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From:
Subject: Re: [ARCRAWFO] Alma or Dora?
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 09:38:23 EST


'Scuse me for horning in

'Dora' at the turn of 1900 would have been reached by a different rail line
than Alma, probably transfer at Van Buren. My 1910 map of Arkansas shows Dora
just northwest of Van Buren.... Of course the two are not so far apart that
travel by horseback or buggy or stage line would not have been possible...the
roads were mostly pretty minimal, and many places we think of as 'towns'
would really have been just walk-in Post-Office General Stores, possibly
accompanied by other stores, railway or stage stops--the railroads in those times
still made a lot of local stops, and those old folks used them for travel where
we would just jump in the car--The physical framework of those times was so
different from ours...I am told that the nearest RR scheduled stop is now at
Tulsa, out of state and over the horizon. Both Dora and Alma appear on current
road maps.This is county-government territory, of course, so you can't
really think 'town'....Also, no daily delivery of mail--they would walk in to the
PO, maybe some distance away, and maybe not every week. Also, maybe no
'address' as we think of it now. And the 'Frisco' line was a kind of octopus
corporation that kept taking over more and more separate local RR's, so you have
to keep close track of which RR and at what time....Steamboat traffic on the
river was still alive, and there were probably a lot of small local one-man
ferry operations that you wouldn't be able to find on any map...now or then

Duncan the Librarian

(mailto:)
Yarmouth Port, MA



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