Tag: Mississippi Delta
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Duncan “Dusty” Bullock: Baseball and the Rendezvous Lodge
Road Cop Doing his job. This is not a picture of Dusty Bullock, but gives you an idea of what he did for a living. Baseball and Road Policeman are usually two jobs not related, but Duncan Percy Bullock became well known as both. Duncan Bullock was born October 11, 1893 in either Ontario, Canada…
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The Hustlerettes and the Lula Hotel
Straub, Virginia Merrifield. Phillips County Historical Quarterly. Volume 19, Number 3 & 4. June and September 1981. Published by The Phillips County Historical Society. Helena, Arkansas. This story is taken directly from an article in the Phillips County Historical Quarterly that appeared in 1981. In a series of articles for the Helena-West Helena Twin City Tribune,…
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Bloody Affair at Lula
Frontier towns in America were rough and tumble places after the Civil War. Names like Tombstone, Abilene and Deadwood bring out images of gunfights and saloons. Well we had a number of these rough and tumble places in Mississippi too. As the 19th century came to an end civilization began to take hold in most…
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A Short History of the Lula Baptist Church
Growing up in the Lula Baptist Church during the 70s and 80s was an amazing time. There were activities for kids of all ages and a positive feeling for the future and the present shined over everyone. There were both youth and adult groups and Sunday school was always full of smiling and happy members.…
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Gone But Not Forgotten
Years ago when I was a teenager, my Father and I went out to a little cemetery he knew about. I had driven by the place many times and never noticed it was there. Like so many cemeteries in the Delta, these souls had been laid to rest near a church. As people moved, the…
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Bertha Lee Pate
Remembering Bertha Lee from Fanny Baker in the book Chasin’ that Devil Music: Searching for the Blues by Gayle Wardlow written in 1998. Bertha Lee was a fine looking woman and could sing better than anyone I’ve heard. She ran off with Charlie Patton. Why, Bertha Lee visited Lula only two years ago. She’s living in…
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Legend of Johnnie Keyhole
As a child, I grew up listening to my Grandparents tell me the story of Johnnie Keyhole. Remember a legend is just a story that is passed down from one generation to the next so this story became the Legend of Johnnie Keyhole. Johnnie Keyhole and his wife lived out from Sledge in the late…
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Robert Nighthawk
“Nobody else could play a slide like him. They think they can but they can’t…. I ain’t never heard anybody play a slide like Robert Nighthawk. It’s wailin’ man.” Thats what everybody said about Robert Lee McCollum, aka. Robert Nighthawk. He was born on November 30, 1909 near Searcy, Arkansas. Many modern day blues artists…
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Frank Frost
Frank Frost was born on April 15, 1936 in Auvergne, Arkansas. Like a lot of people, it was his family that inspired him to get into music. His Father played the saxophone and it wasn’t long before Frank moved to the piano. He could also play the guitar, but the harmonica is what he…
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Front Street Block B, Lula, MS
This was the site of the Keesee Building. It was a white stucco building of Spanish design with red tiles running along the front top porch. There were round windows along the side. Two windows on either side of a screened in door were at the front. The Keesee Building operated as the farm…
My Delta World 