Ashdown's Early Days

ASHDOWN’S EARLY DAYS RECALLED BY SETTLERS

published:

Little River News

January 31, 1934

When S.A. Maddox, Henry Westbrook, John Coggins and a few others who are still citizens of Ashdown came to make their home, they found two log houses surrounded by fields of cotton and corn, owned by William and Maloy Waddell, uncles of George and Charley Waddell of Ashdown..  The Waddells owned eighty acres of what is now Ashdown.

William Waddell’s log house stood on the site now occupied by the R.A. Phillip’s home.  A field of corn waved its yellow tassels from about where the news office stands to the other side of the KCS railroad and from there to beyond the site of the courthouse, the land was planted in cotton.

Mr. Maddox came here from Saratoga in 1889 to take charge of the commissary, which was built at the time of the survey of the Texarkana and Ft. Smith Railroad His store was a small frame building which stood almost in the middle of what is now the street in front of Phillip’s Drug Store.  A Mr. Fricks ran the store for a short time until Mr. Maddox’s brother came to take charge.

Henry Westbrook enlarged the building and clerked in the store.

Capt. W.D. Dupree built the first frame dwelling here.  It stood on the site next door to the Albert Hamilton home.  The Baptist Church, which was the first to be organized here, held its first services in the Dupree home.

The first preacher, a man named Rogers, preached there.

The first industry was a large sawmill, which stood near the old Frisco Pond.  Mr. and Mrs. Dupree furnished rooms and board to a large number of the men who worked there.

John Coggins, who later married into the Dupree family, tells of a joke he played on Capt. Dupree.  He made a sign which he tacked up in front of the boarding house which read: “Maddox town, Westbrook Street, Dupree Hotel, and nothing to eat.” Needless to say, he had to take it down.

The railroad built at that time was owned by Bill Whitaker and was called the Texarkana and Ft. Smith railroad.  While Whitaker owned it, it only extended between Texarkana and Wilton and after five years, the Kansas City Southern bought it and extended it on to Ft. Smith.

After a short time, Mrs. Girlie, mother of Mrs. H.M. Westbrook, also from Saratoga, came and built a two-story frame hotel.  The remains of this hotel still stand next to M.S. Johnson store.

The first schoolhouse was a small one-story room built about where the Ashdown Hardware warehouse now stands.  The first teacher of this school was a man named Payne.

When the town was laid off into lots, about 1891, Judge Burns gave the lots where the grade school building now stands and a one room frame house was built.  Later another room was added.  This served until the two-story frame building that is now used as an apartment house was built in about 1900.