever get finished. So he offered the sign to Cody.

Cody breathlessly accepted. He brought the sign home, and he and Emilee carefully cleaned it with soap and warm water, removing decades of outdoors-grunge. The sign’s bright colors quickly re-emerged once it was clean, and Cody was thrilled: all it would take would be a bit of touch-up paint to fully restore this incredible, vintage sign. He planned to add it to his growing collection of signs that hang on the side of his barn and point to bygone days.

They set the sign outside to dry. It was a frigid winter night.

The next morning, to Cody's horror, nearly all the paint was gone. It had fallen from the sign like leaves fall from a tree after the first winter freeze.

His only guess is that, when he and Emilee cleaned the sign, water had made its way behind some of the paint, and in the subzero temperatures, it froze between the paint and the sign surface. The ground was now covered in old (probably lead) paint. And the sign was essentially a blank slate.

Cody began to panic. But then, looking closely at the sign, he noticed score marks, visible now that the paint was gone. The score lines followed the sign’s initial design. There it was: the hillbilly head, the bushy eyebrows, the texture of the corncob pipe. The sign’s original builder had benevolently provided guidelines for where every paint color should start and stop, scored forever into the surface of the sign. Just like a paint-by-numbers kit.

Eureka.

Cody and Emilee began the painstaking work of completely repainting the Davis Baskets sign, in a process that would take longer than they had originally thought, but that would become a near-obsession until its completion. They removed the last bits of old paint that remained and started fresh. To obtain the perfect pink color of the hillbilly's face, they dove into what could almost be considered alchemy, mixing pigments until they had just the right hue.

They labored over the sign after work in the evenings and on weekends. Months later it was finished. And it looked as good as it ever did.

Cody hung the original Davis Baskets sign on the side of his barn, where it stands proudly alongside several other vintage emblems. For him it's a testament — along with his other old collectibles — to the value of preserving things.

The sign his wife gave him? It stays inside, and Cody insists it’s still his favorite. It comes from one of the things — or, people — he cherishes even more than the past.

Listen to Cody’s stories about the sign and the diving suit as well as a lively conversation about the value of old — and new — things, in the “Take on the Lake” podcast, episode 7. Available on most podcasting platforms, as well as YouTube. On Facebook: Facebook.com/takeonthelake. “Take on the Lake” is produced by LakeExpo. This article was reproduced with permission, from LakeExpo.com.

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