July 21 Edition

Matthew 19:14 "But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Birthdays this week include: Lorene Baswell, Tully McCoy, Mary Ann Morgan and Dylan Dunlap - July 20, Maggie Sanders - July 21, Ethel Dyer and Jean Parrott - July 22, Daniel Thompson - July 23, and Aubrey Huddleston - July 25.

Happy anniversary to Marshall and Marnell Parker - July 21.

ReNEWing Edinburg does well Saturday morning by cleaning up around the old Lash Store. A sizable band of volunteers were on hand.

Greenland Baptist Church Food Pantry will be open July 28 at 9am to provide for the low income and the elderly.

Many of us grew up with the myth of the Kilgore killings early in the 20^th century. I have heard different versions of the event. Here are two newspaper clippings that tell the story, words and names misspelled and everything:

 The Cleveland County Herald reported: “July 10, 1902, ARTHUR and GARFIELD KILGORE.   A most unfortunate occurance took place at new Edinburg last Thursday. Two of the Killgore boys, Garfield and Arthur, went into New Edinburg, so reports say in an intoxicated condition and began a disturbance with some parties when an officer deputised Matt Ruth to arrest them, but they refused to be quieted by Ruth and fell in upon him with knives and cut badly after which Ruth left the scene of trouble and went for a shot gun returned and fired killing Arthur Killgore out-right and inflicting wounds upon Garfield from which he died Monday.  During the trouble Ransome Killgore fired at W.D. Attwood several times with a pistol but his shots went wild.  Attwood returned fire inflicting wounds with squirrel shot.”

Arkansas Gazette Feb. 26, 1903: “Feb. 25, Fordyce - W.D. Atwood killed C.R. Kilgore at New Edinburg this morning. The killing was a sequel to the killing of Kilgore's sons on the Fourth of July, when the two boys were alleged to be drunk and the justice of the peace ordered Atwood and his bookkeeper, Matt Ruth, to arrest them. One of them stabbed Ruth and Ruth shot them both. Since that time there has been ill feeling between Atwood and Kilgore, but it was thought that the trouble was over. This morning while Atwood was putting a tombstone to the head of his child's grave, old man Kilgore came with a pistol and ran Atwood out of the graveyard twice. The third time Atwood took his gun and when Kilgore appeared again Atwood emptied his gun at him. Kilgore said, "That is not fair, you have a gun and I only have a pistol." Atwood replied, "I don't want any trouble, but if you don't drop that pistol I will shoot again." Kilgore ran and got behind a pile of brush and began to fire on Atwood, who returned the fire, killing his antagonist. Atwood is a prominent business man of the place and well known throughout this part of the state. Kilgore has several grown sons and further trouble may follow.”

There wasn’t. The remaining members of the Kilgore family fled town and moved to Fordyce; the hotel building was later bought by the Stewart family.

Feel free to share items of interest with this column.  To get it in for a particular week, I need to see it before that Monday.  This column will appear on the internet at http://WeAreTheEagles.blogspot.com.  Go Eagles.