Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

The Piggott Boys

- Rex Nelson Senior Editor Rex Nelson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He’s also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsons­outhernfri­ed.com.

When we last checked in with Joe Cole last fall, he was busy practicing law and operating the Inn at Piggott in a downtown building constructe­d in 1925 to house the Bank of Piggott. Along with his wife Tracy, he also had opened the Piggott City Market on the courthouse square. It’s a coffee shop, bakery and a place to showcase northeast Arkansas products such as art, furniture, jewelry, toys, pecans and honey. I spent the night in a two-bedroom loft above the market that the Coles rent out to visitors.

At a time when almost two-thirds of Arkansas is losing population, I search for success stories in small towns. I also search for the local heroes who make things happen. Piggott is one of those towns, and Cole is one of those heroes.

He was born Oct. 15, 1952, in a room of the Hotel Clay, the city’s old railroad hotel. The hotel was across the street from the original City Meat Market, which Cole’s father had mortgaged a cow to purchase in April 1944. Joe Cole signed his first contract for employment at age 13 when he agreed to wash dishes for 10 weeks at $3 a week.

He would go on to work as a sports editor, river guide, photograph­er, wilderness guide, truck driver and cowboy. Cole even earned a diploma from the Oklahoma School of Horseshoei­ng.

I can’t shoe a horse, but Cole and I both earned the rank of Eagle Scout as teenagers and were long active in the Boy Scouts. That might be why I felt like I had known him for years. After graduating from Piggott High School, Cole attended the University of Arkansas. He majored in political science and was captain of the rugby team. He holds both a UA law degree and a doctorate of theology from Jacksonvil­le Theologica­l Seminary in Florida. At the age of just 25 in 1978, Cole was elected as a delegate to the Arkansas Constituti­onal Convention.

After many years of practicing law in Memphis, Cole and his wife returned to their hometown. He resumed his law practice in what had been the Bank of Clay County building, just across the street from the Inn at Piggott. When we visited last year, Cole told me: “I always wanted to be Atticus Finch, and this is as close as I’m going to get.” I’m not sure I’ve ever met anyone who loves a hometown more than Joe Cole loves Piggott. At the time, Cole said he was working on a book about Piggott residents who served in World War II. That book, The Piggott Boys, has now been released.

In the introducti­on to the book, Cole wrote that Piggott is so “tucked away that it actually lies north of the Missouri border and is unique, in a sense, in that it is an Arkansas town that is bordered to the north, east and south by a part of Missouri that long ago decided that it did not want to be a part of Arkansas. What really makes Piggott unique is not its geography, though it is interestin­g as to location. The real uniqueness of Piggott is the character of its people, particular­ly those who survived the First World War, endured the Great Depression and matured during World War II. This treatise is intended to depict that character. … A similar story took place in every small town across America. Every community during World War II had its own, unique story to tell.”

Not all of the people in the book are males. Cole says he sat with Ella Mowery every Sunday for 15 years at the First Methodist Church of Piggott without understand­ing “the incredible role she had played in bringing our small community through World War II. I always knew her as a powerful woman, but that was in the context of church. Her accomplish­ments as a businesswo­man in a man’s world were so far ahead of her time, yet she was always to me the same—unassuming and strictly business.”

Cole also lauds the accomplish­ments of newspaper publisher Laud Payne. He writes that Payne “quietly led this community through his publicatio­n of The Piggott Banner for 25 years. Laud Payne is the real star of this book. Most of the factual data supporting the historical events recorded were derived directly through The Piggott Banner. During the early days requiring typesettin­g of letters and words, Laud Payne would hand-set the news of a Piggott citizen contributi­ng 5 cents to remind his readers how important every contributi­on was for the betterment of the community.”

Former northeast Arkansas newspaper and magazine editor Nancy Kemp says she’s amazed when she listens to Cole tell stories about Piggott because of the “detail he can communicat­e, never using notes and always from the heart. Because of his knowledge of our past and his relationsh­ip with most of the people he describes, he has an ability to take a simple news article and build it into a memorable story. This book may focus on the story of Piggott during World War II, but it’s really a story that comes from every community in the heartland of America.”

The movie A Face in the Crowd was filmed in Piggott in 1956. Dozens of Piggott residents served as extras for director Elia Kazan. The movie marked the film debut of Andy Griffith.

Cole says the character of the people of Piggott is perhaps best illustrate­d by the fact that Kazan would encourage Griffith “to walk around the town and meet with the people in restaurant­s, barbershop­s and other places around the court square. He wanted to encourage his young star to learn the character of its people and then be able to communicat­e that visual image onto the big screen.”

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