After the mill run ended at the Peason Mill in 1935, many of the families followed the mill to Holipaw, Florida to continue working during the Depression. But many families were left in the Peason, Plainview, and Cenchrea Communities in Sabine Parish. These families were subsistence farmers who grew all their food. And after the mill town closed there was not much entertainment for the children and teenagers. And after hoeing cotton all day they wanted entertainment.
There were two things these Depression Era kids had for entertainment. That was swimming in Wolfprong Creek and setting “drop hooks” in the creek ! One of my uncles told me of a Saturday afternoon expedition to the creek with several of the local boys. They swam for a while in the creek then they cut them a bunch of gum runners to use as poles for the drop hooks. They went up the creek setting the lines in the deeper holes of water. One of the boys who was ahead of the others shouted back “what is that thang”?
The other boys ran up and they all began to look at this strange critter. They had never seen such a critter as this in the woods around their homes. One of the boys then said “let’s catch’em” ! And the race was on up and down Wolfprong Creek bottom ! The critter could sure run fast and was in and around the boys. Just about the time the boys were exhausted, the critter went into a hole in the ground. “Let’s dig’em out”!
Having only their bare hands the boys began to dig. Then they got to thinking they had to be very careful as they dug. They didn’t want to dig out a bad snake or a mean animal. So they dug and finally could see the critter. One of the boys went and got a pine knot and when the others dragged the unknown critter out he conked it on the head and killed it.
As they walked around and around and around the critter they just could not figure out what this thing actually was. They had never even seen a picture of something like this in their school books at Plainview School. Then one of the boys had a great plan.
“Let’s carry this thing to Mt. Carmel. They just got a new Agriculture Teacher right out of LSU who can tell us what this thing is”. They all agreed that was the thing to do and they headed out on foot to the Mt. Carmel Community. They got to the Agriculture Teacher’s home and knocked on the door and he came out. They explained they had killed and unknown critter and could he see if he could identify it. The Agriculture Teacher walked out in the yard where the boys were standing around the critter. He looked at all the boys then he began to laugh loudly. “Boy’s ya’ll have killed the first armadillo in Sabine Parish!” So this wild thang had been identified. And what a big story they had to tell everyone in the local communities about killing this wild unknown critter! And now days we are overrun with armadillo’s! But these boy’s protected their communities by killing this unknown beast that we see every day!