May means Toad Suck Daze

Piloting steamboats up the Arkansas River in the 1800s could make a man mighty thirsty, and when the river dropped below navigational levels it was just the excuse needed by captains and crew to disembark for alcoholic refreshments.

One such spot was near present-day Conway, Arkansas. While the steamboat personnel waited for the river to rise, local tavern owners made a killing selling them drinks. Residents, however, were not as happy to see the steamboat guys arrive and drink to abandon. They were known to remark, “They suck on the bottle ‘til they swell up like toads.”

That spot on the river became “Toad Suck.”

Naturally, there’s a festival.

This weekend will be the 37th annual Toad Suck Daze (Friday through Sunday, May 3-5, 2019) covering eight city blocks in downtown Conway. The original festival was held at Toad Suck Park near the Toad Suck Ferry Lock and Dam but moved to Conway after the river flooded in 1990.   

The annual fete includes live music performances, arts and crafts, 10K/5K race and the Tour de Toad bike race, “Toad Market,” children’s activities, carnival rides and, yes, the World Championship Toad Races. Proceeds benefit a scholarship program to promote higher education in the county. And admission is free. 

Downtown Conway

“To date,” according to the festival website, “$1.7 million was raised for scholarships, scholarship endowments and, more recently, preschool funding.

Don’t be put off by the name; this is one great festival. Conway’s Toad Suck Daze Festival has won numerous medals, including three gold, from the International Festivals and Events Association Convention.

For more information on the Toad Suck Daze, visit http://toadsuck.org/.

Cheré Coen is an award-winning travel writer specializing in the Deep South. She is also the author of “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History,” “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country: A Historic Guide to Acadiana” and co-author of “Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets.” Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.

The Louisiana town that moved to Arizona

Excerpted from "Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History" by Cheré Coen

            William M. Cady and his Cady Lumber Company established two mills at McNary, Louisiana, a town 25 miles southwest of Alexandria that was chartered in 1913. In the mills’ heyday, McNary had a population of nearly 3,000 residents with a church, school, post office, fully-staffed hospital, swimming pool, depot and a large theater.

           In 1923, however, Cady decided to move his operation to Cooley, Arizona, a small Native American village about 150 miles from Flagstaff named for Colonel Corridon Cooley, head of the Apache scouts. The Cady Lumber Company — comprised of William M. Cady, Alfred Smith and James McNary — purchased the Apache Lumber Company, its Ponderosa Pine timber leases, the accompanying Apache Railway and sawmill.

            But Cady didn’t just take the business to Arizona, he took the whole town of McNary with him. In January 1924, Cady loaded up trains with Cady employees and all their possessions, plus the logging and sawmill machinery, and moved the entire operation to Cooley, Arizona.

            “The tragedy of the timberland was symbolized Monday when the last of McNary, Louisiana, moved away in a twenty-one coach train bound for the new village of McNary, Arizona,” wrote Clare D’Artois Leper in “Louisiana Place Names: Popular, Unusual, and Forgotten Stories of Towns, Cities, Plantations, Bayous and Even Some Cemeteries,” quoting a story from the October 1924 American Forests and Forest Life magazine. “As the forests became denuded of pines, the employers of the village began looking about for a new site. They found it in Arizona.”

            Because Cady had built a name for himself at McNary, Louisiana, the town of Cooley was later changed to McNary, Arizona.

            “Most of the Central Louisianans who went to Arizona with the Cady Lumber Company stayed in their newfound McNary for at least seven years,” said Mrs. N.H. Goff of Alexandria who was raised in McNary and traveled to Arizona with most of her family. She was quoted in Jim Hammock’s Alexandria Town Talk newspaper column of July 16, 1967.  “They then began drifting to other points in the West, and many returned to Central Louisiana.” Goff added that the cold weather may have contributed to their return.

            Local Native Americans were hired as well, Goff said, but preferred their native housing and moved out.

            The abandonment of its industry and people failed to make McNary, Louisiana, a ghost town but it struggled to survive. In 1929, its charter became inactive. The community of several hundred residents petitioned the state to have its charter revived and the town was reestablished in 1965. Today, several of the original mill town houses remain and remnants of the drying kilns used at both mills can be spotted in the countryside on the outskirts of town.
            Not too long after McNary moved to Arizona, John D. Clark and Charles Linze McNary — no relation to the town — authored the Clarke-McNary Act of 1924 to authorize the government to buy “cut-over” timber land, or land stripped of its trees. Since an enabling act in Louisiana prevented such acquisitions within the state, Alexandria naturalist Caroline Dorman wrote legislation that was passed in Baton Rouge with lumberman Henry Hardtner’s assistance to preserve forests in central Louisiana. In 1928 the Kisatchie, Catahoula and Vernon units of the Kisatchie National Forest were established with more acreage bought at later dates.

A bone to pick with Lizzie

At the Atlanta History Center in Buckhead, just outside the heart of Atlanta, lies a sweetheart pin made from a most unusual item. Abigail Arline of Albany, Georgia, was working in a hospital as a nurse during the Civil War. A wounded Confederate soldier was admitted and had to have his leg amputated. After the surgery, the soldier took a piece of his leg that had been cut from his body and inscribed his name on the bone to give to his sweetheart, a girl named Lizzie. The soldier ended up dying of his wounds so nurse Abigail was not able to pass on the pin because no one knew the name of the soldier or the full name of the recipient. It exists on display at the history center.

Cheré Dastugue Coen is an international travel writer and the author of “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History,” “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country: A Historic Guide to Acadiana” and co-author of “Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets.” She also writes Louisiana romances under the pen name of Cherie Claire, “A Cajun Dream” and “The Letter.” Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.