Two 1920s Images from Prange Files

Since the Prange family operated the major saw mill of the area, planks for a make shift see-saw would have been no problem.  A fine length board would have been relatively easy to acquire.  Given the height of the fence at the key balancing point, however, the scene looks like an adventure, perhaps overseen by Louie? standing at the critical station.  Since it would appear unlikely the picture was made by anyone but an adult, the activity  must have been supervised.

Jim Prange, to whom I owe this image from the 1920s, identifies the middle girl on the sea-saw as Esther and the girl in front of her as Mary Elizabeth. "I could guess on the boys, but it would only be guesses.  Is that Louie standing tall on the fence?  Perhaps I see Richard, Erwin and my dad - perhaps."

If this is a view of the lower parts of the Bluffs including "The Hole in the Wall," it would have clearly been during a summer season when the river was very low, since I cannot remember the sandbar across the way being so exposed and extended.  1920s?

1920s Crockett's Bluff School Bus and 1930s School Registers

This image was linked to an earlier post re school buses in the Bluff.

I'm indebted to Carol Keithley Baird who forwarded to me a box of historical papers gathered from her mother Hallie Keithley's collection that included two School Registers from the Crockett's Bluff School from  the 1936-37 and 1938-39 school years.  Folded into one of the registers was a clipping from DeWitt Era Enterprise (undated) with this image of the school's bus:

"MODEL T SCHOOL BUS -- This picture was taken in the 1920's gives a good description of the transportation at Crockett's Bluff for school age children during the 1920's.  The driver is Mrs. Mary Dallas Turner who now live(s) in the Wynne and Fair Oak area.  Note the curtains on the bus which were rolled up in the summer and down in the colder months of the year.  Duke Graves of Crocketts Bluff, who brought the picture by the Era-Enterprise office said that he remembered when he and his wife, Lillian, rode the bus in 1927."

My brother Shelby First Grade 1936

My brother Bill Fourth Grade 1936

Charles Prange Fourth Grade 1936

Mary Newman and Betty Ann Prange First Grade 1936