The construction of a four-lane highway from South Elm Street and the bridge across Shawnee Stream to connect with Highway 254 will improve the highway to Possum Kingdom Lake, but it will capture or destroy an old landmark, known as Shawnee Springs.

Shawnee Springs has been known as an ideal campsite for over 100 years. Prospectors coming to this area in search of cheap land for farms and ranches camped there. And when the town of Graham was organized in the 1870s, people camped there until they could buy a lot site and build houses in the new town. After they built their houses, and before they dug cisterns and wells for their water supply, they came to the Springs for their water.

My father built his house in Graham on East Third Street in 1878. He made a sled, put a barrel on it, hitched a horse to the sled, and hauled water from the spring for several months. It was his custom to go to the spring at 5 o’clock in the morning to get ahead of the rush.

During the 1870s and 1880s, many of the women in Graham took their clothes to the spring to be washed. They took tin wash boilers, tubs, and a washboard. They built fires over which they boiled the clothes, then washed them in tubs and hung them on temporary clothes lines or on the branches of bushes and trees to dry. Some washed their clothes in pools below the spring, scrubbing them on the rocks and using sand as soap.

It was quite a sight to see all kinds of clothes hanging on the bushes and trees. And it was surprising to see how much of the underwear was made from white cotton flour sacks. In those days, people made their own biscuits, bread, and cakes, and used a lot of flour. Flour was then sold and fifty and hundred-pound sacks, and the empty sacks were used for underwear, window curtains, etc., and still carried the printed ads of the milling companies, such as “The Belle of Wichita,” “Burrus Best,” and “Pride of Sherman.”

It was interesting in the warm weather to see the children wading in the pools below the spring and playing along the banks of the small stream while their mothers did the family watching.

The spring was in the sandstone formation a short distance southeast of Scotty’s Food Store, and was about four feet long, three feet wide, and five feet deep. A few years ago, the city filled the pool with concrete when making road improvements there, but the spring made a flow elsewhere.

Some of the Pioneer citizens of Graham lived in good frame houses, some in box houses, others in log cabins with dirt floors, and a few in tents. Some of the people from northern and eastern states had basements under their houses. As there were no refrigerators in those days, it was found that a basement was useful for storing fresh fruits and vegetables, canned vegetables, and fruits. Col. J.W. Graves, founder of the Graham Leader, built a nice house on North Oak Street, near Salt Creek, and had a basement large enough for a dining room, kitchen, and store room. He had a son about my age, and we visited each other often.  I enjoyed eating in the basement dining room. I thought it was cozy, warm in the winter, and cool in the summer.

The houses did not have wall-to-wall carpets in those days, nor did they have many closets. People bought clothes to wear, not to hang in closets until they went out of style and then be given to a Missionary Society for a rummage sale.

One iron-bound trunk was large enough to store the surplus clothing of the whole family.

And air conditioning was no problem in those days. A wood-burning heater or fireplace could keep people warm in the winter, and palm leaf or folding paper fans could keep them cool enough in the summer.

Many ranchers and squatters lived in dugouts and half-dugouts, and found them satisfactory, especially if they had a fireplace on the north wall for cooking and heating. In the Palo Duro State Park, near Canyon, is the restored half-dugout in which Charles Goodnight lived, and he was one of the richest ranchers in Northwest Texas.

Shawnee Springs will be long remembered by the early settlers. About twenty years ago, while I was postmaster, a letter came addressed to The Postmaster, written by Mr. Elton W. Manlove of New York City. It stated that he, his father, and mother had lived in Graham in 1874; that his father was a surveyor employed by E.S. Graham and G.A. Graham; that his mother taught the first school in Graham; and requested that a copy of our local paper be sent to him. He stated that he was planning a trip to California soon and would like to visit Graham, route. I wrote him a letter, sent him a copy of The Graham Leader and a copy of Mrs. Carrie J. Crouch’s History of Young County, in which there was a write-up of the Manlove family, and invited him to be my guest while he was in Graham. In a few weeks, he arrived in Graham, but stayed at the Driver Hotel; however, I had the pleasure of having him eat several meals at our home. He enjoyed climbing the stand-pipe Mountain and looking at the town. I took him to his old swimming hole, near the falls, to see a drilling oil well, and to South Bend and Eliasville. He enjoyed most of all the sight of Shawnee Springs. He said his family used that water while living in Graham and that, as a young boy, he thought it was the best water in the world. He rolled up his sleeves, bathed his hands and face with the water, and exclaimed, “It is worth the trip from New York to Graham just to see this spring again and to bathe my hands and face with its water.”

I suppose the highway contractor will attempt to seal off the spring as the city did a few years ago, but a good spring cannot be contained, and I expect it to make a new outlet. When it does, I hope the city or some historical society will install a drinking fountain or an ornamental found there to preserve an old landmark.

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Elton Worth Manlove was born on August 9, 1869, in Pontiac, Illinois. When he came to Graham with his parents in 1873, he was five years old. His father, Jasper Manlove, came to Graham on a surveying project for the Graham brothers. He brought his wife, Caroline, and their children, Elton and Olivia. Jasper Manlove moved his family to Dallas in 1879, then moved to Indiana. Jasper Manlove became a newspaperman and was the editor of the Air Line News in Odell at the time of his death in 1891.

His son, Elton Worth Manlove, returned to Graham in 1951, after an absence of 72 years. When he walked into the Graham Leader office in 1951, he declared, “I am Mr. Manlove of New York, and I have come home.” He had been on a tour of Texas, Arizona, California, and Colorado before returning to New York, where he was in the Editorial Department of the Tribune. He retired in 1955 at the age of 85 after working 56 years for the same newspaper. Elton Worth Manlove died on January 11, 1956, in Sparta, New Jersey, where he is buried near his second wife, who preceded him in death.

Dorman Holub

Graham Archivist Project