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Members of the GPHS gathered at Montgomery Point Lock & Dam on the lower White River for a tour of the facility.
Opening up a rice field with a binder. The machine cut the stalks of grain off with a sickle bar and reeled them back on a canvas that moved them into the bundling mechanism, which shook the stalks and tumbled them into bundles with the heads all pointed in one direction. Binder twine was wrapped around the bundle and pulled tight, then tied with a knotting device. Once tied, the bundle was dumped down on a carrying frame. The operator would wait for several to collect, then dump them onto the ground. A crew followed the binder and set the shocks of rice, oats, or wheat up in bundles, where it dried the grain heads over a couple weeks’ time. The next step was the separating the grain from the straw.
This Grand Prairie farm family and threshing crew pose proudly for the camera after finishing their work. Each of the burlap bags contained 180 pounds or four bushels of rice, which was separated from the straw by the threshing machine. The bags would be sewn shut with twine and later loaded on wagons and transported to the rice mill at Stuttgart.
Undated aerial image of Almyra, Arkansas, taken by Stuttgart photographer Harry Downing.
DeWitt High School, erected 1909 at the corner of Cross and Monroe Streets, graduated its first senior class in 1910. After the red brick three-story structure was demolished in 1938, Westside Elementary was built on the site.
Piper Cubs and Waco Hadrian gliders are prominent in this snowy 1942 scene of a review of enlisted men at Stuttgart Army Airfield. The United States Army Air Forces opened the facility as a pilot training base in late 1942, six miles north of the city on 2,682 acres. The airbase consisted of four 5,000-foot runways and facilities for 6,000 personnel. Officials decided on Stuttgart because the prairie environment was perfect for airfield operations, with little clearing necessary and firm hardpan soil for runways. After deactivation of the base in 1945, the War Assets Administration took over the field in 1946. In 1949 the land was given to the city for use as a municipal airport.
Professor Lee D. Holman with his students in an undated photo likely taken at the Stuttgart School located at 412 N. Porter. The building was later moved to 605 N. Buerkle Street, rebuilt, and named for Prof. Holman.
The World’s Championship Duck Calling Contest has been held every November since 1936, and is the oldest festival in Arkansas. Looking north from Fourth and Main Streets in the 1950s, the contest and carnival is set up in the midst of Stuttgart’s business district. The stage can be seen in the center of Main Street near the Riceland Hotel. The Grand Prairie’s largest annual event remains a major source of tourism, contributing handsomely to the regional economy. It is today part of the Wings over the Prairie Festival.
Gillett High School opened in this building in 1916, and served area students until 1943. The school burned during the Christmas break of that year. It took a couple of years to replace it, and while this was being done, school was held all over town in churches, vacant homes, and even the parlor rooms of larger homes.
Tindall-Prange & Sons Store in Crocketts Bluff. The photo dates to around 1915.
During its time as Stuttgart College and later Training School, the institution educated many of the town’s early citizens and leaders. Students and teachers at the school around 1909 were, from left to right, (first row) unidentified, Charles Chaney, next two unidentified, Arthur Pettit, next two unidentified, and Myron Williams; (second row) Gladys Hegner, Joanna Porter, Edna Holdridge, Harvey Pace, John Hegner, Walter Mobley, and teacher Miss Varney; (third row) principal C. O’Rear, Florence Sumner, unidentified, Evelyn Clark, Willie Brummitt, Mattie Simmermacher, Verna Huffman, John Holdridge, Wesley Clark, and teacher Miss Bodenhamer; (fourth row) Josie Satchfield, Belle McFall, next two unidentified, Bertha Griffin, Blanche Leighton, Alice Bradford, Myrtle Hostetter, Edith Leighton, Willie Lee Spiller, and Fred Wilcox; (fifth row) Jennie Hostetter, teacher John G. Rossman, teacher Ralph Standley, Earl Moorhead, Richard Miller, Roy Hawley, and Floyd Denman; (sixth row) Robert Moorhead, William Adams, Duncan Moore, Kenneth Yoder, Ben Ware, Arch Vickers, unidentified, and Lloyd Moorhead.