Spring at Pine Ridge

Wednesday of last week was the perfect day to drive through the Ouachita Mountains of west Arkansas. The temperature was in the upper 30s when I awoke in Mena, where I had spoken to a banquet the night before, but it rose quickly on the sunny spring day.

There was little traffic as I made my way east on Arkansas 88. The redbuds were in full bloom and the dogwoods were just starting to bloom as I drove through the communities of Ink and Cherry Hill.

Just after crossing from Polk County into Montgomery County, I found myself in tiny Pine Ridge. On my left was a classic Arkansas attraction, the Lum and Abner Museum. There were no other visitors, just the proprietor and her two dogs sitting on the front porch, enjoying the weather. I already was dressed for a speaking engagement later in the day at the Hot Springs Rotary Club.

“I bet you don’t get many people in here wearing a coat and tie,” I said.

“It has been a while,” she replied.

This is perhaps the most remote museum in Arkansas, but it brings to life an amazing chapter in the state’s cultural history, starring two bright Arkansans who were among the country’s most popular performers during the Great Depression. The network radio comedy program Lum and Abner aired from 1931-55. Chet Lauck, born in October 1902 at Alleene in Little River County, played Lum. His friend Norris “Tuffy” Goff, born in May 1906 at Cove in Polk County, played Abner. Lauck and Goff’s families had moved to Mena in 1911. Goff’s father owned a wholesale general merchandise business that served several counties. Lauck’s father was prominent in the banking and timber industries. Though Lauck was more than three years older than Goff, the two became close friends and often entertained Mena residents at various events. Both attended the University of Arkansas after graduating from Mena High School. Lauck was the co-editor of a university humor magazine known as White Mule.

They began their radio program when they were in their late 20s, playing two old men who ran the Jot ’Em Down Store in the then-fictitious Arkansas community of Pine Ridge. The characters were created when Lauck and Goff were invited to appear on a flood relief broadcast on Hot Springs radio station KTHS in April 1931. They came up with the names Lum Edwards and Abner Peabody just seconds before going on the air.

KTHS officials liked what they heard and began airing a regular program. Soon, Lauck and Goff were in Chicago auditioning for a nationally broadcast show on NBC. The program was picked up, marking the start of an incredible run of almost 5,800 daily 15-minute programs that aired live through the years on four radio networks-NBC, ABC, CBS and Mutual.

In 1933, Lum and Abner became the first network program broadcast from Radio City in New York. Lauck and Goff were the first radio stars to host marathon charity broadcasts and the first to do a transatlantic simulcast with Goff in Chicago and Lauck in London. During World War II, Armed Forces Radio aired their daily program to troops around the world. The radio show had moved to Hollywood in 1939 so Lauck and Goff could also pursue movie careers. They made six movies during the 1940s and one more in Europe in 1956 that was intended to be a television pilot. That seventh movie was never released to theaters.

Lauck and Goff based their Jot ’Em Down Store on a real store at Waters in Montgomery County. Henry Waters had operated a sawmill and a cotton gin there in the late 1880s. When he established a post office at his store in 1886, the community was named for him. A.A. McKinzie built a general store at Waters in 1904. Five years later, Dick Huddleston built a store across the street, which housed the post office in the 1920s and again became the post office in 1983. The Jot ’Em Down Store in the radio series was based on the McKinzie store.

In 1936, residents of Waters asked the federal government to designate the post office there as Pine Ridge. The current museum contains a 1936 letter from then-U.S. Rep. Ben Cravens noting that while Postal Service officials initially had balked since there were so many communities named Pine Ridge across the country, he had convinced the postmaster general to change the name. Cravens, a Fort Smith attorney, represented a large part of western Arkansas in Congress from 1907-13 and again beginning in 1933. He died Jan. 13, 1939, in Washington of bronchial pneumonia, just 10 days into his seventh term.

The name change from Waters to Pine Ridge was spotlighted during a ceremony at the state Capitol that was part of the 1936 Arkansas centennial celebration. The McKinzie store later was moved a few hundred yards and connected to the Huddleston store. The Huddleston store contains a gift shop and still serves as the Pine Ridge post office. The museum portion, which opened in 1971, is in the McKinzie store. Both buildings were placed on the National Register of Historic Places in October 1984.

Goff and Lauck retired from regular performances in 1955. Goff and his family remained in Southern California. Goff died in June 1978 at Palm Desert, Calif., and is buried there. Lauck continued to portray Lum for Conoco Oil Co., where he was the vice president of public relations. He returned to his Arkansas roots in 1963, opening a public relations firm at Hot Springs and serving on the state Racing Commission. He died in February 1980 and is buried at Hot Springs.

———◊———

Freelance columnist Rex Nelson is the president of Arkansas’ Independent Colleges and Universities. He’s also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.