Life in LA Today

By: Steve Ford
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  • Summary

  • Everyone in Lower Arkansas has a story--what's yours?
    2023
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Philosophy Social Sciences Travel Writing & Commentary
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Episodes
  • This country store lives on!

    This country store lives on!
    Aug 27 2024
    Philip Story grew up his formative years in the small community of Macedonia, some seven miles south of Magnolia at the intersection of Arkansas Hwys. 19 and 160. He grew up walking up the road to one of the two Franks' grocery stores that served the community. Nearly everything was sold there, including ice cold Coca Colas and those lemon flavored Jackson cookies that were sold out of the big glass jar. Today, Philip is the co-owner not only of his own country store but the one remaining Franks store building as well. In December of 2022, the ribbon was cut on Keith's Grocery Store a mile or so north of the old Franks store. Along with his wife Terri, son and daughter-in-law Andrew and Sarah Story and daughter Gretchen Wooley, it’s a family effort running the store that has been serving the Macedonia community for decades. It was opened by William Keith Sr., and carried on by his son, William "Butch" Keith, Jr. Butch passed away in August of 2021 inside the store he loved and served most of his life. The store remained closed until Philip, recently retired from Albemarle, developed a hankering to return to a profession he had enjoyed in his younger years--grocer! In December of 2022 the Story family held a ribbon cutting at Keith's Grocery was open again serving the Macedonia community. History repeats itself! Macedonia once was home to not one but two country stores, both just a stone's throw away from each other. How two stores managed to thrive and survive so close to each other in a small community has always been a mystery to me. Macedonia once again has not one but two stores serving its population. "It was a surprise but we've just tried to put our best foot forward doing what we do as good as we can and find a way to it better and treat our customers as we want to be treated ourselves," Philip told me when I asked about the opening of another store adjoining Keith's Grocery. They've not seen a decrease in sales since the new store opened and they still offer a down-home meat counter with a selection you want find fresher or personally cut to order elsewhere. I enjoyed my interview with Philip as much as any I've done here in Lower Arkansas. The fact that my dad and his mom were first cousins and we both had family roots in Macedonia made it that much more enjoyable. Take a moment to listen to today's podcast and you may soon find yourself shopping at Keith's Grocery,
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    20 mins
  • Meet the mayor of West Lamartine!

    Meet the mayor of West Lamartine!
    May 8 2024
    When it rains in these parts, I often open the Facebook page of a guy that I know is going to post the amount of rainfall he received in West Lamartine. When I heard him called the Mayor of West Lamartine, I was intrigued. But when he repaired my mother's favorite clock, I knew I had to get a microphone on him and learn more about Larry Polk. Larry and his wife Jean live just about a mile off U.S. 371 in Lamartine. As befitting a "public servant" in the role of mayor, Larry's Facebook profile and background picture both feature a highway sign bearing the name of his community. Larry and Jean are active members of First Baptist Church in Magnolia, where Larry serves as a deacon. A stack of New Testaments on his workbench attests to his service through the Gideons organization. Larry has done just about every kind of engineering there is to be done. He cut logs to put himself through college--two years at Southern Arkansas University and two at Louisiana Tech, where he earned his degree in engineering. Having retired from Albemarle, Larry reflected that he had done everything he had wanted to do in engineering. He had worked with pumping in the brine field, on transformers providing power to the wells and even in drilling operations. Larry at the rain gauge So it was no wonder that when a friend handed Larry an old clock years ago and asked if he could get it running, he added another skill to his resume. Larry became a clockmaker, a term that is used to describe someone who repairs clocks. There's much that can go wrong with one of the old clocks. They can get "out of beat", causing them to stop running altogether. He has diagnosed a case of this issue by asking his client to hold his phone up to the clock so he can hear the beat. Another problem may be the wear and tear that comes from the gears continually spinning, sometimes causing the hole in which they sit to become elongated and restricting movement. In the case of my mom's clock, it had been in storage for eight months and some of the gears became rusty. A cleaning put it back in working order and it keeps good time today. Obviously the title of Mayor of West Lamartine does not indicate an elected position. He earned the moniker when a neighbor on the other side of U.S. 371, Greg Rich, referred to Larry as Mayor of Lamartine. Larry replied that he was only mayor of the western half while Greg was the mayor of the eastern half. Lamartine is one of the oldest communities in our county. As I spent some time there talking to Larry, I became intrigued with what is labeled by some as the oldest community in our county. It's on its way to becoming a ghost town, save for the modern houses that remain. Once upon a time, a two-story brick plantation house was home to John Dockery and his son Thomas, who rose to the rank of Brigadier General during the Civil War. Dockery named the community after a French poet and politician, Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine, whom he admired. Dockery had big plans for the new community, which in 1851 boasted a post office, a few stores and a number of churches. Most of their remains are long gone today. Two events occurred which kept Lamartine from becoming the economic center of Columbia County. Dockery and local investors began work on a railroad that would connect the Mississippi River with the Red River. Dockery became president of the first railroad company to be chartered in Arkansas, the Mississippi, Ouachita and Red River Line. But the Panic of 1857, along with the approach of the Civil War, brought the project to a premature end. Dockery died in 1860 and many of the young men from Lamartine were scattered by the War. When the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railroad was built through Waldo three miles to the south, any hopes for developing Lamartine were dashed. Today it is little more than a ghost town. A memorial marker on the highway tells the abbreviated history of the community. It incorrectly lists Lamartine as the birthplace of T.P. Dockery. He was actually born in Montgomery County, North Carolina, where his father had participated in the Indian removals there. The family moved to Tennessee and on to Columbia County, where land was plentiful and cheap. Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church The plaque sits at the intersection of U.S. 371 and County Road East 60, which leads to Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church and Shiloh Cemetery, one of the oldest and largest in the county. Shiloh church was built in 1853 and organized in 1855. According to an article in the Banner-News of October 1936, Shiloh's first building was of split logs; the second of dressed lumber from the Grance Courtney sawmill nearby. The second building was partially destroyed by a storm so a third building was constructed in 1892 and remodeled in 1924. The fourth and present building was constructed in 1958, a modern brick structure with an auditorium capable of seating 250 people. The adjacent ...
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    18 mins
  • Archeologist explores lives of early LA residents

    Archeologist explores lives of early LA residents
    Apr 16 2024
    Long before those of us who speak our particular version of English inhabited what is now Lower Arkansas, early man inhabited the countryside. Dr. Carl Drexler is research archeologist for the Arkansas Archeological Survey stationed at Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia. He is intimately familiar with all periods of cultural development in this region and recently expanded upon them at a talk at the Columbia County Library. Dr. Drexler was born three years before the release of the first movie featuring the exploits of Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Jr. and admits he did not see the series until his teen years. And while he may actually own a fedora, he prefers a different style of hat when he's working in the field. Unlike Indiana Jones, he does not use a bullwhip in his work, but he does have a nickname. You'll just have to listen to the podcast to hear what it is as we wouldn't want to make it to accessible by putting it into print. And like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, there are stolen artifacts that need to be recovered. In 2006--before Dr. Drexler's assignment at SAU began--26 bowls and pottery objects valued at over $100,000 were stolen from the Survey headquarters on the SAU campus. The objects have been listed on the FBI's National Stolen Arts registry and may be viewed on the FBI's website at this link. And while there have been reported sightings of some of the objects through the intervening years, the reports have not panned out. The mystery continues! If you're interested in learning more about archeology in South Arkansas, check out the website of the Red River chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society at this link. To learn more about the first peoples to call Lower Arkansas home and find out Dr. Drexler's nom de guerre, take a listen to my interview.
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    32 mins

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