Hide Article Text (OCR)
Kickapoo House Was BuiltTo Keep Flood Wafers OutBy MIKE CARPENTERThe full story and the real purpose of a concrete building hidden in a hillside near Lake Kickapoo has come to light as a result of a story in the Features Magazine of the Sunday Times several weeks ago.It’s quite a different . , . but equally interesting yarn . . . and it comes direct from the family that built that puzzling structure about 30 years ago on a high bluff overlooking the Little Wichita River.Rather than a moonshiner'shideout,, it was actually built as a sort of '‘fallout shelter’4 for the Sam Howell family, whose home was directly below this on the river bank.It wns built in about 1933 or 34 by Mr. Howell for those times when the bottom fell out of the sky and the creek rose out of its banks to surround the Howell home.Tells oI Floods‘We called it our ‘bank house* but we actually never had to use it after Dad built it/’ savs Mrs. Francis Lies (pronounced like “lease”), in a recent letter to the writer.Mrs. Lies, whose address is 175 Concord Ave., South Bend, Ind., goes on to tell of several earlier floods that did drive the family to high ground. It was because of these flood experiences that Howell built their “bank house.1 ’ Particularly sharp memories■ Klinger of that night when she was roused from bed as a child of six and bundled up in the familycar to flee the rising waters of the Little Wichita. High water stalled the car a short distance from the house, so the familywaded back home and climbed a ladder to the roof.“Here we waited for many hours,” writes Mrs. Lies, “while my father swam for help.”Rescued FamilyAfter he got on higher ground he had to walk for three miles to the nearest neighbors, the Ralph Bentons, where he borrowed a team and wagon to res-cue his familv.Mrs. Lies says that her family moved awav from there in I1HG.*She says that it's very unlikely that anyone ever set up a clandestine still in the building after they -moved awav from there, as prohibition days had long since passed.“And,” she says, “water was the only ‘Joy Juice' my father ever distributed, as he pumped wrater for drilling, operations of the Continental Oil Co in that area.’*The Howells first moved to Holliday but now' live on a farm several miles from Wichita Falls on the Seymour Itoad. Mrs. Howell recalls that a man did live in that “bank house” for about a year before the Howell family moved away from the property.' The fact that someone did actually occupy that building for a short while may have given rise to false reports of mysterious ‘goings on” in the hillside.Sweet MonotonyMIAMI (AP)— A Miami newspaperman seeking an escape from the monotony of driving home the same route each night, chose a different set of streets.The trip was interesting, but not as rapid as the monotonous route. The newsman got lost.
Newspaper Details
Wichita Falls Times
Wichita Falls, Texas, US
Sun, Jul 15, 1962
Page 32
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 08 Mar 2020
Other Publications Near Wichita Falls, Texas
Wichita Falls Times Record News
Wichita Falls Times
Wichita Oil Reporter
Times Record News
Wichita Weekly Times
