The Paris News from Paris, Texas • Page 25

1C Jan. 9, 1977 Amusements Features Women's news Resource, conservation work now under way EROSION CONTROL DAM Marshall Nichols, who was instrumental in forming the District, looks over an erosion control dam on the Betty Jackson property just south of Honey Grove in Lamar County. Cost of the dam was $7,906, with 80 per cent of that cost absorbed by the federal government. The dam will increase the value of the Jackson property but will aiso help in erosion control in the entire area Nichols said. (Staff Photos by John Edmiston) ByJOHNEDMISTON News Staff Writer It began with a germ of an idea some 10 years ago.

Now it is becoming reality. In the beginning of that 10th year, the Northeast Texas Resource, Conservation and Development District is beginning the actual work it set out to do to control the erosion which has attacked the areas surrounding the Sulphur River. "We're in business now," Bill Brooks, executive director said Friday. Brooks said officials spent a good deal of time getting the Noble-Ghose project, the pilot project, underway, because "It is a brand new effort." "It is a breakthrough. We had to change a lot of people's way of thinking.

It's really pretty remarkable." Brooks said he felt the work under way now was "ahead of schedule," and mentioned priority projects in Delta and Fannin Counties. Brooks also noted that the annual meeting would be in Cooper Jan. 29. A number of erosion control dams and other structures have been erected, and are underway now in southwest Lamar County officials said last week. The importance of the project, according to officials, is to allow financial and cost-share help to local farmers in solving conservation problems, such as the deep erosion which has attacked the Sulphur River area.

THE DISTRICT includes Bowie, Lamar, Red River, Delta and Fannin Counties. The work underway now is in the upper reaches of the Noble-Ghose watershed, said to be one of the worst critical areas in the five county district. It is the pilot project of the district. Other projects are in planning stages in three other counties. Executive Director Bill Brooks was in Delta County Friday afternoon to get priorities on roadside erosion control from the Delta County Commissioners Court, officials there said.

CONSTRUCTION 01 the proposed drop structures on private land is the first phase of the plan. Planting vegetation and smoothing the erosion gulleys is the next. Retired Soil Conservation District Area Conservationist Marshal) Nichols said using the Noble- onose watershed area, an area named after two early landowners, is merely a starting point. Purpose of the project is to control erosion, not floods. "It has nothing to do with flood control," Nichols said.

"We are just trying to put the land back in usable condition." Initial cost for the project, according to officials is "pretty close" to $500,000. Some of the initial erosion control dam structures are costing almost $8,000 each, about $3,000 of that amount for dirt work. NICHOLS, who was instrumental in getting the district formed and under way, said officials are pleased with the work so far. "We're sorry we couldn't have been any faster." Nichols said the new federal paperwork procedures the district had to undergo to get the project approved caused much of the delay. Another phase of the erosion control project will be in roadside treatment in Lamar County's Precinct 2 on the Noble-Ghose, where erosion has ruined a number of county roads, thereby burdening the county with a heavy annual cost.

The individual structures built in the northern sections of the Noble-Ghose project would also benefit all areas below that point, to reduce flooding conditions and sediment. 7976: last year for Brookston church News Regional Desk BROOKSTON When the rest of the world was looking forward to fresh starts with a new year, the First Methodist Church of Brookston was closing its doors, not to reopen them The old church, dating from the beginning of the century, drained of funds and almost exhausted of a membership, held its last service on the last Sunday of 1976. Now members of the church's board of directors are deliberating over how to dispose of the building and its contents, and are preparing to release the land as specified in the initial agreement which gave the church the land. That agreement, made when church member Mrs. Joe Hogan willed 75 acres to the church about a decade ago, stipulated that should the institution become defunct, the nearest church should receive the land.

That church will be the First United Methodist Church of Roxton. Funds that had kept the church alive were donated by Mrs. M.L. Smiley, another of its traditional supporters. The money, along with regular tithes and gifts from members, simply were not enough to maintain the church's operation, according to members.

The church's closing is, perhaps, a reflection of the exodus of many young people from this areas rural communities. The last membership count 'showed about 10 to a dozen names on church roles. Board members who will be in charge of selling the building and fixtures include Tony Wynn, Gilmore Coco and W. I. Frazier.

According to church officials, the last sermon drew a congregation of about 15. The Rev. Rick Seals preached the closing message and the regular church organist, Mrs. John Gilliam, drove to Brookston from Paris, as usual, to provide musical accompaniment. EVIDENCE OF EROSION Marshall Nichols, left, retired area conservationist with the Soil Conservation Service, and former Lamar County Precinct 2 Commissioner Jim West, look over gully erosion near West's property in soutnwest Lamar County.

This is one type of erosion the Northeast Texas Resource, Conservation and Development District is trying to control. Red River County town thrives Rosalie will not give up CHURCH STILL THERE, CONGREGATION GONE The old Brookston Methodist Church ended about a century of regular services at the end of 1976, because of financial problems. Land left to the congregation will be given to the nearest church, according to provisions of the donor. That church will be the First United Methodist Church of Roxton. (Staff Photos) I SILENT OFFERING PLATES The sound of members' offerings to the Brookston Methodist Church will ring no more.

The church was forced to close its doors after maintenance funds, left through inheritance provisions, ran out. ALL PROPERTY FOR SALE Furnishings of the church will be sold by members of the congregation's board of directors. Hymnals, offering plates and decorations now remain just as they were when the last service was finished. By ED BRYSON ROSALIE This old Red River County community is starting the new year with a new grocery store. Owned and operated by Mr.

and Mrs. Hobert Bell, the store and gas pumps have risen from the nearby ashes of the old store that burned about a year ago. And therein lies the substance of a story that speaks strongly for the character of the people of this community. Rosalie, whose history dates back to 1851, is a community that fights back at the urban trend that has turned so many communities into ghosts. THE GREAT Depression of the 1930s that depopulated many places, the mechanization of farming that increased the size of individual farms, the change from cotton and small crops to grass and cattle, the coming of a farm-to-market highway, the call to arms and factories, the consolidation of schools all the things that have figured in the reduction of small communities have happened to Rosalie.

But Rosalie met them head on. It hung in there when the going was going against it. Rosalie was not about to roll over and play dead. ACCORDING to a brief history presented by Mrs. B.

R. Holder at the community's centennial celebration August 12, 1951, the settlement was first called Wayland and was located near the junction of sand and blackland, or where the gold of the sand met the rich promise of the black prairie. That was about a mile and a half northwest of present site. But the settlement was soon shifted to the spring branch and wooded area, and has been Rosalie since that time. Information collected by Mrs.

Tom Watkins indicates that in 1850 a Smith family bought some of the Pirtle land and built a store, a cotton gin and flour mill south of the present site of the store, and that the first store was in continuous operation until 1932. This bears out Mrs. Holder's history which explains that the Smith family's general store at one time carried a complete line of merchandise, including buggies, wagons and other farm equipment, as well as jewelry, caskets, calico, dishes, toys and candy teddy bears. The merchant also acted as custodian of funds, paying farmers for cottonseed upon presentation of an order from the gin. OTHER businesses followed, including the Dowell Brothers' store, Hiram Dodd's store, John Crook's store, Uncle Jimmy Williams' drug store, Meadows' and Speir's blacksmith shops, Miss Ellen Garren's Millinery establishment, Ross Layton's barbershop, Billy Crooks' print shop where the Rosalie Courier was published, a shop where Parks Allen made men's hats and D.

T. Layton's telephone exchange, and the HPT NEW ROSALIE GROCERY This is the new grocery store, with gas pumps, opened recently by Mr. and Mrs. Hobert Bell, which is now open for business. (Staff Photo) post office with grocery and ice cream parlor in the rear.

The first post office was established in 1851 and mail, as well as merchandise, was brought from Jefferson. When the railroad came to Clarksville, a star route was begun from that city to Halesboro, with Babe Smith bringing mail once a week by horseback. The first school was taught by Miss Jennie Armstrong in her home. The teacher supplemented her income by raising and shipping silkworms. ACCORDING to the Watkins information, the first church services were held under a millshed with the Rev.

McCullough, a Baptist, doing the preaching. Later a Rev. Palmer, a Methodist, came and the Methodist church is still serving the community. The history is too detailed to repeat here, but the accounts indicate that Rosalie was an almost self-sufficient town at one time. It had its doctors as well as its businessmen, its Masons, Woodmen of the World, Macabees, its schools and churches.

Public spirited election judges served without pay. Voting was under the trees in fair weather. The name of W. C. Mauldin is mentioned as one of the longtime judges.

THE MOST remarkable thing about Rosalie as a community is its struggle for survival. Years after most such communities have faded into the past, Rosalie continues to hold a store and a church. And this is more remarkable by the fact that it is only two miles from Bogata, about 15 to Clarksville, and that a. farm highway runs through Rosalie and leads to both. At a time when man has walked on the moon and is reaching for the stars, it is reassuring and comforting to find rural communities alive to the present, yet rooted in the past.

Rosalie is an example of that type of community..