Thursday, September 30, 2010
McNatt
A couple of weeks ago I posted an entry about Indian Springs, the mineral-water town that sprang up in northern McDonald County in the early 1880s but died almost as quickly as it arose. I said that the town was renamed McNatt not long after it had fizzled as a mineral-water town. Actually, though, that's not exactly true, as I was recently informed by a man who currently owns property at McNatt.
McNatt is located where the old Neosho to Pineville road crossed Indian Creek, and apparently there was a trading post or general store at or near the crossing quite a while before the town of Indian Springs sprang up on the nearby hill that overlooks the stream. The store's location at the crossing had no official name prior to the formation of Indian Springs, but after the demise of the mineral-water town, it was given the name McNatt after the person who ran the store and/or owned the surrounding land. So, in fact, McNatt and Indian Springs were two different places located very close to each other, not the same place as I suggested in my previous post.
This crossing at McNatt is the one used by Confederate troops on their way south when they evacuated Newtonia shortly after the First Battle of Newtonia. Leaving Newtonia headed south, they struck the Indian Creek woods and followed the creek in a southwesterly direction until they struck the Neosho to Pineville road just above the crossing and then took this road south toward Pineville.
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7 comments:
Larry:
I really like reading through these old posts. However, I also like to see the places you're describing. Can link to Google Maps and/or provide exact locations when possible? The Sho-Me in me wants to see these places with my own eyes, if only digitally.
I'll keep your suggestion in mind and try to give specific locations when I'm talking about no-longer-existent or otherwise obscure places.
Thanks. I always look up the towns or places you write about when I'm reading, and sometimes I'm not as familiar with certain places as I would like.
My grandfather (H.C. Woolard) along with our family ran the McNatt general store for several years, My family lived just north of the store on the hillside overlooking the valley. This was in 1958 or so. Great memories were made there, we return each year around Memorial day.
My Grandfather, Lucien Carter would talk about McNatt. His great grandparents had lived there, and are buried there. He always called it McNatt Mill. I know there was a mill there, but was it common to call the area that?
The foundation of the old grist mill is still standing yet today, just behind the Baptist church in McNatt. I lived in that valley for several years and fished from the old foundation of the mill. Our old store building was moved west into the field when the new bridge was put in since the road alignment shifted, it was there in the field for a few years then was gone. I never knew if it was moved or if it might have burned. Indian springs was owned by the Arwood family and was a great place to hunt for arrow heads. The Boy scouts got permission to dig under a bluff and located an Indian burial ground. The local officials came down from Joplin and inspected the findings.
idstemple, I think McNatt and McNatt Mill or Mcnatt's Mill were used pretty much interchangeably to refer to the same place.
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