Tontitown Grapers baseball team at Mantegani Park in Tontitown, circa 1945. From left: Abe Pianalto, Virgil Verucchi Jr., Williard Moon, Paul Pianalto, Bill Fiori, Guy Bariola. Veronica Keith Collection (S-2006-44-5)

A couple years ago I went to my first-ever minor league professional baseball game. It immediately began a love affair that I thought might wane, but it really has not. I went to my first major league game last summer and loved every moment of it. Sadly, this year I have been watching replays of previous games and following players on Twitter and Instagram. We will not discuss the teams (nor sports, nor players) I follow because I understand just how passionate people are about their favorites, but the experience reminds me of an article I read as an undergrad about baseball magic and the incredibly dedicated and detailed rituals players and fans engage in to ensure a win. Next time you watch a basketball player take a free-throw or a pitcher set up, watch for their routine. You won’t be able to unsee it once you find it.

A while back, museum outreach coordinator Susan Young proposed that Aaron Loehndorf (the museum’s collections/education specialist and arguably the biggest baseball fan among the museum staff) and I come up with an “Shiloh Sandwiched-In” program on a local sports topic. Before we agreed to the idea, we wanted to be sure enough material was available to put a program together. Of course there was. Our research focused on the most common form of baseball magic—mascots. Ultimately the Sandwiched-In talk was sidelined and the research went into files on my external hard drive. But the topic stayed in the back of my mind for a long time. If I came across a new team while I was working on something else, I made a note or took a picture with my phone and added the information to my spreadsheet. And then it just sat there. Until now.

Tontitown Grapers baseball team at Mantegani Park in Tontitown, circa 1945. From left: Abe Pianalto, Virgil Verucchi Jr., Williard Moon, Paul Pianalto, Bill Fiori, Guy Bariola. Veronica Keith Collection (S-2006-44-5)

A couple years ago I went to my first-ever minor league professional baseball game. It immediately began a love affair that I thought might wane, but it really has not. I went to my first major league game last summer and loved every moment of it. Sadly, this year I have been watching replays of previous games and following players on Twitter and Instagram. We will not discuss the teams (nor sports, nor players) I follow because I understand just how passionate people are about their favorites, but the experience reminds me of an article I read as an undergrad about baseball magic and the incredibly dedicated and detailed rituals players and fans engage in to ensure a win. Next time you watch a basketball player take a free-throw or a pitcher set up, watch for their routine. You won’t be able to unsee it once you find it.

A while back, museum outreach coordinator Susan Young proposed that Aaron Loehndorf (the museum’s collections/education specialist and arguably the biggest baseball fan among the museum staff) and I come up with an “Shiloh Sandwiched-In” program on a local sports topic. Before we agreed to the idea, we wanted to be sure enough material was available to put a program together. Of course there was. Our research focused on the most common form of baseball magic—mascots. Ultimately the Sandwiched-In talk was sidelined and the research went into files on my external hard drive. But the topic stayed in the back of my mind for a long time. If I came across a new team while I was working on something else, I made a note or took a picture with my phone and added the information to my spreadsheet. And then it just sat there. Until now.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word mascot as “a person or thing that is supposed to bring good luck; (now) esp. something carried or displayed for this purpose. Also: a thing (often an animal or personified character) used by an organization, esp. a sports team, as a symbol or for good luck; an emblem.” The origin of the word is French and first appeared in 1867 in an operetta by Edmond Audran. (This operetta was first performed in 1880, if you would like to know.)

Mascots have evolved in many ways. Early mascots for baseball, for example, were young boys who sat with the team. Now they can be Mudhens, Celery Stalks, or Gus the Pioneer (Gentry Public Schools, Benton County.) Mascots provide entertainment and encourage engagement with the crowds. They dance, they interact directly with fans, and often have a ritual of their own  their team scores. Mascots have even been controversial, most recently with teams using Native American nomenclature. And what if your team has the same mascot as another? Ahem, Fayetteville and Springdale: both towns have used the Bulldog as their mascot for decades. This sparked a friendly rivalry and newspaper accounts differentiated by calling them by the team color (purple for Fayetteville, red for Springdale) rather than Bulldogs when they published a retelling of games between the two teams.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word mascot as “a person or thing that is supposed to bring good luck; (now) esp. something carried or displayed for this purpose. Also: a thing (often an animal or personified character) used by an organization, esp. a sports team, as a symbol or for good luck; an emblem.” The origin of the word is French and first appeared in 1867 in an operetta by Edmond Audran. (This operetta was first performed in 1880, if you would like to know.)

Bentonville baseball team, circa 1912. The team was part of a regional African-American league ranging from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Joplin, Missouri. Back, from left: Thad Wayne, Marion “Sonny” Finney, and Lloyd Trout. Front, from left: Yates Claypool, Virge Black, and John Barker. Elizabeth Robertson Collection (S-95-7-42)

Mascots have evolved in many ways. Early mascots for baseball, for example, were young boys who sat with the team. Now they can be Mudhens, Celery Stalks, or Gus the Pioneer (Gentry Public Schools, Benton County.) Mascots provide entertainment and encourage engagement with the crowds. They dance, they interact directly with fans, and often have a ritual of their own  their team scores. Mascots have even been controversial, most recently with teams using Native American nomenclature. And what if your team has the same mascot as another? Ahem, Fayetteville and Springdale: both towns have used the Bulldog as their mascot for decades. This sparked a friendly rivalry and newspaper accounts differentiated by calling them by the team color (purple for Fayetteville, red for Springdale) rather than Bulldogs when they published a retelling of games between the two teams.

It is not just the mascot that evolved, but the sports and organizations themselves. Over the years, we’ve had our school teams of course, but we also had town teams that would sometimes take on the school team. On July 30, 1937, the Fayetteville Daily Democrat reported on the local WPA baseball league: Greenland beat Tontitown, and Springdale was scheduled to play Fayetteville the following day. We also had professional teams that might play for a season or two and then disappear. These pro teams were funded by local businessmen. And one of the most important changes to sports was desegregation of teams and leagues.

Lest you think I refer to baseball mascots only, I would like to report that on July 14, 1967, the Springdale News recounted a football game between the local police department (the Fuzz) and the fire department (the Hose Jockeys).

Some sports played on the local level were obscure, or so I thought. Does anyone know what shinskinner hockey is? I found this mentioned in one article from 1929. When I did some initial Google-searching I came up with the Bruins. These guys are hockey players today, but once upon a time, there was a soccer team called the Bruins. But in this instance? Basketball, boys and girls. Shinskinner hockey referred to basketball.

Below is the data I have collected thus far, with a lot of help from Aaron. I hope you enjoy exploring the variety of mascots Northwest Arkansas has seen over the years!

Rachel Whitaker is the Shiloh Museum’s research specialist.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word mascot as “a person or thing that is supposed to bring good luck; (now) esp. something carried or displayed for this purpose. Also: a thing (often an animal or personified character) used by an organization, esp. a sports team, as a symbol or for good luck; an emblem.” The origin of the word is French and first appeared in 1867 in an operetta by Edmond Audran. (This operetta was first performed in 1880, if you would like to know.)

Bentonville baseball team, circa 1912. The team was part of a regional African-American league ranging from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Joplin, Missouri. Back, from left: Thad Wayne, Marion “Sonny” Finney, and Lloyd Trout. Front, from left: Yates Claypool, Virge Black, and John Barker. Elizabeth Robertson Collection (S-95-7-42)

Mascots have evolved in many ways. Early mascots for baseball, for example, were young boys who sat with the team. Now they can be Mudhens, Celery Stalks, or Gus the Pioneer (Gentry Public Schools, Benton County.) Mascots provide entertainment and encourage engagement with the crowds. They dance, they interact directly with fans, and often have a ritual of their own  their team scores. Mascots have even been controversial, most recently with teams using Native American nomenclature. And what if your team has the same mascot as another? Ahem, Fayetteville and Springdale: both towns have used the Bulldog as their mascot for decades. This sparked a friendly rivalry and newspaper accounts differentiated by calling them by the team color (purple for Fayetteville, red for Springdale) rather than Bulldogs when they published a retelling of games between the two teams.

It is not just the mascot that evolved, but the sports and organizations themselves. Over the years, we’ve had our school teams of course, but we also had town teams that would sometimes take on the school team. On July 30, 1937, the Fayetteville Daily Democrat reported on the local WPA baseball league: Greenland beat Tontitown, and Springdale was scheduled to play Fayetteville the following day. We also had professional teams that might play for a season or two and then disappear. These pro teams were funded by local businessmen. And one of the most important changes to sports was desegregation of teams and leagues.

Lest you think I refer to baseball mascots only, I would like to report that on July 14, 1967, the Springdale News recounted a football game between the local police department (the Fuzz) and the fire department (the Hose Jockeys).

Some sports played on the local level were obscure, or so I thought. Does anyone know what shinskinner hockey is? I found this mentioned in one article from 1929. When I did some initial Google-searching I came up with the Bruins. These guys are hockey players today, but once upon a time, there was a soccer team called the Bruins. But in this instance? Basketball, boys and girls. Shinskinner hockey referred to basketball.

Below is the data I have collected thus far, with a lot of help from Aaron. I hope you enjoy exploring the variety of mascots Northwest Arkansas has seen over the years!

Rachel Whitaker is the Shiloh Museum’s research specialist.

Growing up in the south, I came to appreciate the art of embellishing a story. You never outright lie; you simply over-emphasize certain aspects of the truth and leave out the boring and irrelevant bits. As both a librarian and a historian, I have also learned that often the truth is stranger than fiction—no embellishment needed. So when I come across a peculiar image or just something different in our photo collection, I often wonder just what the story behind the image is. Some of them you know had to be a good one. Who were these people? And why were they doing that? Or what is really going on here?

Below you will find some images from our collection that are just fun. A couple of them have me scratching my head a little.

Asa Barlett Coger (right) and an unidentified friend, St. Paul (Madison County), circa 1918. Naomi Coger Miller Collection (S-2000-106-13)

The question here is, what would possess two grown men to climb a tree? You know that when they told this story (if they ever did!) it was likely one of those “you had to be there” moments.

Here’s what I can tell you about Asa Coger, the man on the right. He was born October 8, 1880, to Franklin Monroe and Lucinda Jane Davis Coger.  He died January 16, 1978, and is buried next to his wife, Amanda Ethel Bedingfield Coger, in Hindsville Cemetery (Madison County). He appears on the 1900 census as “H. B. Coger” and his home is in War Eagle, Benton County. He and Ethel married on January 17, 1907, in Madison County. In 1910, they lived in Hilburn township (Madison County) and he was a druggist. Asa Coger’s World War I draft card reveals that he was average height and build, with blue eyes and light-colored hair. In 1920, the Cogers returned to War Eagle. Drug Trade Weekly: A Commercial Publication for Druggists noted that in 1921, “Asa B. Coger, Huntsville, Ark., who has been engaged in the drug business for several years will erect a large drug store at Springdale.” His World War II draft card indicates a 61-year-old man who is self-employed as the owner of Coger Drug Store on Emma Avenue in Springdale.

While I was able to determine who he was and what he accomplished with his life, I still do not know why a man who was already engaged as a pharmacist was hanging upside-down from a tree limb.

Alfred Thomas Smith, Hot Springs, Arkansas, circa 1915. P. J. Smith Collection (S-87-259-18)

The alligator wearing your hat says it all, right? Here’s the thing, the photo was taken in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Who was this guy? Why was he in Hot Springs? Our database lists him as Alfred Thomas Smith. Based on another Smith family photo I found on a genealogy website, I believe our Alfred Thomas Smith was born August 20, 1861, and died August 31,1924.  He was married to Florence Eli Fitch (1866-1947). In both the 1880 and 1900 censuses, he lived in Madison County. After his marriage to Florence, they lived in Springdale, Arkansas, and, in the 1910 census, he is listed as a farmer. According to the 1920 census, they lived on Holcomb Street in Springdale and his occupation was still farming.

John Blackford (center) and friends, early 1900s. Ardella Braswell Vaughan Collection (S-89-57-72)

This one is described in our database as “men on silly donkeys.” The donor of the photo, Ardella Braswell Vaughan, was born in Green Forest, Arkansas, and lived most of her life in Jasper (Newton County), Arkansas.

The only person identified in the photo is John Blackford (middle), who was a friend of Ardella’s. As far as I can tell, Blackford was born September 10, 1881, and died August 20, 1967. He married Lela E. Bishop. They lived in Johnson and Pope counties in the Arkansas River Valley.

Dr. Alonzo Everding Quinn. June Crane Collection (S-89-12-30)

I must admit, I was a little disappointed to discover this gentleman was a doctor. But then I wondered if he brought his own props for the photo shoot. Surely the photographer did not have a human skull just lying around, right? And did the doctor have this photo displayed in his office?

Dr. Alonzo Everding Quinn was born May 21, 1841, and died March 21, 1910. According to his obituary in the Springdale News, he was a physician in Grandview (Carroll County) for nearly twenty years. In 1860, he was living in Ohio and and was employed as a school teacher. In 1870, Quinn, his wife, and his children lived in Kansas and by 1880, he is listed as a physician in Carroll County, Arkansas.  Dr. Quinn died of blood poisoning and left behind a wife and seven children.

This photo of Dr. Quinn is part of a large collection of glass plate negatives donated to the Shiloh Museum by Dr. Quinn’s granddaughter. The negatives were found in the attic of the Quinn home.

Charles Blanchard, Edinburgh, Scotland, April 1934. Charles Blanchard Collection (S-2001-49-1)

Who doesn’t love a kilt? According to information provided by Charles Blanchard (the subject and donor of this photo), he may have indulged a little too much with some friends and they all decided to go to a photo studio and have their photos taken while dressed like Scotsmen. He also noted that they had to stand very still for the camera.

Charles Theodore Blanchard Sr. was born 14 April 14, 1898, and died July 11, 1984. He was a private first class in the U. S. Army and served during World War I from  April 27,1918, to 2 June 2, 1919. On April 17,1921, he married Thelma Mattocks in Carroll County, Arkansas. After their marriage, they returned to his home state of Iowa and that is where they appear on the 1930 census. In 1940, however, they were in Berryville (Carroll County) and he is manager of an auto services shop.

I’m still kinda curious to know why the man was in Scotland in 1934. Was he serving in a military capacity or just on holiday with some friends?

Rachel Whitaker is the Shiloh Museum’s research specialist.

Norwood School (Benton County, Arkansas), 2015. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

My first major research project for the Shiloh Museum was in preparation of a New Deal photo exhibit set to open in December 2015. In a discussion about the exhibit, it was casually mentioned that the New Deal included the construction of outhouses. It then became a challenge for me to locate these elusive creations.

In search of a listing of New Deal projects completed in our six-county focus area (Benton, Boone, Carroll, Madison, Newton, and Washington counties), I scoured crumbling newspapers, faded and blurred microfilm, various tomes on archaeological research of state and national parks, websites for the National Health Services, local histories, and the National Register of Historic Places. Imagine my delight when I found an article listing 505 sanitary units constructed in Washington County alone. No, you did not misread that: 505!  But that was just a mention of them; not an actual listing of their locations. Still, I was not deterred. The hunt was on!

Allow me to set the stage with a little background on the Depression and the New Deal in Arkansas. In 1927, a great flood devastated much of Arkansas when the Mississippi burst its banks and caused other rivers like the Arkansas, White, and St. Francis to overflow as well. The Red Cross provided relief to those impacted by the months-long flooding. The flood was followed three short years later by a drought. While Arkansas may not have been as impacted by the stock market crash of 1929 as other states, its residents were in dire need when Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933. A testimony to this can be found in the 1935 and 1936 editions of the Springdale News, which list pages and pages of folks so strapped for money that they were delinquent in paying their taxes.

Government relief was by no means a novel concept when Roosevelt took office. His predecessor, Herbert Hoover, had begun his own relief programs with limited success. Whether or not these measures would have been successful in the long run is unknown, because Hoover was not voted in for a second term.

Under Roosevelt’s New Deal, relief efforts were expanded (many of the programs were precursors to contemporary programs). He established a sort of alphabet soup of agencies like the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), the WPA (Works Progress Administration/ Works Project Administration), the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration), FERA (Federal Emergency Relief Administration) and many others. The Social Security Administration was born, as well as reforms and regulatory groups intended to prevent future catastrophic failures. I won’t bore you with the details or the hierarchies, but if you want more information, check out Living New Deal.

Arkansas received more aid per capita than many other states because Arkansas did not generate enough revenue to pull itself out of the mire. (For a state-by-state comparison, see the 1941 report on the WPA.) Arkansas had an agricultural base, but with plummeting prices for crops, there was no way to earn enough to support the state’s families.

Most New Deal programs focused on education and infrastructure. In Arkansas, FERA provided over $600,000 in funds for teacher salaries and schools. FERA also provided access to commodities. Distribution of these commodities led to the need for better roads for deliveries and commissaries where recipients could pick up their supplies. The WPA, NYA (National Youth Administration) and CCC built water towers, post offices, schools, roads, campgrounds, state and municipal parks, dams, canning kitchens, jails and courthouses. Some of these projects were new construction and some were extensive repairs.

Now, back to my research. As of yet I have been unable to locate an exhaustive list of projects completed under the New Deal, so I have begun compiling my own list. (I am currently up to 151 projects that were certainly or likely completed under the New Deal in our six-county region, and I welcome any additions or corrections.) Once my list reached the one hundred mark, I began researching outhouses—or rather, sanitary privies and sanitary units—in earnest, even though I had found only one miserly mention of outhouses among the Northwest Arkansas New Deal projects.

Did you know that there are government publications on the very subject of outhouses? In 1943, E.S. Tisdale, the Sanitary Engineer for the Public Health Service, along with C.H. Atkins, the assistant engineer, published The Sanitary Privy and its Relation to Public Health. Even better is the U.S. Treasury Department and Public Health Service bulletin, The Sanitary Privy, published in the 1930s. This document focuses on the types of outhouses, the pit types, bench types and even a suggested example of text for city ordinances. There are even posters and advertisements to promote the use of these structures.

WPA Poster Collection, Library of Congress

Between 1933 and 1942 over two million sanitary privies were constructed and over 110 million dollars was spent on this effort in the United States.  Arkansas had 53,808 sanitary units constructed within its boundaries. And remember, Washington County, Arkansas had 505. I finally stumbled across a mention in the local newspapers of WPA outhouses in Boxley (Newton County). Unfortunately, my hopes were momentarily dashed when I could not find information about whether or not those outhouses were still in existence. I returned to the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program’s list of historic structures with outhouses in the back of my mind. I was, after all, still compiling a list of WPA construction projects. There I stumbled upon a little gem of information buried in the site description of the National Register nomination for Norwood School in Benton County: a “stone ‘outhouse’ with metal roof, contemporary to the school building, is still on the premises.'”

Still, I did not get my hopes up. It was entirely possible that the outhouse had suffered an untimely demise since the building’s nomination in the 1980s. So one evening I set off along the back roads southeast of Siloam Springs. I had grown up in this part of the world on a dairy farm only a few miles away. How had I not known about this hidden piece of history? Alas, online mapping sent me down and around to Nicodemus community instead of my destination. But I had made it this far. I was not going to give up. At last, I arrived late in the evening at my destination—Norwood School. As I parked in front of the old schoolhouse, I noticed a smaller stone structure, mostly obscured by an old tree.  Cue the choir!  I had found one!  Finally, a New Deal outhouse!

Norwood School’s circa 1937 girls outhouse, 2015.

She was made of rougher stone than the school, more like she was thrown together from leftover pieces of the school building.  A squat companion to the school for the past seventy-eight years, with a hidden opening and pieces of metal bent and slapped jauntily on top, she had stood up to the vines trying to erode her joints and also to the lack of a proper foundation. And the thrills just kept coming. I was surprised to discover that not only had one outhouse survived, but two!

The current owner of the property was kind enough to share what information he had on the school and the outhouses. The school was used as a church during the late 1970s or early 1980s, and the privies were used by the congregation. The girls privy (seen above), has since had the holes (not a single hole unit, this!) boarded over to deter pranksters and unwanted pests. It is located to the left of the school building, camouflaged from the most casual of observers. The other structure, the boys outhouse, sits somewhere to the right, hidden from view. It has been converted into a well-house.

With the use of this now-archaic structure, we moved past the diseases and germs prevalent in previous generations. Likewise, the education programs that accompanied the construction of these humble outbuildings brought a growing awareness of how disposal contaminated water supplies and food. Equally important, the construction of outhouses created jobs through programs like the WPA, CCC and CWA. We laugh now and poke fun at her, but in reality, the outhouse was an important part of the New Deal—after all, they built over two million of them.

I pulled away from Norwood School, exhilarated by my find. Indiana Jones I was not, but I had rediscovered that elusive artifact of civilization, the New Deal outhouse.

Like a kid in a candy store, I look forward to my next research project and what extraordinary ephemera I might discover along the way.

Rachel Whitaker is the Shiloh Museum’s research specialist.