 Clare
B. Richardson1 ,
2 , 3,
4, 5,
6, 7,
8,
9, 10,
11, 12,
13, 14,
15, 16,
17, 18
| Before I got really involved in the project,
I wanted to know if International Dairy Queen would release use of the four photos
to me to allow them to be published. If I could not research the location myself,
I had envisioned submitting the photos to Reminisce Magazine and asking readers
to come forward if they knew where the location was. Certainly some readers would.
One day I got a call on my answering machine from Janna releasing the photos to
me to use as I pleased in quest to find the location. |
|
My plan was to get to Ft. Smith (the closest point to California as I drove east)
and use their library to look in all Arkansas city directories for a fire station
located next to a Dairy Queen in 1953. My alternate plan was to find the town
where Slyman's Rug Cleaning was located because a panel truck in one of the DQ
pictures is parked at the particular Dairy Queen I am searching for. Both plans
became flawed when I found out Ft. Smith had only their own city directories and
not any from other Arkansas cities. A search of Dairy Queens next to a fire station
or Slyman's Rug Cleaning in Ft. Smith both came up negative. So I looked at a
map and had two routes to get me to Springfield, Illinois. One was through Little
Rock which seemed to be the only large city that direction that could have at
least 4 fire stations (recalling the sign above the fire station in the mural
says "Fire Dept. Company No.4)." The other was up through northwest Arkansas to
large cities like Fayetteville, Springdale, Bentonville, and Rogers where there
certainly could be four fire stations and are in a range of mountains near the
Ozarks that could account for the hills in the picture. Before I began, I did
decide to call Baton Rouge, Louisiana public library just to rule out the DQ speculation.
I recall them telling me the highest hill in town is a 300 foot dyke and if it
isn't that in the back of the picture then it isn't Baton Rouge as they were near
sea level. Just as I suspected! When I phoned the Little Rock Public Library they
confirmed the Little Rock locations of all Dairy Queens in 1953 and none were
located on any street that had a fire station. So I went with my best judgment
and headed north on what was my other option. Nothing looked like the picture.
In Rogers I was tired and hungry so stopped at a Pioneer Chicken place for supper.
After dinner I happened to notice a Christian Bookstore a few doors down and had
an idea. I had by now figured out that the domed building that I thought was a
government building was indeed a church when I enlarged the view on my computer.
So perhaps this Christian bookstore could look at the dome and identify the religion
and provide me a clue. I set up my computer on the sales desk and showed some
employees and some customers. No one recognized the dome as any particular denomination
but a lady customer who was just leaving the store said she lived around this
area all her life and this picture used for the mural is not in any of the cities
up this way. Then she said her minister was from Hot Springs and the look of the
picture looks like it could be Hot Springs. I asked "do they have hills like these
shown in this picture down there?" "Certainly" she responded. Well I had ruled
out all other larger towns by now except Hot Springs and Jonesboro as possibilities
but Hot Springs would have been my next guess knowing there were possible hills
like that shown in the photo. In fact I was now almost certain of it by gut feel.
I just felt I was finally on to something. Jonesboro was not in the Ozark range
and I somehow overlooked Pine Bluff as a possibility. I guess it was ruled out
being in southeast Arkansas when I was looking originally in the northwest for
mountains. |
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