The Rush Inn at Craterville Park

The Rush Inn and amusement rides were popular Craterville Park attractions in the 1940s.

Double-click images to see larger.

Craterville's Rush Inn was popular establishment

In Dorothy Mae McClure's scapbook [see August 16 post] she referenced a trip to Craterville Park on July 4, 1946, just days prior to her 12th birthday.

She included photos of Craterville scenes and attractions.

One of Dorothy Mae's scrapbook photos pictured the Rush Inn, Craterville's central eating establishment.

The Tillman County Historical Society's Pioneer Townsite Museum in Frederick holds a menu from the Rush Inn, dated 1944.

Scans of the single-fold four-page menu follow.

Still more Craterville photos from Dorothy Mae McClure's scapbook are located at the end of this post.

More photos of Craterville Park...

Craterville Park's natural pool was a great place to cool off on hot summer days.

The park's skating rink was a popular attraction.

Bumper cars were great fun!

Dorothy Mae McClure kept scrapbook

Sent to The Frederick Press and The Frederick Leader, August 16, 2011

Dr. and Mrs. H.M. McClure with daughter Dorothy, 1945

 Click on photos to see larger.

Scrapbook captures life in 1940s Tipton

Good scrapbooks are memory books. When put together well, they serve as a life record of photographs, news clippings, cards and personal notes.

The Tillman County Historical Society recently received a wonderful scrapbook from the estate of Dorothy Mae McClure. Ms. McClure, born in 1934, was raised in Tipton. Her father was Dr. H.M. McClure, a Tipton dentist. She was the only child of Dr. and Mrs. McClure, and grew up in a large house in the 200 block of East Main.

Dorothy Mae Nellie McClure with dolls Anne and Lois.

Dr. McClure had a good dental practice in Tipton and was fondly known in town as “Mr. Spit Please.” He maintained an office on the second level of a building in downtown Tipton.

Dorothy received a scrapbook for Christmas in 1940 when she was six years old and in the first grade. The book was carefully maintained through her senior year of high school, serving as a complete record of her life from ages six through 18.

Because the book was tended carefully, it is a remarkable look at a young life in 1940s Tipton.

The book opens with Dorothy’s first grade report card and class picture. Dorothy’s teacher that year was Miss Minnie Thacker, and she made all “A”s.

Throughout her elementary years, the scrapbook contained report cards and class pictures except during the World War II years when no school pictures were taken.

Tipton 1st grade class of Miss Minnie Thacker, 1940-41

Every year the Tipton elementary students presented at least one play, and there were always snapshots, play programs, and clippings from the Tipton newspaper.

In 1941 the Tipton elementary production of “Characters from Story Book Land” was so impressive that they took it “on the road” for performances in Frederick and Altus. Dorothy played the part of Puss in the Boots. She wore an elaborate cat costume and the scrapbook noted that her long white tail got a big laugh at Frederick.

Many other school plays followed.

At the Tipton Fair in 1941 when she was seven, Dorothy rode a ferris wheel for the first time and she was afraid. The 5-cent ticket for the carnival ride was kept in her scrapbook.

Ticket for 1941 Tipton Fair ride.

On October 28, 1941, a circus came to Tipton. The Al G. Kelly and Miller Bros. two-ring circus featured acrobats, wire walkers, jugglers, cowboys and Indians, and all kinds of performing animal acts. Cost of admission for children was 15 cents and 35 cents for adults. The circus is where Dorothy first saw an elephant.

She also kept photos of her pets in the scrapbook – Bunny Boy the rabbit; Inky, her big black dog; cats Snowball and Brownie.

In the fall of 1942, eight-year-old Dorothy Mae had the experience of picking cotton. She proudly wrote, “I picked 48 lbs. my first afternoon, 47 lbs. the next.”

"The last picture that I had with Grandpa."

As a young child, Dorothy Mae spent happy summers and weekends at the farm home of her grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, who lived near Olustee. In March 1943, just before she turned nine, Dorothy made the following notation: “March 20, 1943 – Grandma and Grandpa had a car wreck at 1 o’clock going home from Altus. Grandpa died March 21.” After her grandfather’s death, her grandmother, Mrs. Grace Anderson, moved to Tipton.”

When Dorothy turned 10 on July 8, 1944, she had a birthday party at her home. The following children attended: Roger Johnson, Dana Kay Pickrell, Jimmy Asbill, Smitty Asbill, Vonda Choate, Nell Worthington, Barbara Miller, Darla Van Gronagin, Gerry Van Gronagin, Marybeth McWhorter, Lanny Dale Curry, Eddy Jones, Elinor Ann Harris, Jane Ann Johnson, Marjorie Raffeus, Donald Heffner, Janice Newson, and Mary Hines.

Among her gifts were 25 cents, socks, a sewing set, perfume, toy dishes, a box of soap, hair bow, puzzle, funny books, a silk scarf, and war stamps.

Dorothy’s father became ill in September 1944 and spent months in the hospital followed by a long recovery period at home. According to a clipping from the Tipton newspaper, Dr. McClure suffered a broken blood vessel in one of his lungs. The paper said, “Perhaps there has been no other person in Tipton more sincerely missed than has Dr. McClure. He has been the local dentist for so many years and worked so tirelessly with hardly a let up, that he overstrained himself.”

On July 4, 1946, the week of her 12^th birthday, Dorothy Mae made her first trip to Craterville Park. She wrote, “Lee Owens took Daddy and me,” and she pasted pictures of park attractions that she saw and enjoyed. These included photos of the Craterville swimming pool, park rides, bumper cars and skating rink. High point of the Craterville visit, though, was getting to see Roy Rogers and Trigger.

She glued a picture of the famous singing cowboy and his horse in her scrapbook and wrote, “I saw Roy Rogers and Trigger in person. Trigger danced, counted and threw a kiss to the boys and girls.”

Next week… More from Dorothy Mae McClure’s scrapbook.

CARDS and PHOTOS from Dorothy McClure's scrapbook follow.

Dorothy's first grade report card, 1940-41

Cast of Tipton production, "Characters from Story Book Land", 1941

"Characters from Story Book Land", 1941. Dorothy is in costume, 3rd from right.

Dorothy as Red Riding Hood for another school play.

"Teacher and her two pests -- Pat and me"

Dorothy with Bunny Boy

Seventh Birthday, 1941

Dorothy's 2nd grade class, Tipton, 1941-42. Mrs. Gladys Osborne was the teacher.

School Halloween play, 1941. Dorothy is the ghost at right.

Circus advertisement, 1941

"Ready for Sunday School, Easter 1942"

"Home Sweet Home" -- The McClure home at 212 East Main, Tipton.

Note about the death of Dorothy's grandfather.

Roy Rogers and Trigger. Dorothy saw them perform at Craterville Park on July 4, 1946.

Joe Wynn is a member of the Tillman County Historical Society’s board of directors. He can be contacted by e-mail at tillmanokhistory@gmail.com

Questions and Updates

Main and Grand in Frederick (looking northward), 1920

 
Sent to The Frederick Leader and The Frederick Press, August 9, 2011

"Chronicles" Questions and Updates

by Joe Wynn

The “Tillman County Chronicles” column is almost three years old.

I don’t claim to be any kind of historian, but one of the fun things about writing the column is the contacts or responses that I get from folks who read it in the newspaper or online. It is not uncommon for me to receive a call from a reader who wants to clarify a fact, or an e-mail from someone who wants information about a specific event from the past. I always welcome those contacts, although I often don’t have answers.

I want to share a few of the questions and contacts that I have received recently. Some readers may have answers. If so, send an e-mail to me at tillmanokhistory@gmail.com.

BEAR FIGHT

John Cardinal from Norman recently sent an email, telling me that his grandfather Truman David Young, fought a bear in Frederick in the 1950s. John is preparing a scrapbook project for his granddad, so he asked for newspaper clippings, a program, photos or anything else that might substantiate and serve as a souvenir of the event.

He thinks it happened in 1955 or 1956. John’s grandfather told him that a traveling circus came through town and was held at the former Frederick Army Airfield.

The circus had a fighting bear. The challenge was to last three minutes with the bear. His grandfather, who would have been about 20 at the time, fought the bear twice. The first time he did not succeed, but the second time he won and claimed a $3 prize.

Truman Young is still living and is now 75.

Anyone have a memory of the bear fight?

WW I ERA INCIDENT 

     Steven Hollis from Virginia has questions about an incident that may have happened in Frederick in 1917 or 1918.

His great-grandparents lived here at the time with their four children.

His great-grandfather, Steve Hollis, Sr., worked for the railroad. His great-grandmother, Adriana Wolff Hollis, had been born in the Netherlands to Dutch/German parents.

In 1917, the railroad sent his great-grandfather to work a job in Virginia while his great-grandmother stayed in Frederick with the children.

Steve says that as adults, the four children (his grandfather, aunt and uncles) always told about an incident that happened while their father was in Virginia.

They said that four men attempted to enter the house and their grandmother had to use her pistol – a Colt revolver that she had received as a wedding present.

All four of the children remember their mother scrubbing blood off the porch the next morning. His great-grandfather moved the family to Virginia soon after this.

Steve doesn’t know what happened that night in Frederick, but feels that something very noteworthy did happen.  “If I had not heard this story four different times from four different siblings I may have questioned its accuracy,” Steve wrote in an e-mail, “but somewhere there must be something to it.”

It is a sad fact that people of German ancestry were sometimes harassed during World War I, and that could be a part of this story.

Steve questioned whether the incident could have been KKK aggression directed toward his grandmother’s ancestry. The KKK was almost certainly capable of such action, but most Klan activity in Oklahoma and Texas was during the 1920s.

A unit of the KKK was organized in Frederick in 1922.

This incident precedes that.

RAY BIRKHEAD

I’ve received many comments about my June 14 column concerning photographer David Plowden’s wonderful 1968 portrait of Ray Birkhead.

Several people contacted me to tell me that one point in the column was incorrect. I had been told by a railroad heritage official that Ray Birkhead’s daughter was the late Irene Bryant. In fact, Irene Bryant was not Ray Birkhead’s daughter, but his niece.

Ray Birkhead did have one daughter, Elizabeth, who died in the 1970s in Florida.

One of those who contacted me was Roy Birkhead, Irene Bryant’s brother. Roy and Irene’s father was W. Roy Birkhead who served as District II county commissioner before, during, and after World War II.

SYLVESTER STONEBACK

Another column that generated a lot of interest told about the tragic 1905 killing of Sylvester Stoneback, a local farmer and blacksmith, in downtown Frederick. Stoneback was treasurer of the Valley Home school district west of Frederick. His noble efforts to collect a tax assessment from a disgruntled property owner in the district resulted in his shooting on a city street on November 4, 1905.

Stoneback was held in high regard and his killing was a shock to the young community.

After the July 11 column about Stoneback ran in the newspaper, I received a call from Jim Jack Loftis. Sylvester Stoneback was Jim Jack’s grandfather.

Jim Jack’s mother Hazel was Stoneback’s youngest daughter. She was 12 at the time that her father was killed.

Jim Jack told me that the Stoneback homestead was across the road from the site where Weaver School would be built in 1930.

Joe Wynn is a member of the Tillman County Historical Society's board of directors. He can be contacted by e-mail at tillmanokhistory@gmail.com.