Anyone out there remember the old Burger Barn in Searcy Arkansas?  Here's the picture from an old yearbook. The amazing thing about old pictures of Searcy Arkansas is that they didn't have to give an exact address for the advertised business.  Everyone just knew where it was.  Therefore, the exact location of this one may have to be solved by readers who remember. Hubby, however, swears that this building on East Race Street is the old Burger Barn.  P. S.  I am not advertising tobacco....................   06/27/2010

My car says it is 104 degrees outside!  My car says it is 99 degrees outside! My friend says we're having August weather right now in June.  No one argues that it is not HOT, HOT, HOT in our neck of the woods. So driving by these two houses in Searcy Arkansas reminds me that when they were built there was no air conditioning.  These were sleeping porches.....or at least I have been told that they were.  Please correct me if I'm wrong. In this area nighttime does not bring a lot of relief from the heat so folks could climb up to these areas and gain a bit more comfort.  I love central heat and air!!   06/27/2010

The newspaper had pictures on January 16, 1976 showing the White House Cafe being demolished.  Wright Landscaping Service dozers are waiting here to tear into the building.  Wright Landscaping became Johnny Brock Landscaping when it was sold to Johnny Brock.  A short time later we see this picture. The newspaper goes on to show this lot with no building which was to become the home of a new $26,000 Continental-Trailways bus station.  See final picture and newspaper explanation below.  Now the lot is building free again.  The bus station is gone and Harding University owns the lot and has turned it into green space. 06/24/2010

This 1974 picture shows a little cottage on one of Searcy's older streets. It has been purchased and is being fixed up!  The owners came to Searcy, fell in love with the house and are starting the restoration. They invited me over to see what they've started.  They even gave me permission to put them on my blog.  The picture below shows what they're up against.....like 75 year old wallpaper. And here we see the lovely couple standing proudly in front of a wall that they'll be repairing. And here is the tree in the back yard!  Remember my theory about the bigger the tree, the older the house.  This tree is HUGE.  The back door view is almost completely this tree trunk. The texture is wonderful.  Note the 1974 picture didn't have one nearly as big as this one. I hope we can visit again wh... 06/21/2010

I've said before that you never know what you'll find when you get assigned an REO to go check out, change the locks and prepare for selling. This week I found this guy.  He was staring at me through the woods and I practically let out the words used in the title of this blog.  He looks as if he's going to shoot me!  But he also looks as bug-eyed scared as I did. 06/19/2010

Don't you love drive bys when you have to do a double take because of something new? I do. And I did. Driving down East Race Street in Searcy Arkansas I had to look twice because construction of a new kind was going on at the 301 E Race location.  It looked Hispanic or Adobe or something entirely new to our area. This has been the location of a successful Mexican food restaurant for several years.  It looked this way.  I'm sorry that I had to walk with the Google man to get a picture and this time the picture is not too clear.  But at least Mr. Google makes it possible to get a "before" shot which used to be impossible.  Mr. Google sometimes messes up on the exact address but they do say "approximate!" Definitely the new look is successful.  I like the way they were creative and used pe... 06/14/2010

Due to the death of my husband's mother the family things are being sorted out and each child is taking things home.  She was a dear woman and never threw anything away.  Looking through her things is like a trip back in time. My husband came home with this letter sweater that he found stuffed back in a closet. Looking closely you can see it says Jr on the letter and looking even more closely you can see the mothholes.  He says he just got a sweater as a Junior. In our closets at home we already had this saved piece of clothing which he treasures. That jacket was not pink at the time it was new.  Observe the cuffs if you're real brave.  But it says JR also. I grew up in Georgia and played basketball and remember being given a uniform and jacket to wear but we gave those things back.  Th... 06/10/2010

Look at these kids lined up for a Dairy Queen treat in Searcy Arkansas.  This is another lifted picture from an old high school yearbook from the 50's.  I didn't even try to count the little girls and boys.  Definitely you could tell the girls because they had on dresses.  I believe that dates back to girls being required to wear dresses or skirts unless the weather was below a certain freezing degree. This Dairy Queen existed on Park Street in Searcy Arkansas and is still there but quite changed and empty.  Dairy Queen was one of my favorite places to get a chili-cheese hamburger and those soft ice-cream cones.  Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe we have a Dairy Queen in this town anymore. Wonder how long it took to serve all these kids.  Looks as if the little girl on the rig... 06/07/2010

This old picture predates me and my short 40+ years in Searcy Arkansas.....I think.  I didn't recognize where it was.  Here's a picture lifted from some old high school annual.  Look at the phone number!  How'd they get # 1?  Hubby had to tell me where this location was and what is there now.  Compare. Sowell's, 207 W Arch, has just gone through an update and the outside looks great.  How interesting, however, to see that someone covered up lots of glass.  The corner entry to the store remains and note the sidewalk has been made handicapped accessible.  It's also a one-way street now.  I loved the first picture with the woman crossing the street with such a long stride and others standing on the street visiting.  One solitary car in each picture is also interesting. Hubby also told me t... 06/04/2010

I tried.  I tried and tried and tried to become a music lover....high class music lover, I mean. My friend Anita can play the fiddle  violin and had a mother who sent her to piano lessons.  She's got class. My friend Bill Fuller plays in a high class restaurant in Memphis and is so good that I blogged him. My friend Bobby Fuller has lived music....and every old High School annual that I see has all these people playing musical instruments or singing in the choir or marching in the band..... All my friends can do musical stuff cept me....... So I confess to sneaking around and listening to Willie Nelson and George Jones and Kris Kristofferson and Hank Williams and all the old country music singers. Willie's Honky Tonk That Never Closes on Sirius is a favorite spot.  I'm not too into the ... 06/02/2010

I fell in love with this picture even though I knew not who it was. It's the expression!  Puzzled?  Wondering?  Pleading?  Burning up in that wool jacket and layered outfit?  What was he thinking? I found out later that this boy was Billy Fuller from Searcy Arkansas.    Billy matured. Billy gained confidence . Billy became the piano man.  He achieved a degree in music from Hendrix College in Conway Arkansas. He has had a successful career in music ranging from youth ministry in the Methodist Church to organizing choirs in the United States Air Force. Billy has been active in theatre since high school and college and while in college wrote two musicals that were produced on stage. He has been the Music Director for the Arkansas Junior Miss pageant, the Mrs. Arkansas pageant and the Miss ... 05/31/2010

The evolution of a blue house in Searcy Arkansas, sworn to be the truth by Anita Fuller who spent many happy hours in the house, is repeated in this blog.First we had the country porch type house.  Anita was a little tot who sat on the front porch looking as if she was looking for a friend. Porch swings were the thing.  A cool front porch, in fact, with a big tree for shade.Anita had a very active and colorful mother who liked the latest fashions so in the 50's she remodeled the house.  Remember the 50's was a time when you HAD to have a picture window.  It almost looks like asbestos shingles have been added also.  They were also a 50's trend. Little Anita by this time had grown up and had changed her preference in friends.  Her favorite friend is in front of the house.Anita's mother go... 05/29/2010

This is a continued blog it seems.  We start out with an innocent city slicker accusing the Holmes's of having loud braying mules which actually turned out to be jacks. Then we showed an old house of the Holmes's which they inhabited before building a fortress of a rock house on the side of Holmes' mountain.  Here's a picture of my now-deceased mother-and-father-in-law during their courting days.  He must have been showing off how he could ride a horse.  He really pursued that pretty Holmes girl named Wyndelene. Behind them is the Holmes's rock house.  Being almost a fortress it still stands so I sneaked up the hill and snapped a picture of it today from about the same angle as shown here.  And then we have this picture showing Wyndelene with a baby.  Who is the baby?  I'm assuming it i... 05/26/2010

I posted a blog a day or two ago about the mule-making on Holmes Road many years ago.  Bob Collins said he could hear braying all the way into town where he was a city slicker. I came across a picture which seems to go along with the last blog.  It is a picture marked on the back by my mother-in-law saying, "Our old home place across road. Holmes Ranch."  The Holmes family had built a rock house on the hill and this was an old house still standing. A card was with the picture reading, "Robert Taylor Judge property, owned by Louis D and Mattie Judge Wyatte (daughter and son-in-law) of Robert Taylor Judge from ? to 1917.  Sold to a Butler family from Quitman, Ark. Sold to Ballard Holmes then in 1925 or 26.  This house was occupied by Evan Cobb family for a short time." You can guess that ... 05/25/2010

Why put this picture on my blog? I was inspired by Dorothy Warden's Searcy Daily Citizen column about old Searcy and about Bob Collins, who lived at the corner of Academy and Pear and is shown looking somewhat disgruntled in this picture.  Dorothy said that Bob said he could hear mules braying from Holmes' breeding operation on Holmes Road from his house on Vine. That must have been Ballard Holmes's operation and Ballard Holmes was my husband's grandfather so I asked Hubby about that operation.  He lit up with a long story that took up most of my coffee time at the breakfast table this morning. His grandpa was a trader and evidently did a little of everything.  Hubby explained that a jack will mate with a horse and that mating will produce a mule.  The problem was that the jack was too... 05/22/2010

I'm reblogging my own blog.  It was one of my favorites and in case you missed it, it's worth seeing the change of this house on Arch Street.  Right now the blue house can be bought if you're interested.  But the history of it is what's fun.  Also seeing this old photo of Anita, my blog buddy, on the steps is worth reviewing.  I told her it was just too "provocative" a pose for a little girl.  She was offended and said she was in her Girl Scout bathing uniform!!    She told me the other day that my blogs were getting boring so perhaps this picture will spice this one up a little.  ************************************************************************************* Arguments are just no fun but some of my readers are SO stubborn!! Anita grew up in Searcy, Arkansas and I didn't.  I've j... 05/18/2010

In the neighborhood there appears to be a battle between this tree and an underground utility box.  It's been going on for years and it's like a slow but sure competition. That tree grows bigger and bigger. That box gets more and more tilted. Oh, the excitement!  What's going to happen? I asked Hubby and he said, "Well, one of these days we'll probably have everything just go off."  And way up in that tree is a street light being swallowed. Now don't you just love the excitement!! 05/17/2010

Here's the way the Robbins Sanford building in downtown Searcy used to look and the way it looks today. It has been renovated and in the middle of the block is the entrance to the Grand Hall.  The hall really does appear "grand" too with the old tin ceilings showing and the wall has an artistic view of an old brick wall. And on May 13, 2010 it was the location for a grand party honoring two of Searcy's most beloved and knowledgeable citizens, Benson Robbins (yes, his relatives were previously owners of the building) and Marty Hawkins.  Here they are looking like the Blues Brothers. And here they were as the stars of the party given to honor their 80th birthdays.  Of course the wives deserve recognition for helping make these guys the successes that they are. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TWO SEARCY... 05/16/2010

The house shown below sold because of pictures on the internet.  Beverly Jackson from Texas found it, called it a 1925 Arts and Craft Bungalow, fell in love with it and bought it.  It closed in February of this 2010 year.  That's the power of the internet!  She did not buy it from me but she found me on the internet with this blog and called me.  She thinks that with all the knowledge that you Searcy historians have you might be able to help her with her family history. Here's what she wrote to me after talking on the phone. "I just spoke with you regarding a possible ancestor, W. E. Word, who I understand was the owner of Word's Grocery in Searcy Arkansas. I understand his store was located at the NE corner of Spring and Center Streets, which is where the Plaza Theater was located in t... 05/14/2010

You're just driving down the road minding your own business when ZAP!  What's that over there?  A vacant lot. With fresh dirt.  With men standing around clearing. And you realize another house has been eliminated!  They didn't have the courtesy to tell you to get out the camera and take a last photo just for memories for the future! That has just happened to me.  I liked these three houses on West Race Street.  I called them Searcy Arkansas row houses because they were in a row with seemingly the very same style and floor plan.  There are lots of houses in Searcy built like these. One is gone!  Overnight!  Gone!  So I went to the Google man and he and I went walking down the 400 block for a final farewell.  See how they are so similar.  Each has a bay windown and a front porch.  And you... 05/12/2010