A Window to the Past
Painting is a glimpse of life in Bivins during the early 20th century
If one wanted to preserve history, here’s a good way to do it. Paint it and put it in the library.
The late Evelyn Beard did it for Bivins.
Walk into the Atlanta Public Library and you will be greeted by a striking scene of yesterday. It’s a gorgeous work of art showing Bivins, perhaps in the 1940s.
Young people—one of whom is Evelyn Beard herself—are playing on the tall, wooden bridge that crosses railroad tracks. They are looking northward toward Atlanta through a deep cut in the hills, a gradually lessening of depth that will continue until Bethsaida “Y” Baptist Church. Even here, the tops of the train cars will just begin to be level with the land.
The late L.E. Endsley, in his history of Bivins, tells both of the bridge and the children playing there.
“I must have stood where those children in the painting are and looking in that direction a thousand times … growing up we would gather on the bridge to talk and see what was going on in the town.
“It was a high point and you could look down and see most of the town. When we weren’t working on our farms, we sometimes spent hours up there.
“Some of the daredevil boys would walk on top of the guardrails. Fortunately, nobody ever fell down onto the railroad tracks below. It is amazing what kids will do to entertain themselves. We had no TV or video games, so we got together and hung out on the bridge.”
Beard’s painting of her childhood memories of Bivins is a masterpiece for many Cass Countians. Her view will live as long as the colors, images and frame last.
Look closely at the photo of the painting being studied by a Bivins youngster. Start with the left side and go around clockwise. See if you can find the following:
(At left) the Marie Ray Davis home
Nazarene Church
Martha Walker Home
Old Carmack Home
(Crossing tracks) While & Walker General Store
(At right) T&P Section Gang Housing
Hubbard General Store and Rent Home
Depot
(At bottom, the figures from right to left) Teddy Bear the dog, Evelyn Beard, Lillie Johnson Price, Elmer Johnson.
Beard lived for many years in Atlanta and won local and state awards for her artwork.
She had a special talent about which Linda Whitley once told in a news story.
“A Mount of Blessing open tabernacle was near town, and I could hear the music and sounds … My dad Luke Watson told me that Evelyn Beard would attend and stand in front of the congregation and paint pictures of the preaching as it was being delivered.”
Beard graduated from the Texas State College for Women in 1939.
Bivins today is little but a whistle stop. Traffic whizzes across the now iron and concrete bridge. No one stands on the bridge and looks at the tracks below, but some write and paint on it. Several buildings are overgrown. There’s no trace of others.
The story of J.K. Bivins is memorable, too. He joined the Confederacy at 17 with Company B of the 7th Texas Infantry and was captured in a Southern defeat at Fort Donaldson, Tenn.
He was held as prisoner for seven months in Chicago. Said to have been “industrious” in prison, he was finally released in a prisoner exchange and went on to fight in other battles.
When the war ended, he apprenticed himself to G.A. Kelly, founder of Kelly Plow Works at Kellyville near Jefferson.
He started his first sawmill at Gladewater and entered the lumber business in Kildare with G. C. Venable of Memphis, Tenn. He opened the Bivins Mill on Christmas Day, 1884.
At 38, he married Viola Cobb of the Good Exchange Community. It was said Cobb’s hand in marriage had been sought by many.
The Bivins, Venable and Company Mill was hit hard times in the 1890s, as were many businesses. It was said, however, when his companies closed, J.K. Bivins’ employees were treated as well as could be expected.
Bivins moved to Arkansas and became successful again. He returned to Bivins, the town to which he had given his name in 1884, and began to rebuild in the 1900s.
Today, Bivins is approached from Atlanta by a drive south along the scenic and peaceful state Highway 43.
Like a passenger express train, one will hardly slow down on the bridge that Evelyn Beard once painted and others played upon.
That scene and those lives, however, live on through the gift of art she gave.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: More of the history of Bivins will be available in the regional news next week through the memories of the late L.E. Endsley.)