Bingham School & Powell Spring

Samuel Bingham was listed as a farmer in the 1860 census. He was well-learned and operated a school out of two rooms.   "Professor Bingham", as he was known, died during Confederate General Price's Raid on Federal troops in Missouri which commenced with the Battle of Pilot Knob.

The building below, known also as the Arnie Jeffery/Walter Guthrie house, was the first school to be built in Mill Creek ,1870.
Note-the only record of this building's use of a school was in the form of a tax-record in 1874.

Once it's use as a place of learning ended, it was modified to become a home. Mrs. Betty McCollum, a local genealogist, historian, and co-author of the Down Memory Lane series of books, spent most of her childhood growing-up in this home that sits along Mill Creek in Melbourne.

Notice the iron stake in one photo...probably part of the anchor system for a swinging-bridge that once spanned the creek.

Another walking-bridge spanned Mill Creek a little below the old school/home. Known as the Powell
 Bridge, it allowed pic-nickers and frolickers to cross the creek from the court-square to a park near the Powell Spring. The piers of the bridge remain and are pictured below.

Heartfelt thanks to Mrs. Betty McCollum for taking us to her childhood home and for use of the vintage photo of Powell Bridge!

Nubbin Ridge (Now Sage)

Last weekend, my youngest and I got out and drove around Sage, once known as Nubbin Ridge. We've featured one church in the area on a couple of occasions at EIC, the Caney Springs Church. The David Bradshaw home was just down the road from Caney Springs and can be seen in the top photograph. By studying a map provided by De Emmett Bradshaw, son of David, in his autobiography and finding the splendid array of spring jonquils at the very spot noted on the map, my son and I were able to easily spot what must surely be the site of that homeplace. The assertion is supported by another plot of spring flowers blooming exactly where another homeplace now resides and the actual standing building of yet another, the Rush Place, which is pictured in the post below the photo of the old store building (help with name would be appreciated).

We also stopped at what we are told is the old Jennings Place near the Bethlehem Cemetery (house with fallen tree) and another old house along the lane between the Bradshaw Homeplace and the old highway to Sage.

We were told the old Church-building pictured was once the Church of Christ.

Caney Springs Church and Cemetery

Built in 1889, Caney Springs Church still stands as testimony to days gone by. It is located near Sage along the Zion Road (Ar 289) and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
An entry from last summer.