Rides I

I grew up going on rides with my family. It continued when I married and had my own family. We went on rides all the time. It was a simpler time, I think, and gas was much cheaper so it was actually a form of entertainment in those days. I continued to go on rides with my father, too.

My Dad was like a tour guide when we went for a ride. He gave an ongoing narrative as we moved along. He got so good at it that he gave tours for the County Historical Society and for school groups. They had three distinct tours in the county. One trip was to the Northwest, one to the Southwest and one to the East. They would load up a school bus and take kids or adults on one of the routes. It took most of the day. Along the way he pointed out spots of historical significance and told stories of human interest.

The trips with the family were just the same. A spot along the road would prompt him and he would start in. He even did it on our jaunts to hunt arrowheads. If we headed west on Highway 34 he would talk about how the railroad was built by crews and one of their camps was west of town and he would point off to the northwest. The landowner had taken him out there once and there was still evidence of the camp after over a hundred years. You could see where the sod houses were and some of the cave like holes they had dug into the side of hills.

Cresting the hill on Highway 34, Westwood is on the left. When I was in high school an ancient bundle burial was found when they were digging the sewage lagoon for the community. They called Dad and he called the State Archeologist’s Office. They came to see it and Terry and I went out that day with them. I remember Terry found a perfect spear point there that day.

Four or five native Americans were buried in one spot there. It was called a bundle burial because they were all piled up together. It was conjectured that they were a hunting party or a war party and were all killed far from their home. You can read about it if you go to the State Archeologist’s Office.

North of the highway and almost right across from the Westwood, high on a rise are three large Indian mounds. You can’t see them from the road. Dad and I visited them a couple times, measured and photographed them, and sent the information to the State Archeologist’s Office. There is another mound about a mile southwest across the Skunk. You can see the bluff from these mounds.

Still going west we drop into Jennings’s bottom. Usually it was too wet and silted in for arrowhead hunting. It flooded many times in the spring. Nancy did find a hematite celt where they cut a drainage ditch on the west side. We never found much else there.

(To Be Continued)