Searcy, AR

This great old photo of Searcy AR comes from the White County Historical Society collection of photos. It dates back to 1900 and also looks like a photo from an old Western movie. This quote below is from the WCHS explanation of the photo.

This scene is from approximately 1900, when Gem Café operated on the southwest corner of Spring and Center in Searcy. Directly behind the café, Giles Walker had the City Meat Market. And, as the giant sign on the side of the building proclaims, Cokes were only a nickel. The name at the top of the front of the building is "O.W. James." At least four chimneys can be counted. The streetlight dangling from the wires overhead appears crude but was probably very effective. Note the onlookers in the upstairs windows, which obviously had no screens.

After seeing this, it does make you appreciate modern air-conditioning more! I'm not sure what church is in the background. Perhaps a reader can tell us. The White County Historical Society meets regularly and does a great job of keeping our past part of the present.

Searcy has lots of churches. Some have been added on to become almost not recognizable. Some were torn down and rebuilt. Some were torn down and replaced with commercial. This church is located right across the street from our historic Rialto Theater. Traffic passes by continuously night and day because the street has become so busy. The church on the outside is largely unchanged and without all the grown landscaping you can see the real structure of it. That's why I like the old photos.

Inside I don't know of the amount of changes but it is a pleasure to drive by this old church and know that it still has services and the members love it and cherish it and keep it as it was originally. It is on the court square in Searcy Arkansas. This view was reportedly a 1900 view and you can see it was like country with no crowding.

Our continuing saga about railroad depots.....here's another one. This photo was taken by Paula in her Girl Scouts' project about photography. That was in the 40's. I mistakenly said it was a 4H project earlier but I've been corrected. Paula went around old Searcy snapping photos of buildings and businesses and those photos have almost made her a new Disfarmer. (Look him up if you've never heard of him. He was an eccentric photographer in Heber Springs and is worth a blog all by himself. His photos now sell for thousands.)

I need someone in Searcy-land to tell me which railroad depot this was. There's a very interesting article in the Searcy Daily Citizen http://www.thedailycitizen.com/articles/2008/08/09/news/local_news/news01.txt today about the M&NA Railroad line which went through Searcy. This may be its depot.

A day or two ago we put up a picture of the bus stopping in Searcy AR for passengers to board, alight, or have a rest stop. Lots of us boarded buses to get around.

Here's an old picture of the train depot in Searcy AR. I think it may be here still but turned into a business location. Native Searcians may have to tell me.

I hope some people can enlighten us on riding a train because my one experience with train riding was a nightmare. I was traveling from Arkansas to Georgia and it must have been in the early 60's. It was a rainy night and water came into the train and stood in the aisles. I had my young daughter with me and she couldn't get on the floor at all. Even the bathrooms flooded.

I swore that if I ever got off that train, I'd never board another one....and I haven't. But for some reason I've always loved the appearance of train depots. I guess it is the overhanging roofline that I like so much. One artist had one moved to his property and turned it into his art studio. That was my type building!

A few months ago I wrote a blog about our new store coming to town, Harp's Grocery.  I was negligent in that I never went back to take a completed photo of it but it sprang up overnight, seemingly, and it is beautiful.   I've been there a few times and bought lovely things, at high prices for sure because they've got to recoup all the money they've invested in Searcy AR.  What happened yesterday makes me wonder about their integrity.  They lied to me and all their customers about their avocados!

My husband has hinted loudly that he'd like some avocado dip because we have fresh tomatoes now and he thinks I make great avocado/tomato dip.

I know when an avocado is ripe, having all this dip experience, and Harp's avocados were all hard as baseballs.  But some of them had this beautiful orange sign on them saying, "Ripe now!" 

This is the South and lots of people in the South don't know what an avocado is. We don't have avocado trees here!  So if they go in and buy this little hardball and take it home to cut it, they're going to against the avocado for life!!

Now if we talk about tomatoes, the Southern person knows the tomato!  We know vine ripened ones from imported greenhouse ones.  We buy the bad ones because we have no other choice but we drool over ones like the ones shown.  Note the one on top that is certainly not perfect and may have a little decay in the center but the part that you can eat will be scrumptious!  That's the kind we'll put in the avocado dip as soon as I wait a few days for the Harp's avocado to ripen.

You know what!  I'll bet you the store stocker at Harp's is from the South and never knew what an avocado was until he got that job.  He picked out the biggest and prettiest and stuck the little labels on them. 

He is innocent.

Harp's is innocent

We're going to have avocado dip.

And I've written a blog about nothing! 

Except beautiful Home Grown Tomaters!