Schools, DeSoto Parish, La - Keatchie Schedules Kountry Festival Submitted by: Courtney Tompkins Email: tompkin@c2i2.com Source: The Times Update, Shreveport-Bossier, Sunday Oct. 26, 1980, Section E, p. 2 --------------------------------- ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** ---------------------------------------------------- The first Keatchie Kountry Festival, sponsored by the Keatchie-Shiloh Volunteer Fire Department, has been scheduled for 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1. Among the featured highlights of the festival, which will be an annual event, are tours of the beautiful antebellum churches and the Confederate Cemetery via mule-drawn wagons from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a brief ceremony at the cemetery set for noon. The old Masonic Hall will be open for tours and will house a special heritage exhibit throughout the day. Other special events and attractions will include demonstrations in making bricks and soap, competitive folk games, bluegrass music, brief patriot speeches, a raffle and a benefit auction. Also, there will be a number of booths with handmade arts and crafts on display and for sale. Members of the fire department's auxiliary, the Home. Demonstration groups and others in the Keatchie- Shiloh area have been working for months making special items for the festival. There will be a greased pig contest, egg -toss contest and wagon rides for the youngsters. A hunter's chili supper will be served from 4 until 8 p.m. According to Travis Whitfield, on of the coordinator's of the event, it will be "all you can eat" for $3. Proceeds from the event will go to the newly organized volunteer fire department. The department has one truck stationed at Keatchie and hopes to get a second one to house at nearby Shiloh. The festival also is designed to encourage interest in Keatchie's history and to consider the possibility of applying for a designation of historic district in the National Register of Historic Places. Keatchie is located in a sharp bend of Louisiana Highway 5, west of Kickapoo on the Mansfield Road and about 30 minutes from Shreveport. It came to life in the 1840's; grew up in the 1850's and suffered the devastation of war in the 1860's. It rallied and thrived as a rural community on the road to Houston through the turn of the century -- and then time seemed to stand still. No one is sure just when the first settler's house went up in the Keatchie vicinity, although it is known that one log house was there by 1835. About this time, or soon after families were trekking westward from other southern states, and the ancestors of many Caddo and DeSoto residents became landowners in the rolling hills of DeSoto Parish. They came in wagons and buggies, on mules and horses, alone and in groups over a period of years. Their names were Gatlin, Fullilove, Mason, Gamble, Foster, Graves, Fisher, McMichael, Evans, Hungerford, Williams, Rochelle, Crawford, Talbert, Hollingsworth, Schuler, Harries, Storey, Swearingen, Moseley, Harris, Peyton, Nelson, Sheller, McMillan, Spell, Reacher, Rich, Wise, Lee, Horn Parson, Moore, Spilker, Hall, Horn, Cathey, Croswell, Eells, Lacy, Flagg, Pugh, Jones and others. They farmed their lands and reared their families, and Keatchie was a vital link with each other. In the 1840's, Henry and T. P. Fullilove, planters from Oglethorpe County, Ga., built a store by the side of the main road with the sharp turn. The three- story structure of hand-hewn Louisiana pine is still standing, and one can almost see the early landowners visiting on the front porch or hurrying in and out the large front doors with barrels of flour, sacks of seed, whiskey, bolts of cloth and household goods. Unassembled wagons and buggies were stored on the third floor and were raised and lowered by means of a "windless" elevator near the rear of the store. Also in the store was the necessary undertaker's corner with coffins, shrouds and other materials used for burials. A desk and chairs were located in front of a fireplace on the balcony, and it was here that landowners sat to pay off their lands in the later days of tenant farming. During its many years of operation, the store changed hands only three times - from the Fulliloves to G. W. Peyton, then to the Nelson brothers and to A. W. and J. E. Wyatt. It is now owned by a descendant of Peyton. Next door was the Mason-Fullilove Store, now the site of the Masonic Lodge. Mason was Col. John Randolph Mason, who married a daughter of John Aiken Gamble, owner of the land where Mansfield now stands. The store occupied the first floor and the Masonic Lodge (Liberty, Lodge No. 123), organized in 1853, met on the second floor. The original building, now known as the Masonic Hall was destroyed by a tornado in 1892 and the present structure was erected the following year. With the exception of the Civil War years, Liberty Lodge No. 123 has been meeting regularly at the same site for 127 years. The original Bible lies on the altar, and the original jewels cast of melted silver U.S. coins that were presented at the first meeting in 1853 are still worn by the Masonic officers. And then there are the churches - beautiful, stark-white churches of three denominations, steeped in history and set among the greenery of the area. While apart from one another, the ... The Keatchie Baptist Church, on the ... of town was originally known as the Good Hope Church. It was built in 1852 and was first pastored by the Rev. A. N. Backus, a Kentuckian, Backus arrived in Keatchie in 1851 and realized the need for both a church and an institution of learning. As soon as the church became a reality, Backus sought and obtained the financial backing of T. M. Gatlin, one of the leading planters, to establish Keatchie College. The first unit, containing a chapel and classrooms, was erected in 1853 on land given by Gatlin directly across the road from the Baptist Church. The dormitories and dining hall were added in 1855, and the college opened its door to students the following year. It was first called the Keatchie Female College and later became the Keatchie Baptist Union Male and Female College. For nearly 60 years, the college was well-known and respected institution and it boasted alumni in nearly all states of the nation. In 1914, the college closed its doors and unfortunately, the magnificent buildings were torn down in 1926. The only interruption in education at the college came during the Civil War. But even then it played a vital role in the area. After the Battle of Mansfield in April 1865, the buildings were used as a hospital. The wounded both Confederate and Union, were transported by wagon from the battlefield for medical care. The hospital was badly understaffed and local women and relatives of the wounded served as nurses. While many of the hundreds of soldiers recovered, others died in Keatchie. And this leads us to the nearby Confederate Cemetery, almost completely shaded by stately pine trees. Confederate and Union soldiers, who died at the temporary hospital, were buried side by side. Small white markers and a few larger stones, jutting just above a bed of pine needles covering the area, mark the final resting places of 76 Civil War dead. Members of the Keatchie-Shiloh Volunteer Fire Department, sponsors of the Keatchie-Shiloh Volunteer Fire Department, sponsors of the Keatchie Kountry Festival scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 1, recently spent many hours cleaning the cemetery. Also in the Keatchie area are a number of beautiful antebellum homes. Among these are the Fullilove-Talbert House, owned by Mr. and Mrs. Donald B. Fisher (he is a descendant of the Fishers who bought the old college when it closed, and she is tremendously interested in the area's history); the Gatlin Plantation home, now owned by Jim Shaw; the Peyton House, owned by O. C. Cathey; the Crawford-Williams House, owned by Williams heirs; the Swearingen House, owned by Robbie Guildmeister; the Spell-Fisher House, owned by Fisher heirs; and the Flagg-Scheller House owned by Frank Scheller. Travis Whitfield, Keatchie artist and one of the coordinators of the Keatchie Kountry Festival, and many other interested residents are looking into the possiblity of applying for the designation of a historical district for Keatchie in the National Register of Historic Places. When you're in Keatchie, walk around and talk to the residents. Whitfield, Mrs. Fisher, Mrs. F .C. Gatlin (remarkably versed in community history), Major Ralph Langer, Fire Chief Joe Magee and many others will be happy to tell you the story of Keatchie, its buildings and its early settlers. It will be an interesting walk and an interesting story.