Naples Nostalgia

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Naples is 410 feet above sea level. It is, or at least was, about 1910, the greatest elevation of the Cotton Belt Railroad. The 410 feet was at the level of the railroad. The level at the top of the hill near the location of the water tower is 469 feet above sea level. The railroad was raised about two feet sometime during the 60's or 70's.

Morgan Hampton was telling me recently that he remembered the Jefferson railroad that came into town and the turnaround being located in the field just east of the Hwy 77 overpass. Dan Watson owned the field during my youth.

The November 2, 1937, issue of The Naples Monitor shows Miss Orene Fleming making an 'A' in Spanish. Miss Fleming went on to teach Spanish(and English) and sponsor the Spanish Club at Pewitt High School as Mrs. Orene Slider. Great teacher!!

Lenoy Slider from Naples served as a State Representative for several years in the Texas Legislature.

The colors of the Naples School were green and gold. The mascot was the buffalo.

The colors of the Omaha School were maroon and white. The mascot was the indian.

The colors of the Center Point School north of Omaha were violet and gold. No mascot mentioned. The Center Point school was located about a quarter mile east of where the Mt. Moriah Baptist Church now stands, on the north side of the road.

The Plainview school was located approximately where the Morris County Airport is now located.

Casey Stengel, legendary manager of the New York Yankees, used to visit regularly with R. E. Moore, Sr., Omaha, during the late 1940's and 1950's. Mr. Moore played major league baseball for about ten seasons and was with the Yankee's system for a short period. He spent most of his career with the Boston Red Sox.

Senator Morris Sheppard was born at Wheatville in May 1875 and was one of the first births of the newly created Morris County. He served in Congress from 1902 to 1913 and in the U.S. Senate from 1913 to 1941. He was Chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee from 1933 to 1941. Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas, is named in his honor. He died in April 1941 and is buried in the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Texarkana, Texas. Senator Sheppard's father, John Levi Sheppard, was a United States congressman from Texas. He died in 1902. Also, Senator Sheppard's brother, Walter Clifton Sheppard, was a prominent New York City lawyer. W. C. died in 1934 and is buried in Elmhurst, N.Y.

From the Naples Monitor dated May 27, 1932: "Last Friday evening marked the closing exercises of Naples High School when thirty-eight students of the Senior class received their diplomas and bade their last farewell to the school. The commencement exercises were held in the Methodist church. During the 9 years H.T. Morris has been superintendent of the Naples Schools they have shown great progress. The school has been built from a 3-year unaffiliated school to a 4-year High School of first class with 23 units of affiliation. The following are the members who received their diplomas: Frances Valeria Blankenship, Helen Bryan, Annie Peurifoy, Hazell Hampton, Mildred Heard, Marguerite Rainey, Johnie Lou Pounders, Madeline Lewis, Mary Spence, Mary Spence (two Mary Spences or typo??), Mary Bernie Betts, Flossie Chapel, Francis Collins, Claudine Ranes, Edna Allie McDaniel, Nadine Campbell, Irene Campbell, Ermadene Russell, Florence Louie Scaff, Hazel Mae McCleave, Ruby Riggins, Hazel Frankie Rice, Jack Wommack, E. J. Hammond, W. H. Harrison, Victor Wommack, L.J. Forsythe, Carroll Blankenship, Charles Griffin, Stringer Wommack, Van Heard, Houston Brown, Lenard Stanford, Juston Stickland, Alexander Campbell, Jr., George Frost, Monte Cue Heard, Robert Kesseler, Walter Anthony."

Do you remember the areas around the front door and back door of your home being swept with a straw broom because these areas were usually barren of grass and packed due to heavy foot traffic. Feeding the chickens also helped keep the area barren around the back door. Chickens usually roamed freely when I was a child.

Does anyone besides me remember Tommy Gene Coker buzzing Naples during the 50's when he was a pilot in the Air Force?

Naples is the birthplace of legendary blues artist, Z.Z. Hill.

"A History of Post Offices and Communities, Morris County", compliments of Wright Patman, former congressman of the First Congressional District of Texas, indicates there was a post office called Vineyard from June 2, 1879 to its discontinuance on October 7, 1881, and located "seven and one half miles west of Naples." I tend to disagree with the distance from Naples. I believe it was located about 2 miles west of Naples on the present day Highway 77 near where a dirt road enters the highway from the Cox Ranch. Congressman Patman's brochure also indicates that Cyrus Wright was the only postmaster at Vineyard. Someone help me out here. Where was Vineyard actually located??

Naples has had four banks. The first was known as Morris County Bank, established 1893, later changed to Morris County National Bank which remains today. The Naples National Bank was organized in 1906 and later taken over by Morris County National Bank. The First State Bank was organized about 1920 but was liquidated in 1927 and reorganized as Farmers State Bank.

Naples once had an ice cream plant and a candy factory.

In 1903, to reduce a grade, the railroad people lowered the track and switch yard four feet. In doing this, 17,500 yards of earth had to be moved. To avoid an expensive haul, the earth was dumped in the streets of Naples, putting them in first class shape.

In 1893, at the end of the second day of the Morris County Bank's opening, it had opened correspondent accounts in seven cities - Mt. Pleasant, Pittsburg, Texarkana, Dallas, New Orleans, St. Louis, and New York.

The Sanford-Sullivan Lumber Company included some 20,000 acres of land and was the first payroll of Naples.

The first Watermelon Festival was held July 22, 1939.

Naples was built on a hill in the middle of an Elberta peach orchard.

The first paper was known as The Belden Herald established in June 1886. The name later was changed to Belden Monitor in January 1887. Belden's name was changed to Naples in 1880, but the paper's name was not changed to The Naples Monitor until Naples was twenty one years old in January 1907. The Naples Monitor discontinued operations during the 1910's, but resumed publication on 9 June 1922 and has been published since.

Until 1892, the railroad had remained a narrow gauge road, but then a standard railroad was needed and a force of workmen was employed so great that this road was changed from narrow gauge to standard gauge from Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to Gatesville, Texas, in 24 hours without stopping train service.

From 1906 to about 1911, Mr Ennis L. Coker of the Naples Bottling Plant, produced a soda pop known as "Coker Cola". Mr. Coker's home was located where the First Baptist Church is now located.

Leon Coker, who had the Chevrolet dealership in Naples, and Chester Coker, who had the Ford Dealership in Naples, were not brothers.

The four story "opera" house was located in the vicinity of where the Morris County National Bank is now located. I know that it burned, probably during the "great" fire of 1915.

A true story was told me by two different sources of a Mrs Gilliam and a Mrs Tigert of the Rocky Branch area who were at odds with each other and would not speak to each other for several years. It seems that one of them became very sick and was not expected to live, so she sent for the other woman. The other came and they apologized to each other and forgave each other and just cried and carried on because they were finally settling their differences. When the lady that came over got ready to leave, she was at the door and the lady in the bed stated, "Now you know if I get well, none of this holds".

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