Sports Center Saturday - Sicily Island District 3-B Football Stars, 1955

From the December 13, 1955 edition of the Monroe News Star:

Transcription:

Sicily Island, Newellton, and Wisner - considered the "big three" of Class B football district three - again headed the poll for all-district selections, claiming ten of the eleven berths on the first team.  Block of Jonesville cracked the monopoly by placing Roscoe Wilson, the No. 2 scorer in the area, in the backfield.

Sicily Island's district champions landed four places on the first team.  Newellton and Wisner placed three each.

There were four repeaters from the 1954 team - Jerry Don Head, Newellton end; Albert Dampier, Sicily Island guard; B. K. Miller, Sicily Island back; and Roy Shiver, Wisner back.  Four second team selections last year advanced to the first team this trip.  They are Dan Chapman, Wisner end; Sam Crawford, Sicily Island guard; John Wood, Newellton tackle; and Ralph Rayburn, Wisner back; Terry Von Head, Newellton back; and Dale Hoover, Davidson of St. Joseph repeated on the second team.

Miller, Rayburn, Dampier and Jerry Head were first string nominations of all coaches participating in the poll conducted for the Louisiana Sportswriters Association.

Rounding out the No. 1 team are Lynn Evans, Sicily Island guard; and Bill Parker, Newellton center.

Joining Terry Head and Hoover on the second team were Sam Duchesne, Newellton, and Wiley Rabb, Waterproof ends; Willie Walker, Block and Billy Booth, Wisner tackles; Ernest Armstrong, Davidson and John Lang, Newellton guards; Charles Stringer, Sicily Island center; and Billy Wiggins, Sicily Island, and Jerry Clark, Newellton backs.

Miller, tagged "Mr. Sicily Island" for Coach Raymond Peace's Tigers, is the district's leading scorer with 126 points, made two touchdown runs of 95 and 98 yards, was the passing arm of the Bengals and linebacker on defense.  Miller, a senior, weighs 155 pounds, stands five-foot-ten and made the all-state team last year.

Wilson, the smallest player on the squad at 125 pounds, was the spark of the Block High team that had a 50-50 season of five wins and five losses.  The five-foot-eight sophomore ranked right behind Miller in the district scoring race with 100 points.  Shiver and Rayburn, while without too impressive scoring records, still were ramrods of a Wisner machine that compiled a season record of seven wins, one tie, and three losses, bowing only to Sicily Island in district competition.

Cream of the line appear to be Sicily Island's Dampier and Newellton's Jerry Head.  Dampier, now a senior, was an all-state guard last year.  At 195 pounds and an even six feet, Dampier is co-captain of his club and bulwark of the Tiger line.  Jerry Head, a twin brother of Newellton's back, Terry, is considered the Bears' most outstanding athlete at six-oft-one and 165 pounds.  His coach, Jimmy Johnson tags him "a natural either on offense or defense" and especially great as a pass receiver.  Against Sicily Island, Head caught passes for 86 yards, and, for the season he gained 444 yards with passes, three for touchdowns and one conversion.

Talented Tuesday - B. K. Miller, Jr.

Sentimental Sunday - Lynn and Linda

Military Monday - POW Vernon Carlton Released, 1953

Monroe News Star - 8/26/1953

Vernon William Carlton

Born on May 14, 1930

Son of

Edward and Vera Carlton

Sergeant

United States Army

Korean War
Repatriated Prisoner of War

Enlistment Date:  October 28, 1947

Release Date:  October 20, 1953

Sgt. Vernon William Carlton died on November 10, 1997.  He is buried in the Carlton Family Cemetery in Jonesville, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana.

Sources:

Chronicling America

National Archives  Records Administration [online database/Ancestry.com]

Korean War Data File of American Prisoners of War [online database/Ancestry.com]

Ancient Anilco and the Great Mound - An Account from 1966

The following article was written by E. W. Plummer and appeared in the October 23, 1966 edition of the Monroe Morning World:

Transcription:

Mankind's march of progress and the attritions of time have eroded away the great and lesser Indian mounds and the ancient city of Anilco in Catahoula Parish.  In the following account the dramatic sweep of events from the 16th century to the present day is fitted into place along with speculations on what might have been.  Accounts state that the Great Mound was visited twice by the Spanish Explorer Hernando De Soto.

The delta held between Little and Black rivers at their junction in Catahoula Parish is, indeed, historic ground.  It was the site of a city of 6,000 people who lived there when it was visited by De Soto in 1542, a mere hamlet and trading post when Acalde de Don Juan Herbard operated a ferry at Black River (now Trinity), and is now the site of a thriving commercial and industrial town with a great future.



The ancient city visited by De Soto in the 16th century, and about whose origin and demise very little is known, was called "Anilco" by the Natchesan Indians who lived there.  Later it was named "Troyville" for the 1,000-acre Spanish land grant acquired there by Don Juan Herbard in 1786 which he called "Troy Plantation."


It was subsequently named "Jonesville" honoring Col. Charles Jones, a native son of Civil War fame who formerly owned the town site.  Some sources claim that Colonel Jones donated the site under condition that its name be changed from Troyville to Jonesville.




"MOUND CITY"

Anilco might well have been called "Mound City" since the highest Indian mound in the south, if not in North America and nine lesser mounds are located there.

A number of Indian mounds of considerable height and area are located on Little River above its confluence with the Black, and along the south perimeter of Catahoula Lake.  These were called "paddle mounds" by the white settlers who stopped to rest or camp on them when paddling their boats to the Rapides hills during high water periods.

The "Great Mound" at the time of De Soto's visit to the City of Anilco might be best described as having three "stories", two quadrangular truncated prisms and a truncated cone each super-imposed on the other in that order, totaling a height of 80 feet.

The second story prism was built on the upper base of the first prism and set back approximately 10 feet so as to leave a ledge of that width around the perimeter of its lower base.  The third "story" was a truncated cone which later took the form of a dome.  A walkway wide enough for "two horsemen to ride abreast" led up from a lower corner of the first prism to the parapet surrounding the second story prism, thence to the parapet surrounding the third story cone.



Although the preceding description of the "Great Mound" is generally accepted, there are other versions.  The earliest modern description of the Jonesville mounds is that given in the journal of the first Americans to explore the Ouachita River after it became part of the United States as a result of the Louisiana Purchase.  On Oct. 16, 1804, the naturalist, William Dunbar, and Dr. George Hunter explored this area and submitted this report:


"There is an amendment running from the Catahoula (Little River) to Black River, at present about 10 feet high and 10 feet broad."

"This surrounds four large mounds of earth at the distance of a bow-shot from each other; each of which may be 100 by 300 feet at the top and 20 feet high, besides a stupendous turret situated on the back part of the whole, or greatest distance from the water, whose base covers an acre of ground, rising in two steps or stories tapering to the ascent, the whole surmounted by a great cone with its top cut off.  The tower of earth on measurement proved to be about 80 feet perpendicular."

OBSERVANCE

Winslow M. Walker, author of "The Troyville Mounds, Catahoula Parish, Louisiana," published in 1936 makes this observation with reference to the preceding quote:

"If this last statement about the height of the Great Mound is correct, then it is necessary to also revise the other measurements in proportion.  Thus to support a tower of earth 80 feet high on a base 180 feet wide it is possible that the easy ascent of the first story was up a slope of 42 degrees to a height of about 30 feet, the slope to the second terrace about the same to an additional height of 15 feet, and the summit cone 35 feet high with steep sides at an angle of 50 degrees, leaving an actual summit of eight feet in diameter."

It is a reasonable assumption that many of the lesser Troyville mounds, as well as the 10 foot one on the west and south sides of the city, were built to serve as places of refuge during overflow periods, for there were no levees at that time.  Some of them served as sites for granaries where their maize (corn) could be safely stored.  A somewhat higher mound in the center of the city is thought to have been the site of the chief's residence, for it furnished him a vantage point where he could watch over the city, and also gave him a favorable position in event of attack.

A half-breed Creek Indian, who claimed that Anilco was a Creek city until that tribe was driven away by pestilences and the white man's rifles, said that under Creek rule it was called the "fire tower" and was a temple of worship.

The stupendous eminence was handmade.  Archaeologists believe that the thousands of cubic yards of dirt required to build the Great Mound were carried there from a distance in skins, and that each load, less than a cubic foot, was thoroughly trampled by its carrier.

But erosion, thoughtlessness, and expediencies of the white man's civilization have reduced the once awesome Mound and the lesser ones surrounding it almost to a mere memory.

During the period of the Civil War the Great Mound underwent alterations that greatly changed its appearance by having the central one virtually cut down to provide space for a rifle pit at the top.  The displaced dirt spread down the slope principally on the north and south sides to such an extent that made it 90 feet longer from north to south than from east to west, and so mutilated that it was difficult to determine just what its original shape had been.




RAPID DISINTEGRATION

The rapid disintegration of the Jonesville mounds began in the early 1900s when, they together with the embankment on the west and south side, were more or less leveled for home sites and other buildings.



The demolition of the Great Mound was begun in the summer of 1931 and continued without cessation for a period of more than a month.  Day and night shifts were employed, and it required steam shovels, mules and scrapers and gangs of laborers with picks and shovels, so hard and closely packed was the clay which the aboriginal builders had placed there.

During the cutting down of the mound nothing of interest was found except a variety of colored clays, red, brown, blue, grey and olive green.  Reports among the bystanders that human skeletons were discovered were not verified.

Dirt from the once Great Mound was spread over several blocks, which now compose the "mound lots," which sell at a premium because of their higher elevation.  Thus one of the wonders of Louisiana gave way to what modern man calls "Progress."

The Jonesville Lock & Dam

Entrance to Jonesville Lock and Dam - May, 2015

The Jonesville Lock and Dam was constructed in 1972 by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and is located in Catahoula Parish on highway 124 south of Jonesville.  This lock and dam is part of the Ouachita-Black Rivers Navigation Project which began in 1902 and covers 337 miles of waterway from Camden, Arkansas to Jonesville, Louisiana.

Jonesville Lock and Dam - May, 2015

The Ouachita River originates in Polk County, Arkansas as a small stream in the Ouachita Mountains.  It travels south toward Hot Springs, Arkansas where it flows into Lake Ouachita before continuing its southward journey into Louisiana.  The Ouachita River joins the Tensas and Little Rivers at Jonesville where the Black River is then formed.  The Black River meets the Red River forty-one miles south of Jonesville.

Original Map from Ouachita River Foundation

The lock chambers are 84 feet wide and 600 feet long with five tainter gates.  Tainter gates are radial arm floodgates used to control water flow in dams and control locks.

A lift from 12-30 feet allows a minimum 9-foot deep and 100-foot wide navigation channel needed by barge traffic to travel from the Red River to Camden, Arkansas.

Jonesville Lock and Dam - May, 2015

Entering the Jonesville Lock and Dam area - May, 2015

Swollen Black River at Jonesville Lock and Dam - May, 2015

Bend in the River before heading south to Jonesville Lock and Dam - May, 2015

Swollen Black River at Jonesville Lock and Dam - May, 2015

Livestock on the banks of Black River at Jonesville Lock and Dam - May 2015

Recreational Area at Jonesville Lock and Dam - May, 2015

Exiting the Jonesville Lock and Dam area - May, 2015

Sources:
Ouachita River Foundation
U. S. Army Corps of Engineers

Catahoula Parish Pelican State Representatives Chosen, 1948

The following article appeared in the May 23, 1948 edition of the Monroe Morning World:

Transcription:

PICK PELICAN STATE MEMBERS
Catahoula Parish Legion Posts Make Selection For Annual Session
Jonesville, La., May 22 (Special)

Three of Catahoula parish's four American Legion posts have selected representatives for the ninth annual session of Pelican Boys' State to be held August 9-17 on the Louisiana State University campus.

Also selected is the representative of the only Legion auxiliary post to Pelican Girls' State which will be held August 18-27 at the university.

Boyd-Mann Post 163 of Jonesville will send Densil Humble, son of Mr. and Mrs. Hoover Humble, to Boys' State, with Robert Freeman, as alternate. Both are juniors at Block High School, played on Block's football team the past season and are members of the 1948 American Legion junior baseball squad.

Trichel-Lee Post 223 of Harrisonburg has announced Clarence F. Routon, Jr., as its representative, with David M. Hailey as alternate.

Larry Barron of Foules will be the representative of Sicily Island Post 257. He is a junior in high school and participates in basketball and softball at Sicily Island High School.

Named to represent the Boyd-Mann auxiliary, the only Legion auxiliary in the parish, was Iris McClure, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harvey McClure, Velda Fairbanks will be the alternate.  Both are juniors at Block High School.


Delegates were chosen for leadership, character, cooperativeness and scholarship.

Courtesy of Karen Barron Egloff

State Library Awards Reading Certificates, 1949

Monroe Morning World - 11/20/1949

Trisler's Forty-one years as Postmistress

The following article appeared in the June 27, 1915 edition of the Oakland Tribune in Oakland, California:

Nasif Clinic-Hospital Opens in Jonesville, 1959

The following article appeared in the November 8, 1959 edition of the Monroe Morning World:

Jonesville Kids Have Surplus of Deer Hides, 1948

Monroe Morning World - 2/15/1948

Jonesville News - November, 1936

Monroe Morning World - 11/22/1936

Harrisonburg in the Spotlight, 1927

The following article appeared in the February 18, 1927 edition of the Monroe News Star:

Transcription:

HARRISONBURG, ISOLATED TOWN, IS IN SPOTLIGHT

Gas Discovery Likely to Rejuvenate Quiet Village
Special to The News-Star

HARRISONBURG, Feb 18.--This little town of perhaps 300 people, located in the fastness of sparsely settled Catahoula parish of which it is the capital, awoke to new life when late Wednesday, news came of the blowing in of a gasser located midway between this town and Jonesville.

The interest was all the more pronounced due to the fact that thrills and front page news stories come seldom to this section of the state, which is among the more inaccessible of all the parish seats of Louisiana.  This is due to the fact that the railroad, when built in northeast Louisiana, failed to come nearer than Sicily Island, which is 12 miles away and where the mail, goods and merchandise for Harrisonburg are handled.

The only direct way to reach Harrisonburg, aside from the highways, is by means of the Ouachita river, where boats now and then make their trips up and down stream. Once this was a most active business but, as the years have passed, the boat service has been much curtailed.

The little town is in almost Arcadian simplicity, despite the march of time and progress outside of Catahoula.  The population has remained almost stationary for many years.  One unkind critic states that "Harrisonburg was complete forty-three years ago and that since, there has not been driven a single nail."  This is not true, however, for there has been some construction work the past few years.

When a telephone is sought, there is one located in a store building on Main street, and there the populace wends its way when there is need for a telephone call from the outside world.

The little town looks up upon on bluff that towers 230 feet above the town.  On the top of this bluff, years ago, was a fortress that protected the place from invasion. This need has long since past and only the ruins of the once important fort remain.

The leading building in the town, in matter of importance, is the little old red brick court house.  It was built in 1843 and for eighty-four years, accordingly, has meted out justice through its confines.  The building is about the size of a double garage and one can almost touch the low-hanging ceiling with his fingers when within.

When court is in session, the farmers for miles around drive in to attend.  To be sure, they do not come always in late model automobiles, for the horse and buggy is still popular in many cases.  Nor do they wear "boiled" shirts, so frequently, but they represent the good, old-fashioned, hard-working honest farmers of the section.

Presiding at court, is Honorable Monroe Taliaferro, judge of the district court.  It is no unusual sight to see an offender, from the remote spots of Catahoula, plead his own case, with frankness and often success, in the absence of the advice of an attorney.

Judge Taliaferro looms as the leading citizen for many miles in the Catahoula country. His wisdom, his kindness, his general all-around helpfulness and well balanced make-up, have a strong appeal to all.

They consult him on all sorts of matters.  It may be as to how to plant their onions, how to cure a disease that threatens a child, or, and recently as that modern apparatus the radio has entered Catahoula, they are wont to go to the Judge to get information as to radio operation.

The court house is a two-room affair.  In its archives are some most interesting documents and the penmanship of the years before the Civil War, is said to be remarkably fine, a penman of rare skill then keeping the records.  These records show for later generations, the kindliness of southern bartering.  For example, a man is shown to have sold his place and with it he gave "10 milk cows, 10 young stock and a red male [mare?]," all as gratis, just to show that he was generously good in his dealings.

Better roads have come to Catahoula of late and the automobile is becoming more popular.  There is a gravel road that is partly completed to Jena, 20 miles west, and the gravel road is completed to Jonesville and Sicily Island, but to cross the river, the broad Ouachita, the ferryman has to be paid.  He has capacity business, charging from 60 cents up for vehicles such as Ford cars and more for larger cars.

Crime is little known in Catahoula, and it was a decided shock, that was occasioned last week, when O. C. Stribling slew Fred Goins and made his escape at Enterprise.  A manhunt ended in the capture of Stribling who is incarcerated in the jail at Harrisonburg, awaiting action by the grand jury.

The news of the gasser not many miles distant from Harrisonburg, was greeted with unusual interest.

Oldtimers state that 30 years ago, there was a very similar gas blow-out near Sicily Island and that it also sanded up and was abandoned.

Unusual numbers of people from Monroe, Natchez and other parts of the state are pouring in here today as a result of the well blowing in Wednesday in Section 26-9-6e, of the Lochagnar Oil Company.

Catahoula Parish Teachers and Staff Named for 1947-48 Term

Monroe Morning World - 7/27/1947

Queen Crowned at First Catahoula Parish Soybean Festival, 1956

From the October 14, 1956 edition of the Monroe Morning World:

Mary Francis Smith, daughter of Clayton Francis "Sonny" Smith and Mildred "Mickie" Farmer, married Fay G. "T-Model" Thurman.  Her siblings are Susie Smith Crawford and William Smith.

Clayton Francis "Sonny" Smith was the son of William Edward "Buck" Smith and Mildred Harris.

Fay G. "T-Model" Thurman is the son of Rastus Lee Thurman and Annie Guyton.

Jonesville Lions Club Sponsors Movement for Library in 1936

The following article appeared in the April 27, 1936 edition of the Monroe News Star:

Follow-Up Story on the One-A-Day Triplets

I posted earlier about the 1950 births of triplets in Jonesville.  Today's article appeared in the August 23, 1963 edition of the Utica Daily Press: