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

Some Prange Family Memories in Crockett's Bluff

Some Prange Family Memories in Crockett's Bluff

by Jim Prange

The following article was originally published in the Grand Prairie Historical Bulletin, Volume 56, Number 2 (October 2013).  Jim Prange is the grandson of Adolf and Edna Prange who lived within sight of the Woodiel house during the first decades of the twentieth century until they moved to California in 1944.  Jim, the son of their son James, has been designated by their living descendants the official family historian.

(a double click on the text below should produce a PDF of Jim's text)

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1.1&thid=143a2394af3ae2ec&mt=application/pdf&authuser=0&url=https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/%3fui=2&ik=b398784609&view=att&th=143a2394af3ae2ec&attid=0.1.1&disp=safe&zw&sig=AHIEtbTJWah2HjnLZxWdAqzhvji2gPJlBw

The Prange Store with Bethlehem Lutheran Church in the distance - late 1930s

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.

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

DeWitt Square 1898

An 1898 scene in the DeWitt town square forwarded to me by James Prange via Bob Moody.  A close and careful examination will reveal just how charged with history is this image.  There appears, near the left-center of the group, to be a man standing on a platform of some sort that suggests perhaps a political -- or perhaps religious -- gathering, but little else is known about it.

However, it tells us a great deal about the community at that time.

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"