Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Gurdon Icon Remembers Glory Days Of Community

It is said the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Well, in the case of Gurdon, nothing could be more true. The city has existed more than a century, and while there changes have occurred, Gurdon is still Gurdon.

The basic personality of the town hasn't changed, at least according to long-time resident Austin Capps.

Capps has lived in Gurdon more than 80 years, the family moving here when he was about three.

One of his earliest memories is of the move to Gurdon from Dolbyville.

At the time, he said, his grandfather, W.J. Capps, owned a general merchandise store, a gin and operated the post office from his store. This was a common practice in the early 1900s.

Mail, in those days, was still being delivered by horse as the "horseless carriage" was still a newfangled invention people weren't sure would catch on.

But, when automobiles began showing up in Gurdon, Capps's grandfather put in the first filling station.

Those with cars, he said, would come to the store, get the gas they needed and buy whatever else they required at the same time. General stores, such as this, were the precursors of today's convenience stores, only they were more fun.

Capps' father, after moving the family to Gurdon, bought a grocery store from E.A. Whitmore on East First Street and operated a general merchandise store as well. His mother worked for a Mr. Osborne, who wife was an invalid.

The Capps family also operated a soft drink bottling company near the school, then on East Third.

In 1917, Capps said, he was three-years-old and Gurdon was a country town and a railroad town. There was a coal chute and water tower to fuel the steam locomotives when they stopped here.

Trains from Texarkana and Little Rock stopped in Gurdon in those days to get the coal and water needed for the engines.

The old Gurdon Hotel was a resting place for railroad workers. It stood where the Cabe offices are now.

In those days, Gurdon had several hotels because of the rail workers.

The Commercial Hotel stood where the Shoe Box now resides and was operated by a Mrs. Epperson.

Mrs. Lavin ran a two-story boarding house near downtown as well.

This was also a time when saloons and liquor stores were in Gurdon as Clark County was wet.

Capps said Clark County went dry by World War II.

The old Wright Theater was next to a motel-restaurant run by Rupert Stewart, while next door was a hamburger joint owned by Guy Smith.

There was a brickyard on South First owned by a Mr. O'Neal.

The streets of downtown Gurdon were illuminated by gas streetlights until a generator was put up by the brickyard and electric light became the norm. This happened when Capps was five or six.

When he started school, all students were housed in one building, though not one room. School, then, was a two-story building on Third Street, with Mr. Dollarhide the superintendent.

However, when the new schools were built, Gus Brown took the helm as superintendent. Brown had the former Gurdon High School football field named after him.

Buses brought children in from Beirne and Whelen to attend classes, but there were several schools in the area.

Capps said Gurdon had two good coaches, and the team, not named at the time, produced good football and baseball teams.

According to Capps, Mildred Sullenberger was a die-hard fan who continually yelled "go devils" at the players during their games, and the name stuck.

Those were good days, he said, with farmers bringing their produce into town from the country, six doctors practiced in Gurdon and there were three drug stores.

The Gurdon Times and White's drug store, in the early part of the 20th century, were located on Main Street where the Masonic Lodge is now.

There was a meat market where Plylers is, and the first ice house was behind it. Meat was hung outside so people to see what they were buying.

Capps, when he was seven, got ice from the ice house to chill soft drinks, which he then sold at his father's market for 5 cents each. At the same time, Rudolph and Co. operated a hardware store where First State Bank is located. It had originally been Putman and Stevens until Rudolph bought them out.

Jack Socal owned a dry good store where Capps went to buy pants, while Lloyd Newton was another in Gurdon who had a grocery store.

"Life was good here then," Capps said. "Things didn't get hard until 1929 with the Depression, then it was bad for everyone."

Even then, he said, much of what is now downtown Gurdon was vacant. There were watering troughs on the street so farmers could water their horses when they came to town.

In those days, he said, Gurdon was still pretty much a cotton town, and the gin stayed busy. It was owned and operated by S. I. Minton.

Gurdon wasn't hurt as bad by the Depression as other places, Capps said. This is because railroad workers still got paid on the first and 15th of the month and paid the bills they owed.

Farmers, and others, grew much of what they needed for food, and a dollar bought a lot of goods. Capps said some of the country people would spend $15 when they came to down and need a truck to get their purchases home. Of course, they only tended to come to town once a month.

The barter system was still in use, with people who had chickens trading eggs for other food.

When the WPA projects began, he said, jobs came with them. This was before WWII.

Lewis Cabe and Chase Stevens headed the Gurdon Board of Trade, which later became the Gurdon Chamber of Commerce, and kept the town going.

There were 15 grocery stores in Gurdon at this time, including a Kroger and Safeway.

While a lot of businesses folded during the Depression, the city, by and large, came out all right, Capps said.

Cabe Lumber was an asset as it kept people working in the woods cutting trees and the railroad was an ever-present boon.

With the arrival of the 1940s, things began to change in Gurdon. The old Epperson Hotel burned, as did the Jones Motel, and young men were gearing up to fight Hitler and the Nazi menace.

Capps served in the U.S. Army from 1942-46, seeing action in Africa, Italy and France, in the transportation corps. His job was to load and unload ships.

"Gurdon looked good when I got back," he said. "It was still about the same, but there were new buildings where others had burned."

The city's population, he said, was about 3,700 at the time, dropping when the railroad left.

Life continued along the same path it normally took during the rest of the 40s, he said, with sports still king and football reigned supreme.

Pool halls also provided entertainment, as did the movie theaters.

Capps bought his father's businesses in 1946. There were about 15 stores in the downtown area.

Capps built a new grocery store on Walnut Street, with his wife, Mary Lou, running a department store and flower shop.

There were more changes for Gurdon in the 1950s. New schools were built, football changed and the old post office burned.

Fires, historically, caused in many of the changes Gurdon has seen throughout its history.

Gurdon breezed through the turbulent 1960s with few problems. Capps said there were no real trouble with integration of the schools.

The hospital being built, along with what was Pineview Nursing Home, were two of the major changes during the 60s for Gurdon.

Dr. Lester Sitzes was the dentist, but after the hospital closed when the other doctors left, Sitzes moved to Hope.

The Devils were well known for their prowess on the baseball diamond, as well as the gridiron. There were also band concerts in the vacant lot where the post office now stands.

Young people joined the scouts, camped, swam in the Gurdon pond, played tennis, basketball (on gravel courts) and baseball. Marbles was popular among the younger set.

Along with the concerts, public speakers came with their political platforms during election years.

In the intervening years little has changed. Businesses have come and gone, people moved in and out and the Devils still play hard-nosed in all sports.

The 1990s saw new schools built along Highway 67, the old primary school renovated, a new football stadium, new gym and, for the first time in Gurdon's long history, a track being built.

Still, Gurdon remains what it has pretty much always been  a small country town.