Ducktown Stories
In the late 30s the great Depression had begun to loosen its grip across the South. In 1938 George Crawford was Sheriff of Polk and his brother Frank was a deputy.
Just outside the Ducktown City limits there lived a well -respected family with two grown high-spirited boys. The boys planned to rush the family's recovery from the Great Depression by robbing the Ducktown Bank. Just like in the movies they offered Sheriff George Crawford and his deputy $3,000 each to be out of town on the day of the planned robbery. Ordinarily the Sheriff would have put the two men in the slammer for bribery or even worse. However, the family's social status gave the Sheriff an incentive to try to reason with the men. This same family had a near relative who was a member of the N.C. state legislature at this time.
The would-be bank robbers would not listen to reason and informed the Sheriff that they planned to rob the bank without the consent of the Sheriff. With the added pressure Sheriff Crawford deputized several men and stationed them near the bank, two at Stiles Garage and two across the street from the bank in merchant Clint Chancey’s front yard behind a brick walled fence.
On the day of the planned robbery, sure enough, here came the two would-be robbers. They turned the corner at the lower end of Ducktown and proceeded uptown to the bank. Matt Stiles' garage had several cars parked on the street and Frank Cutcher's school bus took up the other parking spaces near the bank.
While the would-be robbers scouted around for a suitable place to park their getaway car they came eye to eye with the two armed deputies behind Mr. Chancey’s brick fence. Across the street were two more armed deputies in plain view, so the robbers saw that this was no day for a bank robbery.
To give this story a lighter ending we will add a second Ducktown story. There is no connection to the previous story.
"Uncle" George Long was the rural route mailman for our area. It was said that he had stopped at a rural route mailbox in Turtletown and an elderly lady asked him to write a few lines on a post card to her daughter in Chattanooga, and he did. Uncle George told the lady that there was still room to say more if she wished. So the lady is said to have said, “Yes, put on there: P.S. Please excuse the bad spelling and poor handwriting."
Uncle George Long lived on the Main Street in Ducktown in a home beside the City Garage. One day as he backed out of his driveway into the street, a Mr. Ellis (not James) was driving the family car of druggist Parks Kimsey up the main street, and of course had the right of way. Uncle George backed into the side of the Kimsey car, doing considerable damage. Mr. Ellis was upset but before he could berate the aged mailman, Uncle George said, "Now wait a minute. Everybody knows that every day about this time I back out of my driveway to deliver the U.S. mail."
With that said, Uncle George got back into his car and continued his mail route.
By Grayson Newman
May 22, 1991 Polk County News
Related Articles
Print
E-mail
