12/18/24: Times Past

Ozark County News

Dec. 19, 1889

Christmas next Wednesday. We wish all our readers a Merry Christmas.

The young people of the town are to have a concert at the courthouse Saturday night. Admission free and all invited.

Dec. 21, 1899

Messrs. Eli Meiser and W. A. Sims of Paragould, Ark., were in this vicinity last week. They came up for the purpose of buying land for mineral and were shown over the country by Joe E. Harlin, a member of the firm of Harlin Bros. & Gordon, Real Estate Agency of this place. 

Bakersfield Boomerang

Dec. 14, 1901

Thursday evening’s Springfield Leader-Democrat published an article under the head “Living on Mast,” that is a slander on Ozark county. It says “Charley Freeman, a Chadwick merchant, gives a distressing account of the destitution of some of the people in Ozark county. He says that there are families in that section of country subsisting on acorns, the drouth having destroyed the entire grain and vegetable crop, leaving the small farmer without anything to eat except what the woods furnish.”

It is true that the drouth cut the corn and vegetable crop very short in Ozark as well as in all neighboring counties, but the wheat crop was probably the largest ever raised in the county, and the only complaint is that people who were raised on cornbread now have to eat biscuit.

If there are any people in Ozark county who are living on acorns, they must be new arrivals from Chadwick who shied at the flour bread and took to the woods.

The Republican

Dec. 21, 1905

We will take wood, apples, turnips or most any old thing that a farmer raises and has to spare on subscription.

Ozark County Times

Dec. 17, 1909

We have been having some hog-killing weather; now, if someone will supply the hogs, we'll go to killing. 

Nottinghill items – George Dean has completed his new house. It has five rooms. He says he has three stoves and plenty of wood and don't mind cold weather.

Logan Kyle, while chasing cattle, was thrown from his horse and considerably bruised but not seriously hurt. 

Thornfield items – C. M. Tate returned a few days ago from Taney county, where he had been in the whiskey election. He is feeling fine as he claims to have won his point. Taney is now dry and joins hands with her sister counties. The election was won by two and two-fifths votes to one. 

Dec. 19, 1924

Plans are under discussion at Harrison [Ark.] for a cob pipe factory next year. A quantity of St. Charles white seed corn was offered growers on a contract basis that would assure the farmers 30 cents per hundred for average-sized cobs and full market value for corn. 

Hammond items – All things come to them that patiently wait. We were without a blacksmith for over a year, and now we have two.

Dec. 16, 1954

Plans have been completed by the local merchants and the Bakersfield American Legion Post 374 for Santa Claus to be in Bakersfield on Saturday afternoon, December 18, and Friday afternoon, December. Santa sent word he would have candy for all kiddies who came to see him. 

Decorations have been provided for the town and will be installed by the Legion members. Included in the decorations this year will be a real Christmas tree where Santa will have his headquarters. 

Dec. 13, 1979

Three doctors who are now operating family clinics at West Plains and at Bakersfield will open an office in Gainesville on Monday, Dec. 17. The clinic here will be located in the Hermitage building on the north side of the square. The three doctors are A.G. Bentley, D.O.; N.E. Byam, D.O.; and E.R. Henegar, D.O. All three doctors graduated from the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine in the early 1970s. 

Dec. 20, 1979

An evaluation team from the State Department of Education commended the Lutie school library for having satisfactorily met all objectives of federally funded projects. No unfavorable comments were made. . . . Pam Moffis, librarian, conducts regular classes concerning library use and several area schools have patterned their libraries similar to the Lutie library.