Ben Boulden - Hidden History of Fort Smith, Arkansas

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2012 by Ben Boulden and the Southwest Times Record

All rights reserved

First published 2012

e-book edition 2012

ISBN 978.1.61423.467.8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Boulden, Ben.

Hidden history of Fort Smith, Arkansas / Ben Boulden.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

print edition ISBN 978-1-60949-450-6

1. Fort Smith (Ark.)--History. I. Title.

F419.F7B68 2012

976.736--dc23

2011052643

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Some information in this book has been published previously in the Southwest Times Record and appears courtesy of the paper. In these instances, the Times Record retains the copyright to the material.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

One name is on the front of the book identifying me as the author. As in most things, many, many more names and the people who have them were behind the creation of Hidden History of Fort Smith.

First, I would like to thank the Times Record for allowing me to use the Inquire Within columns I have written each week for the newspaper. Although greatly modified and expanded, the writing and information from Inquire Within has been the principal foundation for the text of this book. Special thanks go to executive editor Judi Hansen, publisher Gene Kincy and Stephens Media for their openness to the idea.

In corralling the photographs that illustrate this volume, I would especially like to express my gratitude to Caroline Leisa Gramlich and Caroline Speir, both of the Fort Smith Museum of History; Diana Curry of the Fort Smith Public Library; and Janie Glover and Whitney Yoder, both of the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce.

The core of the photographs here came from the collection of the Fort Smith Museum of History. For more than one hundred years, it has worked to retain and preserve the citys and the regions past. Too often, its importance as a cultural asset has been overlooked and underestimated. I would be greatly remiss if I did the same.

Mark Mondier and Joe Wasson also were great help with photos. Mark is an excellent, skilled, semiprofessional photographer who shot three original photos that are published here. Wasson contributed a rare photo artifact.

Will McKay, an editor at The History Press, first approached me about the possibility of writing a book for them about Fort Smith. He suggested that my columns would be excellent fodder for a Hidden History book about Fort Smith. That journey he started for me has led ultimately to the book you now hold in your hand. I thank him for noticing me and Inquire Within. I also thank him for regarding each as worthy enough to warrant this volume.

I am quite sure I am overlooking someone or someones in all the above credits and statements of gratefulness. I apologize now. Hundreds of readers and local history enthusiasts have contributed information and queries that have only fueled further my deep interest in the stories that surround Fort Smiths past. To them, I also owe much for what is here.

Finally, this book is dedicated to my mother, Katherine Boulden, without whom I would not have any life or become who I am. It equally is dedicated to my wife, Jennifer Marie Boulden, aka The Jenny, without whom that life would not be much worth living.

INTRODUCTION

Once upon a time and in my capacity as a reporter, a man asked me if I was going to write the truth in a story for the next days newspaper. I replied, I dont write the truth. I write the news. This was greeted with good-natured laughter, but in all seriousness, I explained that only God knows the truth. I can only describe what I have seen and heard people say. I cant peer into someones heart or soul and with certainty know his or her motives or know the things he is not saying. It is those hidden things that constitute the full truth. In all likelihood, we never will know them in this world. They truly are hidden, as is all history to some degree, if history is truth about the past. What it really is, though, is news of the pastfact-based stories about real events recorded by the people who experienced them or passed down by them through others.

That is not, however, some argument against trying to find the truth. After all, we have our experiences as human beings to draw upon for insight into those unanswerable questions of motivation and meaning. Journalists and historians can attempt to communicate accurately what they and others can observe and experience. Historians in particular can work to tell and discover, retell and rediscover the stories behind the people, places and events of our world.

It is my goal with this book to do that and present the reader with a collection of small historical accounts. Much of what is published in this Hidden History are short narratives of the kind that easily might be left out of a traditional narrative history of the city of Fort Smith and its surrounding region. Often we find ourselves spending several minutes looking for some everyday objectcar keys, a shoe, a bookthat we ultimately find in plain sight or in some location we looked at twice before. If this book makes you say, Oh, there it is, at least once, then it has done its job.

As part of this books mission of rescuing the overlooked but interesting from relative obscurity, it also seeks to preserve popular memory of things lost. Thats why I have focused on bridges that are gone, creeks buried and people long dead. These things and places once were part of the fabric of everyday life in Fort Smith, sometimes in very significant ways. To understand the generations that came before us here, its necessary to at least try to comprehend how they lived. By trying to record some of those parts of lost Fort Smith, I hope I have contributed toward that end.

Finally, I could not include everything that ever was in an Inquire Within column, nor could I even include everything I wanted to put in it. I am certain there are even more subjects and events that others think should be here. All I can say is that is what other books are for, books that I hope are by me and books by others that are about Fort Smith. Fort Smith has a history rich enough for all of us to mine.

THE FORT CAVORTS

Wholesome Fun, Playing and Partying

CHRISTMAS BEGINNINGS AND TRADITIONS

Fort Smith started on Christmas Eve 1817. On that day, the first soldiers arrived by river barge, landed and made camp with the goal of establishing the first fort on the Belle Point bluff overlooking the Arkansas River. Eventually, a village and then a town and finally a city would grow up around it. That first fort was a sort of Christmas gift to the future and the genesis of the city we know today.

As a holiday, Christmas has a special place on the calendar probably without equal throughout the Western world. Much of Fort Smiths celebration of it is not any different than in any other American city. Little about it is at all hidden in history. However, some knowledge about its local celebration has dimmed in memory and is worth remembering again.