Legend

Original Document
Cemetery
Description
History
Map
Newspaper
Census

(aaa) Has Web Page

[aaa] Ref. Source

Bates, Scott County, Arkansas

Below is an excerpt from a newspaper article written by Eric Allen in about 1968 as told to him by Earnest Harper who was 84 years old at the time.

"This was a son-of-a-gun of a town when she was on the boom," the old-timer said emphatically. "I always said it had more churches and more church-going people that any town in Arkansas of similar size, but there was another element in the boom days, and they were young men out for carousing and fun."

Harper sat on the porch of his home and pointed toward lower land along the railroad cut about three-quarters of a mile north of the Poteau River. "One of the biggest planing mills I ever saw once stood right there where that open field is," he said. "Golly-gosh, it roared away about all the time, two shifts a daily. The mountains were full of little sawmills. They were scattered everywhere a man rode or walked, there was so much timber, I've seen as many as 100 wagon loads of lumber out of the hills pulled up at that big planing mill when it was at its peak."

And in addition to the planing mill, Bates had three large deep pit coal mines and dozens of three-man "pigeon holes" Harper said. "Bates was flush on money in them days - as rip-roaring as any town east of the Indian Territory line."

"It couldn't be called the town it once was," Harper declared. Like a lot of other rural places, it has almost gone over the hill. But a lot of us still like to live here. People around these parts are still hard working, the salt of the earth, a man might say. ... "The Arkansas Westren Railroad still runs trains through here," he said. He grinned. "The line was built in 1901 while I was out in Indian Territory. I allus tell folks they wouldn't build no railroad through here until they found me gone!"

Bates, is a serene little community, nestled along the highway, with Poteau Mountain rising on the north and the pine-tufted summit of Walker Mountain lifting up of the south.

This document maintained by sherry@vanderfordfamily.com.
Material Copyright © 1998 {CDAccess.com, Inc.}