The Mena weekly star., 1919-08-21
|23RD Anniversary
| OF MENA'S BIRTH.
On August 10, 1896, The Star Issued
the First of Three Daily Papers, and
This Has Since Been the Birth
day of the City.


birthday. Twenty-three years sg'
Mena was an infant municipality,
city in swaddling clothes, so to speak
At present it is one of the live spots
in the livest state in the Union, anC
getting better every minute.
Mena was born veritable babe il
the woods. Twenty three years ag'
this month this was city of tents anC
wooden shacks. The log cabin tina
stood in the woods on the townsite was
the mansion of the day, The city o.
concrete, stone and brick buildings
that exists today in Mena was only 8
dream twenty three years ago.
The year 1896 is historic because Of
several things. Mena was born in
August of that year. William Jen-
nings Bryan refused to let mankind be
crucified on a cross of gold that year
and made his first race for the pres
idency. The Kansas City Southern
railway was only partially completed
airplanes were unknown and every
four years we had a political cam
paign in which the voters carried oil
torches in parades and went home
more or less inebriated.
Them was the good old days. Mena
came into being at this time. Her
start in life was a rough one, if the
testimony of the old times is to be be-
lived, but the young city gradually
wore off the uneven spots of its ex-
istence and became a place of polish
and elegance.
In August, 1896, there were no tele-
phones, no electric lights, no sewers,
no water system, no mail carriers, nor
none of the many other modern con-
veniences that the city now enjoys.
But it was city with prospectes; it
contained men and women who had
faith in the future of the little town
and who believed in working, yea even
fighting, to attain their ideals.
The evolution of Mena, collection
of tents and box houses, construc-
ton camp town, into youthful metro
polls, with modern advantages, has
been gradual, but it has been sure,
thanks to the high class of those who
are responsible for its origin.
Some cities fix their natal day by
some special occurrence on some par
ticular day and this is true of Mena,
tho the reason for selection is per-
haps different than in any other city.
Mena locates her birthday on the day
of the first issue of the Mena Star,
which was on August 10, 1896.
The Star was among the first of
Mcna's institutions and it still shines
on behalf of the city of its first loca-
ton. In looking over copy of that
first issue of The Star, one finds but
few familiar names.
John H. Hamilton was real estate
dealer then as he is now. He has
the distinction with two other Mena
residents of being still in the same
business he was at the time Mena was
born.
Those other two men are George w.
Petty and Sam Badt. The we'll known
Southside merchant didn't have his
present brick building tho, to do bust
ness in. His store was a frame shack,
but it was one of the busy places in
the infant town. Sam Badt sold goods
in Mena twenty-three years ago, but
he had different kind of structure to
shelter his goods and customers. His
first store was a tent, which sufficed
until he could get frame, building.
Among the advertising carried by
The Star in it's earliest issues are
found such names as Green, Lewis &
Company, leading merchants. The
Star Pharmacy was owned by F. C,
Savage. Mrs. B. A. Myers was man
ager of the X. C. Eating House. ]. C.
Kurz sold harness, and w. A. Reese
was an NJ. d.
The City Bakery was owned by NJ.
C. Cayce, and J. c. Stalcup & Co., ad-
vertised they were too busy to write
an ad. Petros Brothers sold lumber;
J. w. Archer was a photographer
Dickover & Co., kept a restaurant;
Mcdaniel & Whybark were painters
and Rause & Fudge were also bust
ness men.
These names are all strange now to
Mena readers now. Their owners have
either passed on beyond or moved
away from Mena. But The Star is
still here and Mena is here and the
once little construction camp is get
ting better every year-one of the
very best places in the world in which
TO live and enjoy the living.