Resuming our Arkansas Memories tour the next morning, Monday, November 2, 2009, we started off the morning early (well, some of us – I was still down in bed) in our rental house, where the Andrews/Jolly clan gathered on the deck:
Dickie, Jimmy, “Tommy,” Debbie and cousin, Oliver looked bright and happy. The day was gorgeous and they were ready to go.
We had had such a great buffet brunch the morning before nearby that we decided to go there again to take Oliver. However, fate had other plans because when we arrived at the Gaston Resort near Bull Shoals Lake on the White River, the electricity had been out for 45 minutes. We were totally bummed out and tried to figure out where we could get a good breakfast on a Monday morning among the small towns around. Turned out to be nowhere, so we headed back over to Mountain Home, the largest town around, to see what was cookin’.
Found a great little local cafe and chowed down, one of our favorite things to do, although somehow the whole four days we managed only two meals a day, the days being so full of sightseeing with no places around at all to eat.
(Left to right, Steve (Debbie’s husband), Oliver, Tom, me, Jimmy, Arlinda, Dickie, Joyce and Debbie.)
Now we were on our way, once again. And, once again, we had to take the “old highway” over to Flippin, which meant going through Cotter again. When we got there it was late morning but not much was going on. It looked rather deserted.
It also didn’t look like much of a town. It lacked the quaintness and charm of Cotter and we’d been to so many of these small places in search of old theaters and houses that I decided all of these Flippin towns looked alike. 
In fact, we couldn’t find where the theater had been in Flippin, so went in search of where the boys had lived. This was the only little house they remembered there and Oliver couldn’t remember where he had lived, although he knew it was nearby.
We were about ready to go on through town when we saw an interesting sign, so turned down the street there to see what it was. This is what we found. What’a ya think?
We couldn’t believe it, but Dickie & Jimmy said that the city jail in Cotter had been nearly identical in size and construction. It was tiny, y’all. And really intimidating to me, who is terribly claustrophobic. It was creepy and scary. Then Dickie told us that when they lived in Cotter, a feeble minded man who worked for their dad at the Paradise Theater was jailed one night in the Cotter jail, down near the White River, after some kind of altercation. During the night a fire broke out and the man was killed in the jail.
All of this, of course, prompted Tom & Oliver & Steve to get out of the van to go peek in the barred door of the jail. They nearly had heart attacks on the spot when they peered into the inky blackness inside. Literally.
Here’s what they saw, except this was taken with a flash on the camera and not in the pitch black.
They thought it was a real man in there when they peeked in. Scared them all three. Pretty grim jail, if you ask me! And, right in the middle of a neighborhood, not “downtown,” such as it was. Although, back in 1928 when it was built, there probably wasn’t anything around it at all for a long ways. (If you look closely, you can see the “throne” seat at the back. From the outside back you see where it just would have drained down on the ground. Not very sanitary to say the least, but then, I suppose it was the “modern” thing at the time. Indoors, anyway. Of a sort. My goodness!
That stop abruptly ended our Flippin tour, so we headed on over to Yellville, where we’ll pick up next time. I leave you with one more photo to ponder and a question (of course) to think about and comment on. What was the deal with the Legion Hall below in Yellville and the Andrews/Jolly clan do you suppose? Let’s hear it.
Be back Monday! Cheers & have a great and blessed weekend y’all! Dee
Dee Andrews
Great pics and post. What a fun trip!
I haven’t a clue to your question, so I will make a random guess. Friday/Saturday night dances? Not sure if you mean then or now. I’m still clueless.
It is where Tom had his first eleven beers. But he doesn’t remember it. (Of course, he says, “I never had any flippin’ beer!”)
What? No outside picture of the jail’s indoor plumbing? Of all the pictures you could have taken for this blog and you decided to post some Legion hall instead of the backside of the jail’s toilet?? What kind of a blog are you running here?
As for your question: I would have guessed where they learned to dance and drink. Or drink and dance, as the progression might have been. I like Patrick’s comment.
After the picture of the jail, my intuitive juices just stopped flowing, so I’m glad somebody else had some good ideas about the Legion Hall. Uh, well, maybe………….the boys learned to drink and dance there which led to fisticuffs which landed them in the jail????