The Mena weekly star., 1921-11-03
COMMERCIAL
 CLUB PICKUPS 5

That other interests aside from Mena see the great need of an outlet for auto traffic north of Mena is evil dcnced in a letter recently received by the secretary from T. M Baird, secre- tary of the Heavener Booster Club. Mir. Baird suggests a meeting of rep rcsentatives of the commercial clubs of Mena, Poteau, Heavener and Fort Smith to work out plan of opening the highway thru Eagle Gap. MT Baird proposes that the road be open along the line of the Kansas City i Southern Railway by way of Eagle ton, Rich Mountain and fogei and Page. Ok, and thence to Heavener and Fort Smith. Mena is going to CO., operate with this movement, but Sec retary Baird has already been writ ten that Polk county has made 3 good start on this highway, payins for tha work out of the county general fund, supplemented by q subscription of about $500 made by the business in- terests in Meua The Polk county program, however, does not contem- plae running the road by way of Fogel and Page, but instead the plan is to run t by Eagleton to the Forest Ranger Station, thence to Blackfork post0flice. and from thence either to Fort Smith by way of Heayener, or Waldron. Mir. Baird has also been in- 1 formed that the farmers of the Black i fork community are doing their part i in building the road from the Scott Polk county line north.
 There has not been much publicity given lately to the movement to To- cate the Methodist Assembly at Mena, and yet work is being done looking toward that end by q committee of the Commercial Club. The Rev MT. Har- rell of the First M. E. Church, South, heads this committee with the secre- tary of the Commercial Club as sec retary. A site has been selected, and subcommittee has been appointed to secure options on the land embraced in that site, which includes some 632 acres. Another committee has inves- | tigated the source of water supply. As soon as the options are secured, a campaign will be started to secure pledges for the funds necessary to buy the land and for an additional bonus. In the meantime the secretry has been communicating with some of 1 the Commissioners, inviting them to be the guests of the city while here to look over the prospective site. Some of the Commissioners have already written, expressing a willingness to come in the event that at the coming ] conferences they are chosen as mem bers of the permanent commission. i Still another move has been to get in communication with influential pas tors and laymen of the Southern church. asking them to write commits sioners to come to Mena. The interest that some local folks have in this movement has been manifested by the fact that one man at the last meeting of the committee wrote his check for S100 to be used in paving the preliminary expenses.
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 During the last three weeks the secretary has been straining every ef- 1 fort to work out a way to help the growers save the sweet potato crop, succeeding in getting the directors of i the curing house to open the same both for storage purposes and to buy They are paying 90 cents per bushel and furnishing the crate. The stor- age and curing fee is 25 cents per bushel for the season. Still another outlet for the crop of 1921 has been the Mountain View cannery operated 1 by J. D. Molter, with R. Golf cooper ating in buying the Sweets" at 35 cents per bushel, field run. The can nery when in operation puts up from ,000 to 1900 cans per day, and to date has used between 400 and 800 bushels of potatoes. Another big job that has confronted this office in helping to handle the crop has been to secure crates. Effort was made to get them from Texarkana, DeQueen and other points, and for time it was thought they could be made by the Minera Lumber Company. Finally, A. c. Higginbottom of the Isett Lumber Company agreed to furnish what was needed to save the crop, making the first shipment from Wickes on Tues day.
 Mrs. Mary Austin, home demon stration agent, cooperating with the Consolidated Fruit Growers of Cali fornia, gave demonstrations last Fri day and Saturday at the Jackson Fur niture Store in making short cake with the dried fruit products furn- ished by the company. The contest on Friday was for the Community Club ladies. The prizes were won by Mrs. Peter McWilliam, Mrs. w. T. Morgan and Mrs. Nj. Seizt, the former of the Acorn community club and the two latter from the Mountain View club. located southeast of Mena. The prizes consisted of $5 in money, 5 pounds of dried peaches and flour sitter, being awarded to the ladies in the order given.
 On Saturday the contest was for the club girls of the county, and in this Miss Pearl Barron of Acorn won first. Miss Madge Roop of Posey Hollow. second and Miss Cleo Williams of Shady Grove third The prizes were the same as, for the ladies, namely S5 in money five pounds of Blue Ribbon dried peaches and flour sitter. The first and second prizes were furnished by the Consolidated Fruit Growers. and the money for the third prizes was donated by B. S. Petehsh of Acorn.
 ". A. Wilson of the Mena Hard ware Company gave the use of the oil stove for the contest Neil Riding of the Model Grocery furnished the Red Top four and Frank R. Watson of the Variety store furnished the utensils used in the contest.
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 The dairy industry was given fine EH0Ef 4 H..