Marble City quarry is back in business

— Sequoyah County Times, June 20, 1999

25 Years Ago

—What was old in Marble City is new again with the reopening of a marble quarry.

Marble City Stone Inc. is open and operating again after about 85 years, Ed Reeves, president of Marble City Stone, said. The building stone quarry is east of the Global Stone Limestone mine on Highway 17.

The stone quarry, he said, is what made marble into Marble City.

The stone quarried there was considered marble when the mine is believed to have opened, sometime in the 1870s.

Reeves said the marble quarry is producing marble building stone again. Now, however, it doesn’t take 70 men cutting through stone with a steam-driven saw. It takes two men, with electric diamond-belt and wire saws.

50 Years Ago

—State Sen. James. E. Hamilton Tuesday called for renewed efforts to get a port constructed on the Arkansas River at Sallisaw.

Hamilton said now is the time to make a concerted effort to get the port because of the strength of the people in Congress from the eastern Oklahoma area, Hamilton added that in reviewing his file on the port project it occurred to him that just when it looked like a port at Sallisaw was assured something happens to postpone it.

He said that if much more time is allowed to pass before a port project is approved, it could be the community would lose out on it altogether.

—Sallisaw telephone users can now make an operator-handled call by dialing it themselves with a new long distance system that went into service Saturday.

The new service is called Zero-Plus calling, because telephone users dial the “Zero,” plus the Area Code if different from 918, plus the number on operatorassisted calls.

75 Years Ago

—Men from the sheriff’s office went out “loaded for bear” but came back empty-handed from a raid Wednesday morning about 11 o’clock.

They raided Red Cloud Fleetwood in an attempt to prove that he was “bootlegging” but they arrived just too late. Fleetwood was just breaking the last of several bottles of “moonshine” and bonded whiskey when they entered. Failing to find evidence, the sheriff’s party was unable to make an arrest.

The whiskey was allegedly in jars, jugs and bottles before Mrs. Fleetwood started pouring it into the sink while her husband smashed the containers with a hammer.

—At a joint meeting of the Board of County Commissioners and the Sequoyah Memorial Hospital Board last Tuesday morning, with Carnall Wheeler, architect and representatives of supply houses, Mrs. Zelda Atterbury and Dr. F.B. Oliver, final purchase was made of all necessary supplies and equipment for the operation of the hospital.

The largest piece of equipment bought was a 200 milliampere Westinghouse XRay machine, at a cost of $3,000 from the Merkle Company of Tulsa.

It will be necessary to secure donations of approximately $3,000 to pay for some additional equipment that has been bought and was badly needed, and the better X-Ray.

M.G. Fink, chairman of the board, Frank Green and Will Morgan, members, all gave as their reason for buying the Westinghouse, first because of it being made by a well-known and reliable firm, second that it was of sufficient power that a diagnosis could be determined if a patient suffers from cancer.

100 Years Ago

—Charley Cottner, alleged member of the band of bank bandits which looted the Prairie Grove, Arkansas bank three weeks ago and escaped with $3,000 in loot was captured at a rodeo show near Muskogee Saturday afternoon by Sheriff John E. Johnston, Undersheriff Bert Cotton and Deputy Sheriff Roy Cheek of this county.

Several days ago Sheriff Johnston was tipped off that Cottner was a member of the alleged bank bandit gang and that he would participate in the rodeo show near Muskogee Saturday.

Cottner is a Vian youth and is the son of John Cottner a well-known citizen of the west end. He was at Muskogee to ride a few steers for the boys and it is said he had mounted a Texas longhorn, when he spied the sheriff and his deputies in a drive toward him, then Cottner left the steer and made one straight dive for the crowd in an attempt to escape, but John E. and his boys were some foot racers themselves and after a chase which thrilled hundreds of rodeo fans he was captured.

In an attempt to escape the crafty sheriff and his deputies, Cottner was slightly wounded in the leg from a bullet from the officers, who fired at his heels to halt their man, but instead Cottner picked up speed and was going a fast gait when he was finally overhauled. In an interview with the alleged bandit when asked why he attempted to escape he replied, “I had some whiskey in the car and thought the officers were after me on that account and I was trying to destroy the whiskey.”

—P.F. Williams of the state highway department and resident engineer of the Oklahoma highway department arrived Sunday to take charge of the construction work on the Moffett road. Preliminary work began Monday and according to Mr. Williams it will take approximately six months to build the four miles of gravel road. after the Moffett road is completed one of the worst stretches of road in this county will be put in shape that will combat any kind of weather.