PARAGOULD
POSTOFFICE
There is no better index to the
business of a town and city than its postoffice and the Paragould
post-
office is no exception. From the small
office kept in a butcher shop 25 or 26 years ago by Chris Ritter the
office has steadily grown and occupies now the entire floor of a large
business room and the demand for floor space is
steadily growing. The postal receipts have been sufficient
to warrant the federal government in making an appropriation
of $50,000 for the construction of a modern postoffice building.
The bill providing for the appropriation of the building was
introduced by Congressman Macon in the fiftieth congress and
was passed by the unanimous vote of congress, after
receiving the approval of the committee to which it was referred.
The lot for the site has been pur-chased at an expense
of $6,700, the purchase being from Mrs. Dickson and includes
that portion of the Dickson estate lying on the east
end of the sanitarium lot where the old Dickson homestead
stands. It is believed that the building
will be constructed within the next year or two.
In another column we print a
picture of the new building as it is supposed to
appear after it is finished.
An official report from Postmaster
McPherson shows the following
concerning the business of the office:
The gross receipts for the fiscal
year ending June 30, 1897, were $3,
785.40. At that time the floor space
occupied was 475 squad feet with 3
persons employed. The gross receipts
for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1900, were $12,674.84, and the
office now has a floor space of 1,875 square feet and employes 15
people, seven in the office and five rural carriers and
three city car-riers. The office supplies practically the
entire county with mail and eleven offices in
Southeast Missou- ri. The five rural routes direct from this
office, with other sub-routes, give the farmers of
Greene county a daily mail service, while the city is supplied with a
free delivery service from the office.
The following is a tabulated state-ment of the gross business of
the office since 1897:
Ending June 30, 1897.. .. $ 3,785.40
Ending June 30, 1903.. .. .. 7,229.50
Ending June 30, 1906.. .. .. 8,127.00
Ending June 30, 1907.. .. 11,448.98
Ending June 30, 1908.. .. 12,404.37
Ending June 30, 1909.. .. 12,674.84
The money order sales at the office amount
to about $75,000 per annum.
Mr. McPherson is making the city a very efficient postmaster and is
one of the leading young men of the city and county, being always to the
forefront in every progressive
movement having for its object the improvement of the
town and county. He is president of
the
Paragould Commercial Club and the
leading spirit of that organization.
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Paragould today is a city of 6,000. It may be a few hundred less or it may be a few hundred more, but people who claim seven and eight thousand are either ignorant of what the population is or else purposely exaggerate.
The population in January 1887 was 1364 by special census, in 1890 by federal census it was 1,666 while the
federal census of 1900 gave us 3,324. A special census taken in July 1907, for the purpose of giving us powers as a city of the first class, showed the population to be 5,122. The federal census to be taken next year will not likely show the population to be much in excess of
6,000 if any.
The census of 1887 was taken by T. P. Cole, the well known insurance man. The editor of the Soliphone was then editor of the Paragould Press and offered Mr.Cole $10 to take the census of the town and he accepted. He said he could do it in three days, but it took him over a week and Tom has never forgotten how hard he worked for that $10. A tabular statement was made up giving the name of the head of every family in town. The statement showed the number in family, male and
female, from whence they came to Paragould, the duration of their residence in the town, occupation, etc. This was printed in a special edition of 5,000 for
general distribution and the issue did much to stimulate immigration and bring people to Paragould, some of whom were disappointed and "cussed" the paper, while others were pleased and praised it.
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Paragould Social Conditions
There is no town in the world where social conditions are more conducive to happiness than Paragould. We have no millionaires and very few paupers. We have only one Chinaman and very few negroes, there being less than 50 in the town, and we don't hear of any that want to come. Every man stands on his merits as a man and not on what his daddy has done nor on the distinc-tion of his ancestry. If a man is honest, if he pays his debts, if he obeys the laws of his country he is socially as good as any other man regardless of who his ances-tors were, where they came from or how they got here, if they ever came. There is no monied aristocracy, there is no social aristocracy. While we have many people who are well-to-do they have, as a rule,
botten (gotten) their wealth by honest endeavor and there are none above work. Work is the elixir of life in
Paragould. Everybody works and there is work for everybody. Laboring men find remunerative employ-ment and we doubt if there is a town anywhere that
can show as many working men who have acquired good homes, who have saved up something for a rainy day, whose families are so well cared for and highly respected. There are no sweat shops in Paragould where children are dwarfed in mind and body by hard toil for a morsel to eat and a few rags of clothes. The children of the working men attend the free common schols (schools) in neat attire and occupy seats with the
children of wealthier parents and they often win first honors in their classes. Many working men in Para-gould have good credit at the banks and the stores and some of them carry good bank accounts and you do not meet them on the streets wearing a haggard, woe-begone expression as though they were friendless in the world. The working men of Paragould have been a mighty force in developing the town and form a con-
tingent, as a rule, of our best citizenship.
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Health in Paragould
While we have no mortuary statistics to bear out any statement of comparative health in Paragould and this
section of Arkansas with other cities and towns of other states, we feel safe in the assertion that health is as good in Paragould as in the average town, and better than in many of them.
There is a prevalent opinion among the people of the older states that Arkansas is a veritable graveyard, that to come here is certain death, that the entire state is a swamp and that malaria germs hibernate in every leaf and infect every breath of air. To hear these people talk one would think that people never die in the region where they live, that Aesculapius has disin-
fected the land and extermined the germs of disease. Such ignorance is no less appalling than it is mis-leading.
No state has more noted health resorts than Arkansas or can show a greater variety of health giving waters
and a more salubrious climate.
A few years ago the Soliphone began publishing bio-graphical sketches of people in Greene county who were over75 years of age. The task became so burden-
some that we had to give it up. They loomed up by the hundred in every section of the county and we came to think that a man who was only 75 in Greene county was a mere youth, so many were there who registered at
80, 85, 90, 95 and even a hundred. Many people who come here from other states in bad health recover
their health and become sound and well.
Paragould is comparatively free from malaria. Twenty years ago when there was much decaying timber there was some malaria, but that is true everywhere under like conditions. Since the timber has been cut out, the country opened up and put in cultivation, health has greatly improved and there is very little malaria. There will be less when the swamps, none of which are very
near Paragould, are drained, and the work of draining them is being rapidly accomplished.
The government reports show that in altitude Para-gould is 38 feet higher than Little Rock, 85 feet higher than Pine Bluff, 92 feet higher than Memphis and 101 feet higher than Helena.
The recent completion of a splendid sewerage system for Paragould will prove c onducive to the improved
health of the town.
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Removal of the County Site
In 1884 the county site of Greene county was moved from Gainesville
to Paragould. Gainesville had been the county site almost since the
county was
organized and the proposed removal, of course, met with the
opposition that usually develops in such contests, but
Paragould won by a vote of the people
and in the fall of 1884 the records were moved to this town.
The first regular term of the Greene circuit court was held in
Paragould in March, 1885. Judge Cate was the judge and Bard Edrington,
we believe, was
the district attorney. However Judge Cate held an adjourned term of the
court to hear some cases on the chancery docket in November preceding.
This adjourned term was held in an old frame building (it was new then)
that stood on Main street on the lot
between the residence of Joe Wolf and Clarence
Dickinson. This was the home of the county and circuit
clerk, R. H. Gardner, who kept the records
at his house until a temporary court house could be provided. In a
short time, however, the temporary court house was finished, it
being a long box house on Court Square on the north
half of the lot now occupied by the First Methodist church. This was
used as a court house for more than two
years. There was no special chancellor then and the circuit judge
tried common law, criminal and chancery cases,
jumping from one to the other as the con-venience of the bar
demanded. Then we had only one clerk, he being the county clerk, the
circuit clerk and the recorder, still he was not kept
any busier than our clerks are now kept with the offices divided. Two
good men could then do all the work and at times one was all that
was needed. Now it takes four people pretty busy to do the
clerical work for the county and
some times additional help has to be employed. This is not because
the clerks are less industrious but because the
business has increased with the growth and development of the county.
Tom Kitchens succeeded Mr. Gardner as clerk and
held the office for six years. He made the
reputation of being the most painstaking and careful
clerk the county had had up to that date.
The new court house, which is still in use, though getting a little
old now, was ready and officers moved into it in 1887. Judge
O'Steen built both the court house and the c ounty jail
which stand as a lasting monument to the progressiveness of his
administra-tion.
R. H. Gardner served the county in many capa-cities.
He was several terms clerk and was also county surveyor. He
was one of the best men the county ever produced and lived to a ripe old
age and left behind him an untarnished name as a
heritage for his children. His son, A. D. Gardner, was clerk of
the county for two terms in later years and proved to be a very
proficient and satisfactory officer. He is now engaged in
educational work, he and his brothers having
established a school at Odessa,
Mo.
The removal of the county site from Gainesville to Paragould
caused an exodus of the citizens there to the new site and some of
the best citizens of Para-gould today are those who pulled up
stakes and left Gainesville to follow the county site.
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Paragould Merchants Progressive
Paragould merchants are progressive and liberal. They carry fine
stocks of goods, treat their custom-ers right and push both the
town and their business.
Paragould has some of the finest stores in the south and is the
trade area for a population of 40,000 people. The
trade area is expanding and our jobbing houses are sending their
representatives into the
contiguous territory and are building up a good
wholesale trade. In the commercial expansion of the town Paragould
merchants have been the chief factors, for they have gone after the
trade, studied
its wants and they buy to please.
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Private Schools (continued)
and is patronized by hundreds of young men and young women from other
states. Prof. Parrish, the principal of this school,
is a thorough teacher in all that pertains to
a business course and his pupils receive
instructions in penmanship, bookkeeping, commercial law and arithmetic,
stenography, tele-graphy and all subjects taught in the best business
colleges everywhere. This school has graduated hundreds of young
men and young women who have gone out into the world and are
occupying positions of honor and trust in
many vocations of life. Students of this
school may be found in Missouri, Tennessee,
Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas, and of course in Arkansas, and many of
them are testi-monials to the merits of the school as a place where a
young man or a young woman may acquire an edu-cation that will lead to
almost immediate remuner-ative employment. This school has
been running for ten years in Paragould and is one of the
most useful institutions in the town.
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