The following article was posted in the March 29, 1987 Edition of the Poteau Daily News
By Herschel Lester
Gilmore is located some 24 miles south of Fort Smith and only a few miles west of the Arkansas line at the foot of Sugar Loaf Mountain.
J.R. Williams was postmaster in 1884 and his appointment and that the second postmaster, Jim Barnes, both read Gilmore, Indian Territory.
W.E. (Will) Ratterree then took over the postmaster’s job and served from 1911 until it was combined with Poteau—a tenure of 57 years in the same building, store and post office.
The hand-powered gasoline pump still sits out front.
By 1962, Will Ratterree and Walter Durant were the only two original settlers still living in the area.
There is still a whole tribe (eight houses on 40 acres) of the descendants of Walter Durant who have built beautiful homes on the old home place. They are an asset to the community.
The following pioneers, most of whom are now buried at Vaughn Cemetery, lived in the Gilmore area in the 1890s: Henry Calloway, John Garrett, Henry Hall, E.A. Ratterree (father of W.E.), Jim Vaughn and Ed Coker.
Indian families who lived there were the Billys, Nails, Durants, Hitchers and Pickens.
Gilmore was named for Rad Gillmore who ran a gin and mill on Nail Creek, which was named for the Indian, Nail. Very little is known about Rad.
The Double Branch Baptist Church was organized in 1870 and is the oldest Baptist church in the county and the 11th oldest in the state. Seven of the 13 charter members of the church bore the name Vaughn. The cemetery next door north is known as the Vaughn Cemetery.
At one time, the Gilmore school employed three teachers and had over 100 pupils enrolled. Know teachers were Roy Knecht, J.Q. Babb, Judge Barnes, Eva Morris, Mrs. Guy Fincher, Opal Richardson, Lon A. Ratterree and Perry Chaffin.
The Fort Townson Military Road passed by where Will Ratterree’s store still stands.
The camp on Nail Creek, nearby, always supplied cool mountain water right out of the springs on Sugar Loaf Mountain. This camp furnished rest and comfort to thousands of immigrants on their way to Texas.
The Indians who had just come from Mississippi also passed this way looking for a place to live.
James R. Barnes was born at the foot of Sugar Loaf Mountain on May 14, 1849, and I still remember his story, told around 1922:
The family had to flee during the Civil War. The area, when his father came in 1847, was all “wild”. No one but Indians lived here. They came to Sugar Loaf Valley to trade cane baskets for meal or anything they could get to eat.
When the white men went into service, their women and young children were forced to go to Fort Smith, Texas, or back to Missouri. But many of them came back to stay after the Civil War.
Will Ratterree said that after 1884, the Gilmore area prospered and the people seemed to be happier and more contented than they are today (1960s).
The late Cleo Cooper once counted 47 farms between Poteau and my old home place at the foot of Sugar Loaf, where someone had reared a family, that are all now deserted.
(Thanks to Pratt McMillan, honorary mayor of Gilmore, for assistance)
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