Parish History: W. L. "Buck" Sowers, 1976, Winn Parish, LA. Submitted by Greggory E. Davies, 120 Ted Price Lane, Winnfield, LA 71483 ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** From: June 9, 1976 Winn Parish Enterprise News-American One Man's Museum: Sowers Has Got It You say you'd like to see a 1922 Winnfield football helment, a Nach hubcap or a picture of the 1913 State Fair baby contest just one more time? Maybe W. L. Sowers, 1204 Clay, can help you. Sowers' garage is about the closest thing to a Winn Parish museum you can find. "I don't know when I got started with this stuff," Sowers said. "I just always had an interest in it." Since his retirement from the post office in 1965, after working as a clerk for 40 years, Sowers has been able to spend more time collecting things fro his own past and the past of Winn Parish. His garage holds books, newspapers, about 6,000 green, blue, and brown bottles, (2,000 of each), parts to two iron baby beds and five catcher's masks, pre-1910, with price tags attached. The price tags are still attached because the masks were never sold from W. E. Heard's People's Hardware, the stock of which was sold out about 10 years ago. Sowers also has a nearly complete bound set of the "Literary Digest", a magazine started in 1914 which lasted until the late 1920s. "They went out on a limb in a presidential election like Cronkite and all those predicting a winner this year. But when their man lost, they went out of business." Also among Sowers' souvenirs are: A series of photos of the previous courthouse. The construction date of the courthouse, 1922, is noted in gold, the date of its demolition, 1961, in black. "That was a dark day," Sowers said. "At least that one looked like a courthouse." A 1911 Winn Parish Fair book, the second annual catalog. Sowers got it from Judge R. W. Oglesby's barn after the judge's death. Oglesby's daughters told Sowers he could keep what he wanted if he would just haul the rest of the worn-eaten stuff away. He did. The last issue of "American Progress", the Long administration paper, "Founded by Huey P. Long and brought back to life by Earl K. Long." The issue is dated February 23, 1940, just after Sam Jones had beaten Earl Long for governor. Of the defeat, "American Progress" said, "It was the most stunning, the most unbelievable, the most shocking upset in the history of Louisiana politics." The "Winnfield Times", July 31, 1914, "Mr. Hardtner is for Aswell for Congress." The "Winnfield Times", February 1, 1918, calls for unnaturalized Germans to register. The "Winnfield Times", March 10, 1922, "Winn Citizens Oppose KKK", and "Influenze Epidemic Rages". "That empdemic kept me out of school that year," Sowers said. Copies of the "Motivator", the Winnfield High School paper from 1924. The paper was started when F. G. Phillips was principal. A Seery's Winnfield Bank cap from the 1920s. Photographs of the Winnfield football team of 1923. "That was the first year Winnfield had numbers sewn on their shirts. The home ec. Girls sewed them on the week before we played Minden." The lock and key from the old log jail in Winnfield, given to the police jury by the Rev. Henry Pinchard in 1969. An Oldsmobile crank. "That thing broke lots of arms. When it started, it might pop back the other way. If you held it right, it would fly out of your hand. If you put your thumb around it, you couldn't turn loose." Sowers also had a copy of a 1952 newspaper article he researched for the Monroe Morning World on the post offices of Winn Parish. It includes the names of sawmill towns which came and went in a few year's time...Alonzo, Fay, Lofton, Machen, Needmore, Wellsir. Of the last name, Sowers said, "I guess the post office man asked the postmaster what he wanted to call it and he said, "Well, sir, I don't know." And that's what they called it." Yes, sir.