We have been told that some of the Cherokees from Mexico will be here with the Mexican Chief and the Texas Chief. We are grateful fo the Bison Hollow Bed and Breakfast owners for allowing this to take place. Bison Hollow is off of 377 off of Ike Byrom road, just follow the signs.

Leon Melton who is a retired preacher was married to Modelle Seals some fifty-nine years ago. She is from the Parvin community and they were married under the south porch of the Aubrey train depot.

He remembers how as many as one hundred head of cattle were loaded at a time on the rail cattle cars pulled by the steam engine. The livestock was loaded with the other local farm produced items and made their way into the larger cities to the south.

I asked Leon if he remembered where the water tower stood that was used to refill the water in the big steam engines. He said that the old tower was tall and made of cypress wood which was grown in East Texas. The wood was especially milled for water towers. The Aubrey water tower was equipped with a long snout that was governed by a large rope and was elevated so that when the engine pulled up the long snout hovered over the engine and the big stream of water from the snout started pouring into the giant engine.

The water tower was located just to the south of the depot and on the north of what is now Plum Street as it goes across the railroad tracks.

J.D. Melton, Leon’s father, worked for the railroad company for many years and sometime while he was working on the maintenance of the tracks he was furnished with a paddle car that the laboring hands pumped with a lever that made the little car move down the tracks from one working location to another. One day J.D. fell over the front of the paddle car and injured himself.

Leon was good at remembering the Gilbert Rosson filling station that was a popular loafing place back in the 1920's and 1930's. Tom Mountain delivered gas to the station, and he said that he remembered the gas being a white lemon looking color that sold for seven cents a gallon.

Bud Mohon sold ice just to the south of the Rossons filling station and Ed Mohon worked in the blacksmith shop. The big watering well was just east of the blacksmith shop. The current fire department is located where the blacksmith was locaated.

Leon remembers how the families were when he was growing up. He said that his Cherokee mother was kind hearted ( which I can personally vouch for), and that the families were more oriented to helping each other out regardless of the time of day or night. He says that the close knit neighborhood of people were always ready to help each other out. The people of this period of time made sure to help everybody, but strangers were cautiously observed before secrets of the neighborhood were revealed. The native American Onegans had been tricked so many times, that strangers had to be proven as a friend several times before acceptance. They were church workers and believed that it was an act of kindness to help everybody in times of need. Leon says that we all live such a fast paced life today and have little time to help as they did when he was growing up.

Another form of family fun was at the Saturday night dances, when everyone went into town to purchase the food and living necessities for the following week. They would spend all day in town visiting, shopping, and learning about the various families.

Leon says that while everyone was exchanging conversations about the past week’s events, and purchasing their groceries with the money they received from selling their chickens and other farm products, one of the most obvious visitors was the occasional bootlegger roaming around town in the middle of July with a full length wool olive drabbed overcoat. He said if you watched closely, you could watch the bootlegger follow people around to the back of businesses for the transaction of the private, illegal transaction. He said the bootlegger would then reappear into the crowd and wait for another customer. It was very obvious that about a case of the quart bottles were being stored on the inside of the bootleggers overcoat.

Law enforcement was strictly enforced. The hardened criminals were tried, found guilty, and punished; however, the demand for the high quality "white mule whiskey"