The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-12
From the Louiville courier-Journal

A CCORDlNG to a HopkinSville cor
 "A respondent a concrete dam re- gently built across Little river, which runs through Hopkinsville, has made that stream popular bathing place. Society has taken to the waters of Little river like the proverbial duck, and the young people are having the time of their lives.
 Little river is not new as a bathing place. But before the days of the con- crete dam-30 years ago when the dam above Woods flour mill deepened the channel of the stream somewhat-there was a great deal of 'swimmin ' in Lit tie river. It was not called bathing and no bathing suits were worn. The swim mers were, of course, all boys and the society reporter was not expected to at tend
 There was rather high mud bank on one side of the stream opposite lime stone ledge which made wholly accep- table diving place on the other side
 Upon the ledge the summer clothing or all of the boys in Hopkinsville who be- longed to the gang" that exercised sov- ereignty over the river from the ledge to the mill dam could be found at any time of day, and was found sometimes by members of other gangs, and tied In knots, the knots dampened to make them as nearly gordian as possible
 A mud hole-although that was not the popular name for it-was made by wet ting the high bank from the top of the nd if11pS hatteau was dragged up the bank and turned bottom upwards, one end being laid upon the top of the fence which ran close to the bank. so that the length of the mud slide could be doubled by coating the bottom of the boat with slick black mud scooped from the oozy mire at the edge of the water, where the big bull frogs sat and called Knee deep" in comic op- era bass after the boys had gone home to supper A boy of average weight, op- erating under the law of gravitation, at tained a speed of about a mile in 30 sec onds by the time he shot from the lower end of the batteau and struck the middle of the slide from which he drove foot foremost into the tepid stream The mud turtles deserted that part of Little river during the day for fear that their smells might be cracked by being sat upon at high rate of speed by a patron or the slide The fish joined the turtles in clear ing out.
 Sometimes members of some other gang sa,ted the slide with small stones which thev cIeverly concealed just under the surface. In that event the first boy who slid down it reached the water some- what disfigured and ate his meals stand ing for the next week, but he was usually able to take part in the punitive expedi- ton that followed.
 Way down below the mill dam, almost to the "trussel," there was a shallower swimming hole patronized by small boys who had not learned to swim sufficiently well to enjoy being ducked in the deeps above the mill dam, and those who did mt wish to be plastered with mud for dar- ing to leave the river before the gang saw fit to adjourn in a body huge flat rock lay half in the water and half out, under the shade of an overhanging syca- more It formed a convenient dressing room which had one disadvantage. A Eoy standing upon the rock balancing | upon one foot while trying to run the other into the leg of his knickerbockers | sometimes slipped, when his foot or the | rock was wet and slid back into the water with his clothes. That was especially unfortunate in the case of the fellow who had been promised a sound larrupin' " If | he should be caught in the river or con- vlcted of having been there. However. il
 was possible to sit in the sun and dry out ! if the accident occurred early enough 1T the afternoon, or during the forenoon | Of course there may be more bathing
 suit bathing in Little river as result
 of the concrete dam than was ever hearc l of before. In fact. in the old days tn, rtter shamelessness of the gang wouie
 have so embarrassed any mollycoddi'
 venturing to wear a bathing suit ane bring his best girl to the swimming hoi'
 that he would never have attempted I | again
 In those days "swimmin' was not 1 social function. It was mere obedience
 to an instinct. like footing an orchard o
 a melon patch, fighting a colony Of bum
 ble bees, waging intending warfare witt