Sallisaw proving to be cotton center of Eastern Oklahoma

From the files of Your Sequoyah County Times

25 Years Ago

(From the Sept. 12,1999, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —Expansion of the Sallisaw landfill into a regional landfill began last week, Jim Hudgens, city manager, said Friday.

Hudgens said he signed the permanent permit Thursday with the State Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The permit allows the city to expand its landfill from 13 acres to 42 acres. The city is opening about five acres, called a cell, at a time, Hudgens said.

Hudgens also said the city is in the preliminary negotiation stages with trash-hauling contractors from Oklahoma and Arkansas to dump trash at the city landfill, located about five miles east of Sallisaw.

50 Years Ago

(From the Sept. 12,1974, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —Blue Ribbon Downs, the largest non-pari-mutuel Quarter horse racetrack in the country, will open its season Friday, Sept. 27.

New glass enclosed and insulated bleachers are being built for the spectators this year.

One new barn has been completed for the horses, and three more are under construction.

A spokesman for Blue Ribbon Downs reports that there has been numerous other improvements which will make the events even more enjoyable this year.

75 Years Ago

(From the Sept. 16,1949, issue of the Sequoyah County Times) —This week Mayo’s store celebrates their fiftieth anniversary with a “Golden Jubilee” celebration.

On Friday, Sept. 13,1899, W.D. Mayo and his uncle, the late Ed Pointer, came from Arkansas and as W.D. says, “with little more than a shirt tail’ full of ambition,” opened the doors for the first time to what is now one of eastern Oklahoma’s largest general stores.

Mr. Pointer was actively engaged in the store business until his death in 1910. His interest was bought in 1919 by Mr. Mayo who is still personally interested in the management of the store, assisted this past year by Brice Callahan.

—No trace had been found Thursday of two bandits reported to have held up and robbed of more than $400 the operator of a night spot at Moffett about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday.

Noah Sparks, victim of the robbers, reported to Sequoyah County and Fort Smith officers that he had just closed Elsie’s club and was locking a door when two men accosted him, leveled guns at him, took his wallet, containing about $200.

He said they then looted a cash register of an additional amount, about $200, and left on foot.

Sparks told officers that if the bandits had a car waiting, he did not see it.

Monday night, a Fort Smith filling station on U.S. Highway 64-71 across from the Massey salvage yard, was held up and robbed of about $20 by two bandits.

—De Lois Faulkner, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Earl Faulkner, was crowned Queen of the Cookson Hills in a close contest in which Miss Patsy Lee Lattimore and Miss Ruth Breedlove were also contestants.

The results were announced at the Round-Up club’s dance shortly after it had started and Miss Faulkner was crowned Queen of the Cookson Hills for this year’s Free Fair and Rodeo.

100 years ago

(From the Sept. 12,1924, issue of the Sequoyah County Democrat) —“Sallisaw, the cotton market of Eastern Oklahoma,” that is the title the city has gained since the opening of the 1924 cotton season.

There has been 377 bales of cotton ginned during the present season by the four gins in Sallisaw, as compared with 27 this time last year. These figures were given out Wednesday evening and do not include the cotton arriving in Sallisaw during Thursday.

McDonald and Matthews have ginned 197 bales and the other three gins have ginned 180 bales. One of the features of the cotton business in Sallisaw this year is the amount of cotton brought here from other cotton centers. Webbers Falls farmers have marketed more than twenty bales here this season. These farmers come a distance of twenty-five miles in order to get the splendid cotton prices that are being paid by the local buyers. Sallisaw has received cotton from practically every section of the county this year.

—Moffett citizens will soon have a town justice, town marshal and everything else that goes along with an incorporated town, providing that the question “shall the town of Moffett be incorporated” is successfully carried at an election to be held on the 22nd of this month.

Many citizens of Moffett have been clamoring for their town to be incorporated since the little place on the Arkansas River has received so much publicity over “Little Jurez” resorts. It is said if the town is incorporated it will mean the ending of the dance halls, amusement places and other attraction, these places have been giving the town too much notoriety, according to one of Moffett’s citizens.