Hog Roundup 1931

According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, folks in Arkansas have the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto to thank for bringing swine to Arkansas in 1541.  Their offspring remain throughout the state today.  While in the 1930s they served, in both their wild and domesticated varieties, as a welcomed source of protein for folks in Crockett's Bluff, today they have in their feral form become a statewide nuisance and enemy of the general natural environment.

Among several rare photographs passed along to me some time ago by Hallie Keithley - still to this date the oldest current resident of the Bluff -  reflect life in the 1930s generally and more specifically life on the River. 

The image below is especially rare and historically interesting for both the subjects in the fore and background.  Thanks to the notes neatly inscribed on the back of the picture by Flavelia (Bela) Kline, both the husband of one of the figures in what appears to be a make-shift barge and for most of the years of my youth the post mistress from a room in the Kline house.  

George and John Kline are returning from the final day of the wild hog roundup in 1931:   "Geo and John Kline leaving Monroe Co. on the last day of the hog round up, Jan. 15, 1931.  The Steamer Robert H. Romander(?) coming up the river with 2 barges of logs 200,000 ft.  It took her 15 min to make Crockett's Bluff Bend in White River."

The Kline Brothers

Charlie McDonald's House Boat

Excellent image of what appears to be two houseboats abutting each other.  Although Charlie McDonald was not someone I remember, his name was frequently mentioned in the Woodiel household.  Could the boy in what appears to be "cowboy" attire be his son Gus, pictured elsewhere on this site hanging from the water tower as a young boy who would later loose one of his legs in World War II.  "Im sure this picture was taken down at Mattox Bay because that's where the McDonalds tied up all the time."- Hallie Keithley

CC:Riley Pool, Geo. Kline, Emmet Yokem, Chas. McDonald and ?

Then names in the caption are from Hallie's notes.  Only George Kline (all white in center background) I can positively identify because he gave me my first job working with him in his cotton field west of the Bluff near Voss Lake.  The scene is a shady spot down on the nearest bank to the water on the White River.  Why do I assume it's Sunday or a holiday.  The white shirts and Mr. Pool's necktie, I guess.  Must be early spring, because the water's "up" with little bank showing.

Preston Ferry Housebook from 1920s or '30s

The following image was forwarded  to Denise Parkinson, author of the recently published Daughter of the White River, by Patricia Gunn  in response to a note she had written related to the legendary story of Helen Spence, the subject of her work.  Gunn's great-great aunt Vickie "Vicie" Russell is pictured on porch of their house boat at Preston Ferry near Casscoe, Arkansas, just a few miles upstream from Crockett's Bluff.  The family of Helen Spence, who shot her father's killer in a DeWitt, AR courtroom in 1931, sprang directly from the  river culture of the communities of White River inhabitants of houseboats such as the one pictured here in the 1920s and '30s

Vickie (Vicie) Russell, great-great aunt of Patricia Gunn , Preston Ferry, Casscot, AR

From the back of the above image.

Much can be learned from images of such houseboats. Would that the above image, a scan of a photograph apparently, was an original clear copy.  At first glance, however, it strikes the eye as a very well maintained structure, not on logs, it would appear, but on a constructed wooden hull; and the somewhat larger than usual boat moored along side, complete with a chair and curtains of a sort, fairly fancy, I'd say.  And a harsh and thick mostly willow grove along the bank.

We would welcome images of other houseboats and the stories that accompany them that are lying unacknowledged in who knows how many personal memories and albums across the country. Just forward them as email attachments from scans.  Photos will be unharmed and gladly returned.

Patricia Gunn riverentpg@gmail.com

Dale Woodiel dpwoodiel@gmail.com

The Henry Prange Family Residence and Barn: Crockett's Bluff's Oldest Surviving Structures

My recent visit to Arkansas County was more hurried than I had hoped but it did include stops at DeWitt for a book signing event,  at St. Charles for a stop at the cemetery and several old and abandoned structures that were alive and significant in the 1950s, and at Crockett's Bluff for a visit to the old family home site.

I had been asked by Denise Parkinson to write a foreword to her Daughter of the White River, an updated defense, one could say, of Helen Spence, the subject of one of the great county legends who was secretly buried in the St. Charles cemetery where, though I was unable to find her grave I did find the one of the Knowlton family that included Bob who was a friend and classmate for many years.  The walk around the old home place - all remnants of the old house now gone - was strange but satisfying, memories emerging at every turn like pop-up notices on my mobile phone.

After turning northward from Rt. 1 on to Rt. 153 that afternoon the image that emerged just above the skyline was that of the Prange Bros water tower that was clearly visible from that five mile marker to the bend of the White River where it stood.  Apparently it was removed about the time Schwab's Store that it looked down upon closed.  Fortunately, the structure of the store still stands, and I find it near to impossible to pass without stopping.

"Hey there! I was just thinking of you the other day."

Lucky for me, Darrell Gardner, the son in law of Eddie Schwab who established and managed the store through its many decades, was holding the fort.

He had recently found some interesting inscriptions written on the rafters and walls of the old Prange barn that rests just a hundred yards or so from the store, and he thought it might be fit material for this web site.  An hour or so later I completely agreed.

Prange barn constructed about 1900 (Vickie Gardner photo)

Clearly, along with the once spacious home of "Miss Cora" Prange, apparently married to the barn fifty yards or so to the north, Schwab's Store remains one of the oldest structures still standing in the Bluff, and for me associated with the center of activity during my childhood and teenage years.   It has, however, become fairly certain, thanks in part to Darrell's keen observations, it is not the oldest.  

  This original Henry Prange family barn rests solidly still - half its roof visible on the Google Earth image - a few yards west between Schwab's Store and the Prange residence.  It was the scribbled inscriptions within it on its walls and rafters that caught Darrell's eye, particularly the 1916 dates and autographs posted there with brushes in apparently the black stove-polish-like  that was used to mark the Prange logo on the rice sacks stored there in the early decades of the 1900s.  If it was a functioning barn at that date, it had to have been built somewhat earlier, and there's no other structure of any kind in the area known to date back before 1900.

Carl Heinrich Prange in the cement floor of his barn.

There is, however, a potentially enlightening clue resting literally at the end of the lane from the Prange house on the east side of Rt. 153, an historical marker noting that Henry Prange, the builder of both the house and the barn, grew in his front yard the first - apparently miniature - rice field of the area in 1906.

Grand Prairie Historical Society Marker

    It is known that Henry Prange lived southward out Rt. 153 from the Bluff on what is now known as Wiedner Road, near the old Lutheran Cemetery, before, one can assume, the present dwelling was constructed.  Was the barn built for practical reasons before the house?  If by 1916 or a bit afterward, rice was being grown to the extent that it was being stacked high enough in this barn to allow Henry's son Theo and their friend George Kline to write (in 1919) their names at the rafter level, then he had indeed become, as Jim Prange has noted elsewhere, "the rice guy." But here's where the minor mystery re the barn and the house begins, says Jim Prange, the  "official" Prange Family Historian: "Since Henry Prange (or someone did) put his name and year inside the barn, I am curious . . . as to whether or not he did something similar on the house. . . . At this point I think we are safe in saying that the house is 'about' a hundred years old.  Which comes first, the house or the barn. "

By the late 1920s or early 30s there would be a warehouse constructed only a few hundred yards east across the irrigation canal on the bluff at the bend of the river visible in an early photograph, along with a chute for sliding sacks of rice on the barge of a steamboat. 

Sturdy construction with shingled roof originally.

George Kline signature "Fall 1919"

Unknown initials.

Incomplete 1916 signature.

Later modifications around sturdy beam.

One has to walk inside to appreciate the space.

Rice bags being loaded from a warehouse more convenient than the original barn near the Prange house.

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

Ancient Images of Crockett's Bluff

Obviously among the oldest images on this site, these are also courtesy of James Prange, having been passed along to him by Bob Moody. 

 This image pictures members of the Prange family, a loaded hay wagon, a buggy, and a most impressive windmill whose blades  are blurred and operating.  James notes that on the back of this print is inscribed "Lorenz Farm, Crocketts Bluff.  Wm H. Prange, CF and sons."  Though identification is difficult, he notes that the man standing by the buggy at the right is Chris Prange, and the man in the middle is William Henry Prange.  The small boy sitting on the bales, he speculates is his grandfather Adolph.  The two older boys are, he speculates, Herman and William John Prange.  The very small boy standing to the right of William Henry, he thinks is Walter Prange and the woman holding the baby may be Anna Prange, wife of William Henry.  There are also two young girls, one feeding the chickens and another standing near the white horse whose face is blurred, unable apparently to remain relative still for the photographer.  Unfortunately, the Lorenz family is a bit of a mystery to us all.

Chris Prange and his buggy, horses, and woodpile.

"Prange hay bailing operation, Crockett's Bluff, Arkansas
(Inscription on the back)

This image, and a number of others, have been passed along to James Prange by Bob Moody whose relatives lived in Crockett's Bluff, along with the Pranges and Woodiels.  James has provided the following identifications: R-L: The boy sitting on the hay bales on the far right, I believe, is my grandfather Adolph Prange.  Second from the right is Chris Prange.  The man in the center, I believe, is William Henry Prange.  The man fourth from the right is either Herman Prange or William John Prange. I am certain that it is one of them.  They have a very similar facial structure and zooming in on the photo doesn't help much; it just get fuzzier.  I have no idea who the person is fifth from the right.  My grandfather was born in 1891, so if I am correct that the boy is him, this picture would have been taken in the very early 1900s.

A YouTube video of this baler in operation.

Fourth Annual Northeast Animal-Power Field Days at Tunbridge,Vermont, Oct. 18 2010

"The best of the remaining photos of the Prange Sawmill"

Crockett's Bluff in the 1920s: Memories and Images

I'm indebted, once again, to James Prange, the son of one of the elder sons of Adolph and Edna Prange -- and, from his testimony, the unofficial Prange family historian -- for the following images and information.  In addition to a youthful image of his father, the elder James, he has "unearthed" an obviously priceless photograph of the rice chute and the Prange-Tindell warehouse above the Bluff itself, along with a delightful item of Crockett's Bluff news from the August 7, 1924 edition of the DeWitt Era Enterprise.

The River Boat "Lillian H" receiving bags of rice down the warehouse chute.

The Woodiel house where I and my younger siblings Neil and Maureen were born was located north along the river from what one would have called the center of The Bluff.  At the end of our lane stood the Lutheran Church and behind and beside it the Adolph Prange residence and the Prange Store that overlooked the White River. By the time I was old enough in the late nineteen thirties and early forties to venture alone as far afield from our house southward to where Rt. 153 made its turn toward DeWitt and St. Charles, scenes such as the one above were long gone.  But the warehouse remained, and I remember it vividly.

After the war years the landmark Prange Bros. Enterprises water tower remained and was visible from five or more miles away across the prairie.  The largely inactive August Prange company store remained during the post war decades along side Schwab's Store, that by the end of World War II had become the sole center of activity.  The Adolph Prange family had closed their store in 1944 and moved to California.  

By 1945, across the road but in the shadows of the water tower, "Doodle and Eddie"Schwab had developed a general store with a capital G --  the center of The Bluff.   To the east a few hundred yards resting in the oak trees beyond the "Ida Carolyn Park" picnic area lay the largely vacant warehouse.  To reach it one had to cross the bridge of the Prange Farm canal whose water was pumped from the river below the bluffs to drift southward along its banks to the vast rice fields that spread across the prairie beyond.

 I remember the warehouse as large and open and quiet, save for the constantly fluttering sparrows, and although it was rarely filled with grain of any sort, unlike the Prange Farm's smaller barns a mile or so away, it maintained a distinctive aroma that must have been retained from  years like the one pictured above when tons of rice and perhaps other grains, dried not yet from "dryers" but from having been left in shocks in the fields to dry in the sun, before being sacked and slid down the chute to be neatly stacked on a barge of the likes of The Lillian H.

Both the Adolph Prange store and the family residence were dismantled by the late 1950s; the water tower a decade or so later.  After the war when the Lutheran Church had lain vacant for years, its primary seating area, minus the bell tower, was moved westward down Rt. 153 six miles or so where it remains today the meeting house of the Poplar Creek Baptist congregation..

This image of the chute from the warehouse might well be the only remaining visual record of this activity.

James Prange early 1920s

Early 1900s?

"I recognize several faces in this photo as Crockett's Bluff people.  If my suspicion is correct that the young boy in the front kneeling down is my grandfather, then this photo was taken in the early 1900s." JP

Houseboat on the White River, perhaps John Johnson's

DEWITT ERA ENTERPRISE, August 7, 1924

     Judges for election in Crockett Township are Shelton Herring, Will Mason and Cecil Inman.  Clerks named were Adolph Prange, U.A. Rowe, Harmon Turner.

    

     Peaches are drying in the trees; corn is ruined; rice needs more water; pasturage is getting scarce, but still we wait for rain.

     Prange Bros will soon be able to increase pumping capacity of their plant to about 4,000 gallons per minute.  A third pump, driven by a large Fairbanks Engine, will be be put to work this week.

     While visiting with her daughter, Mrs. Adolph Prange, Mrs. Burroughs came very near being seriously injured.  A stray yearling attacked Mrs.  Burroughs, and before anyone could come to her rescue, it succeeded in knocking Mrs. Burroughs to the ground and butting her severely.

October 2, 1924:

     The thief who recently carried away two loads of bird shot from the Prange Mercantile Company, will be presented with buck shot at his next appearance.

     Crockett's Bluff School opened on September 15, with an enrollment of 30.

Two Childhood Memories for a Grandson

Here are two childhood memories written for my grandson Griffin Bliss for a project related to Lois Lowry's novel The Giver in his seventh grade English class at St. Andrews School at Savannah, Georgia. 

The first is about my first job at about his age plowing cotton for Mr. George Kline in his field out the Hill Road just west of Voss Lake.  The second is a recollection of the recurrent thrill of all Bluff children at the sound of the whistle of the Mary Woods No. 2

About Your Age 

When I was about your age, a sixth or seventh grader, I was offered my first real paying job.  Something more than the familiar string of unpaid chores assigned to all boys that age who lived on farms in rural Arkansas in the late 1940s.

It was a relatively simple job working on a small cotton farm owned by Mr. George Kline, one of our neighbors in Crockett’s Bluff, a small community at the bend of the White River where I was born and grew up. 

The downside of this job was that I was required to be at his house shortly after sunrise in the morning, not to return until the sun was setting in the evening, a long day.  But the upside was that I was paid what was to me a hefty sum of $2.50 per day.

Since the field where we worked was almost two miles from his house, we rode the horses back and forth each day we would be using in our labors.

 I was required simply to stabilize a plow, pulled by a great buckskin horse appropriately named “Buck,” up and down between the rows of cotton plants uprooting any grass or weeds that might be there.  Mr. Kline came along behind me down these rows with another smaller and more precise plow – pulled by his favorite horse “Lightning” -- that loosened the soil and “cultivated” the plants in their early stages of growth. 

Buck was an enormous so-called “draft” horse, bred for hard and heavy work, and his strength appeared to me to be unlimited.  So, any thought that I, at less than a hundred pounds, was supposed to control his starting, turning, and stopping movements with the reins I leaned into from time to time tied behind my back, was a joke.  Consequently, Buck stopped and turned whenever he pleased, much to my enormous frustration.  

Consequently, since I never gave up trying to control him, from time to time over those sweltering summer days I suffered the modest shame and embarrassment of being gently chastised by Mr. Kline about the quality of the language I addressed to poor old Buck. 

It was a long summer and the work was hard and long and generally hot.  But it was work of the sort one got paid for, and I spent the first twelve dollars I earned on a used red bike with characteristic balloon tires at the Western Auto Store in DeWitt, the county seat of Arkansas County Arkansas. 

 As I rode it for miles over the graveled roads leading in and out of Crockett’s Bluff I felt –what with a paying job – a new sense of what I would now call liberation. 

 *********

The image of an unknown photographer from a Woodiel family album and title image for this site.

The Mary Woods No. 2

The photograph of  the paddle-wheel steamboat pictured above was made from the bank of the White River no more than two hundred yards or so from where I was born in Crockett’s Bluff,  Arkansas, a village in the 1930s much smaller and even more “quiet” and “tired” than the Macomb that Harper Lee describes in To Kill a Mockingbird.  

So, when the steam-whistle of the Mary Woods No. 2 was sounded, everyone, particularly children, dropped everything and headed for the bluff banks overlooking the river. 

 Its sound could be heard long before its barge of logs nosed slowly around the bend beneath the red clay bluffs for which the village was named.  We knew we were in for a treat, something truly awesome to us.  She was majestic: grand and powerful enough to move upstream a barge stacked with logs larger than anyone ever viewed elsewhere.  And she made all the noise necessary to justify her presence, the sound of her engines, the splashing patter of her enormous rear wheel, and the usual additional whistle as a special treat to us from the pilot on the bridge who always returned our waves.

The experience was necessarily brief, since even though she moved slowly when compared with the familiar out-board powered fishing boats, a full view was limited to a panoramic minute or two, so it was necessary to run barefoot down along the bank for the next clear opening with a view.

Then, when she was gone from view and rounding the next bend near the familiar sandbar, her super gigantic waves having reached the shore making the house boats bounce like buoys, we were left with the image above, the Mary Woods with the steam from its twin stacks streaming along its back downstream as it forged upriver its massive barge of freshly cut timber.

A scene that is in memory almost as alive now as it was then – a lingering sensual feast in the midst of an otherwise long,  slow and quiet summer day in a “tired” little hamlet at the bend of the White River.

At the viewing site with my sister Maureen Shireman.

Crockett's Bluff Easter Egg Hunt: circa 1930?

This image provides an excellent example of the merit of old photographs, regardless of their condition.  Unfortunately this one suffers from a flaw in the development process, quite sharp and clear in its lower half and yellowing and losing its sharpness in the faces of the figures in the back row.  It appears to be an Easter egg hunt at the great Prange yard at the Bluff directly across from the Prange water tower, for so long the landmark of the Bluff.

Not great quality but clear enough to preserve images of people, two of my brothers and others I would know well in my youth -- though it was probably taken before I was born.  Youthful ghosts from the past -- found in one of "Miss Cora's" albums -- thanks to Jean Prange.

The second from the left (standing) is my brother Bill.  My brother Shelby is standing slightly to his left and front with his hands folded.  I think next to Shelby is Betty Anderson with her brother Bud sitting on the ground (dark jacket) near August Prange (with his head tilted)..  Ida Carolyn Prange is in the center obviously, holding an Easter basket.  I think Neva Graves' sister Willine? is directly behind her, second from right..

I don't recognize anyone else, but there must be folks alive who do.  There are no doubt stories behind such a picture.  An annual affair?  Who might these other children be? 

DPW