A Town Built With Memories

Down in Ashley County, where the Mississippi River Delta meets the southern timberlands, lies a dried up little town on the brink of despair. Fountain Hill, Arkansas is but a small speck on a roadmap, and most likely more of a pass-through than a destination for most traveling on highway 425. However, it wasn’t always this way. The town used to thrive with an active community scene including stores, churches, a bank, eating joints, and even its own school district. While the glory days of Fountain Hill lie far behind, my family still remembers them in fondness and preserves parts of its history in the stories they pass down. 

My Pappy, Pat Allison, tells me stories of what life was like growing up with his brothers and sisters on the edge of town. He says that our family has been down there for generations, and some of them still reside in the area. I never got tired of hearing him tell about the town and its people, as his memories paint a picture of the past in my own mind that makes me nostalgic for a time in which I never lived. It was a simpler time in a simpler town, and every time I go back there I try to imagine what it must have been like years ago. The memory of the town still lives on, and these are some of the stories and experiences gathered so that the legacy of this small town, and the history my family has there, may live as well, even after the town itself has faded away completely.

My Pappy was born in July of 1959 and was the fifth of six children. His family lived just outside of Fountain Hill near the highway leading to Hamburg, which was the county seat. Of course this was back in the days before smartphones, home computers, and video games. In order to pass the time when the kids weren’t in school, my Pappy and his siblings played baseball, basketball, and of course went hunting. Deer season was a big deal back then in that area, and it still is today. During the first week of the hunt, school would be dismissed for a day or two just for the students and teachers who wanted to hunt. It’s not like they would have missed the first day of deer season for school even if it was in session, so what was the point in having it? Pappy’s love for hunting began around age twelve. He remembers how big of a deal it was as all of his uncles and cousins would come for a visit. All of the kids were made to sleep on feather mattresses in the living room because the uncles took all of the beds. 

The first morning of the hunt, Pappy would grab his single-barrel 16 gauge and head out to the woods where his dad would drop him off at one of the stands. He says that the first few hours of dusk were cold but it would always warm up when the sun came out. The real fun began when the hounds were turned loose. They would run through the woods and stir up the deer so that maybe at least one of the boys would get a shot at one. Pappy says he remembers when he was little and his dad had to put down one of the hounds because it got caught in a barbed wire fence. The hound was severely wounded and his leg was rotting off. When Pappy heard that his dad had to shoot the poor thing, he exclaimed, “Well, then if I ever get hung in a fence, I for sure ain’t coming back home!”

Photograph: Pappy’s father, James Allison, on the day of his baptism. He is pictured standing in the water on the far left. Picture circa late 1930s. Family photography.

Church was a major part of life for my Pappy’s family and for many other families in the area as well. They attended Shiloh Baptist Church which was just down the dirt road that they lived on. Pappy was saved there when he was twelve years old; however, he was baptized at the First Baptist Church of Fountain Hill because Shiloh was too small and didn’t have a baptistry. His father was saved years earlier, and was baptized in a rural pond along with many other youths of the area.

Aside from church services, the school was perhaps the host of many of the largest social events in the community. All of Pappy’s side of the family attended or graduated from Fountain Hill High School, including his dad’s family, his siblings, and his children and many of their cousins. It was through school that my Pappy met my Gammy, to whom he has been married to for nearly 46 years. Fountain Hill was a very small school, but they had some mighty basketball teams! The gymnasium was the place to be on a Friday night when the Wildcats were playing, especially against a conference foe. Both of my grandparents lettered in basketball in high school. Pappy had always wanted to follow in the footsteps of his older brothers and join the team, and he was ecstatic when he got the chance to do so his seventh grade year. After playing in junior ball for three years, he moved up to the senior team. During his three year tenure, the mighty Fountain Hill Wildcats won two district tournament titles and got to play in the state tournament. Pappy says that playing basketball was always a great thrill to him, especially when it came to tournament time.

Photograph: Fountain Hill Wildcats Sr. Boys basketball team from the 1976-77 season. This was Pappy’s Senior season. He is pictured kneeling on the right. Photo courtesy of The Wildcat, 1977.

Although the school was the centerpiece and the pride of the town, many of the businesses thrived off of local industry and the customers supplied by the community. Most notable was the Boyd & Nichols store that was a staple in the area for years. It was the market for grocery, farm, and general mercantile items in Fountain Hill and its surrounding rural inhabitants. According to Pappy, the members of the community would pick up everything they would need for the upcoming planting season and charge it to their account so they could pay for it when their crops had sold. The owner would even put items in people’s carts that weren’t on their list to buy! One day a lady that this happened to came up to the register with her cart and told the clerk that it wasn’t her buggy, but the owner’s that she was bringing to the check-out, and that she was going to get her own items now.

 Many of the students from the local high school were employed at Boyd & Nichols. Often, the owner of the store would phone the high school principal during the day and ask for some of the boys to come and help unload a shipment of feed sacks or other large items. The principal would oblige and send several boys to help out. The owner would tip each boy a few dollars for their help and send them back to class, but little did he know that the boys would have done it for free just so they could weasel their way out of school for a bit. Two of my Pappy’s older brothers worked at the Boyd & Nichols store while they were in high school, and were eventually able to buy their first cars with the money they had made. 

On Friday and Saturday nights after the store had closed, several youths of the community would gather in the parking lot of the old store just to “chew the fat and drink a soda pop.” However, this wasn’t the only place the youngsters of the community would hang out. Across from the high school was a swingin’ joint known as “The Wildcat Den”, named of course for the school’s beloved mascot. After a Friday night ballgame, players, cheerleaders, and others from the community would gather to discuss the highlights of the game that night. Pappy says that there was always, “Plenty of talk about the night's game… especially on the nights we won.” There was always plenty of burgers and fries being served as teens would play pinball and pool while listening to the jukebox tunes. 

Photograph: An advertisement for Boyd & Nichols store, Fountain Hill, Arkansas. Pictured here as it was in the late 1960s. Photo courtesy of The Wildcat, 1970.

Like the old saying goes, all good things must come to an end. Fountain Hill’s glory days have long been gone since Pappy was a boy. He graduated high school in 1977, and married my Gammy the following year. My mom graduated in 1997 from that same school, but her brother would not get the same privilege, as the high school would shutter in 2004. Not long after, many of the families would go elsewhere, and so would the businesses.

Photograph: Boyd & Nichols store, Fountain Hill, Arkansas, 2024. Photo courtesy of Jacob Cater.

The old Boyd & Nichols store still stands, but is in disrepair. The house where Pappy was raised is just one good wind gust from falling in. The population of the town has dwindled to just 109 people. While there is a Dollar General and one restaurant, Fountain Hill is evidently long past its prime. That is why I am thankful for the stories that are shared about the past. The stories and memories of my Pappy and my family that can help preserve the memory of this quiet little town so that it may not be forgotten, but preserved in the minds of generations to come.

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Jacob Cater