Arkansas Summers 

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When we went to Sulphur Springs in the Summers, we spent a lot of time hanging around the town with our friends there. We explored everything in the area. Here’s what I recall.

 

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Arkansas Summers 

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Ben Eldred’s Grocery Store

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Ben Eldred was the father of the children we played with when we visited so we spent a lot of time around his grocery store. When I saw the Walton’s on TV, Ike Godsbey’s General Merchandise store reminded me of Ben Eldred’s store. There was big barrels of dried beans and peas sitting around with a lid and scoop laying on top. He butchered his own meat and had one of those glass display counters to display his meats. On top of the counter, he had one of those mechanical weigh scales with a meat tray on it. It was like walking into American history to visit that store. Ben made his own sausage and occasionally they would invite me to eat breakfast at their house. Every time I ate breakfast with them, I made myself sick eating that sausage as it was soooo good. It put Jimmy Deans to shame.

 

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This grocery store  looks a lot like the one run by Ben  Eldred in Sulphur Springs, Arkansas.

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The Post Office

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The population of Sulphur Springs was about 600. Everyone picked up their mail there at the Post Office. The place was built in the 1920’s so the place had antique mail boxes on the walls mounted in beautiful polished black walnut trim and molding. My aunt Edith worked in the post office. We always popped in to say hello when we were in the neighborhood. She drove a 1952 Dodge that was always parked out front when she was there. We often picked up the mail for my grandmother when we were in town.

 

 

As I recall, the Post Office in Sulfur Springs looked a lot like this one.

 

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Sea Fossils

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We often walked up a dirt road from the Sulphur Springs school area towards the Gravette dump. About half way to the dump, there was an area that the surface was covered with limestone type rock that was made up almost entirely of ancient sea fossils. We would take a bag and pick up all we could carry almost every year we were there. The fossils were perfect within the rock and fun to study because the variety was endless.

 

 

Sea fossil rock like the ones we picked up near  Sulphur Springs.

 

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There was a place in Sulphur Springs that made a lucrative business from those fossils. They mined them in slabs and cut large bricks out if them and polished them to a high sheen. They were absolutely beautiful and you could spend hours just looking at the polished fossils cross sections. They were sold to the very rich at a very high price for fireplaces and decorative walls.

 

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The Park

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The Park was just east of the main highway through town. A very clear blue cold creek called Butler Creek made the eastern boundary of the park. It was in that creek that I learned to swim when I was 5. My Dad picked me up and threw me out in the middle of the fast running deep part of the creek and said sink or swim. I swam after taking on a lot of water in my lungs.

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The creek ran in to a large swimming area with a stone dam with a flat top that you could walk across. The lake kind of made up the North side of the park. We spent endless hours swimming in that lake during the summers we were there. There was a fun rope swing on the North side of the lake.

 

 

The lake was made by damming Butler Creek north of the park made the best swimming hole in the world.

 

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Within the Park were the wells tapped into various sulphur spring aquifers. We always tasted all the wells when we were in the park. The black sulfur spring water was always the nastiest tasting water.

 

 

Pam in front of the worst tasting black sulphur water of the wells in the park.

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In the center of the park was a large Gazebo. On some Sundays a local band would set up and play at the Gazebo. Even as a kid I enjoyed listening to them and watching them play.

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On the hill north of the park there was a natural flowing spring they called Lithia Springs. People came from miles away to get that water to drink as they believed it would improve their health.

 

 

The Lithia Spring area on the hill north of the park. People came from all over to get the water for health purposes.

 

 

 

There was also a baseball field on the south side of the park where we saw some really good local area baseball games. Overall it was one hell of a park for young kids to play in.

 

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Thanks for reading Arkansas Summers
Bill