Our stories: the Medicine Mound settlers' community scrapbook Page: 5

                                
B. L. Knowles Hardware and Implement Store,
A. T. Tarter City Barber Shop and Tailor, CarrKing
Drug Company, J. L. Tidmore Real Estate and
Insurance Co. and Dr. J. M. Hawks doctor's office.
1916 "Old Mounds" school is again relocated
-this time approximately two miles West to land
later owned by Virge Jackson (now owned by Bill
Naron) just West of the Stermer place and on the
North side of the Old Star Valley Road (now FM
3295), where Neal Road runs into it, and approximately
three-and-a-half miles Southwest of the present
townsite of Medicine Mound.
1917-1918 World War I
1925 "Old Mounds" and Star Valley schools
consolidated with present Medicine Mound and the
school moved to the present Medicine Mound
townsite.
October 28, 1929 The "high water mark" for
our community. It's all downhill from here.
October 29, 1929 Stock Market crashes.
Decade of depression begins.
1930 Decade of devastating drouth and sandstorms
begins.
1931 Mount Olive School District consolidates
with Medicine Mound and closes.
March 31, 1933 The whole downtown burns.
Only two structures rebuilt. Community legend has
it that Mrs. Tidmore torched the town.
April 7, 1938 Devastating freak late spring
snow storm hits. Kills hundreds of cattle.
1938 Big Valley School closes, East half of
district consolidates with Chillicothe and the West
half of the district consolidates with Medicine
Mound. Medicine Mound school finally gets enough
students to become accredited.
1939 Clark School consolidates with Medicine
Mound and closes.
December 7, 1941 World War II begins.
1946  Grades seven through 12 consolidate
with Quanah and Chillicothe school districts 
not
enough students.
1949 The great '30s drouth and depression,
the disastrous 1933 fire, World War II, but mostly
the Industrial Revolution, and its inevitable results
-
the centralization of our society and the increased
size of economic units and the increased
mobility and improved communication facilities overwhelm
small communities. The appearance of
the tractor in about 1925 was the harbinger of doom
for our village. Medicine Mound is down to one
general merchandise and grocery store, a service station,
post office, railway depot, schoolhouse, cotton

gin, grain elevator and three churches 
and a population
of only 210. And counting down.
1954 Last school year for Medicine Mound.
Grades one through six consolidate with Quanah
and Chillicothe and the school closes. Hardeman
County once had 34 separate school districts, now
only two remain 
Quanah and Chillicothe.
1964 I. L. Hicks dies 
grocery store closes.
No remaining business open in town.
1964 Church of Christ holds its last service
and closes.
1971 First Baptist Church holds its last service
and closes.
1994 Last run of "The Doodlebug" 
"The
Orient" railroad line (later owned by Santa Fe) is
abandoned.
1996 No businesses, no schools, no churches
left in Medicine Mound. Only 12 occupied houses in
the village with an estimated population of about 35.
The Time Mrs. Tidmore
Burned Down the Town
(The Sad Saga of the Jim Tidmore Family
(Story compiled by Myna Potts, Judy Payne and Bill Neal
and written by Bill Neal)
If ever there were a story of a whole family who
"... went to hell in a handbasket", as the old-timers
used to describe a destiny of doom on the fast track,
it had to be the story of the star-crossed J. L. (Jim)
Tidmore family.
But, for a time, and for quite a while, everything
seemed almost perfect for them. The perfect family

perhaps the most prominent Medicine Mound
family in the community's infancy. They had it all
premiere social prominence, apparent wealth, father
was a church deacon, and they were all healthy, popular,
intelligent, and physically attractive.
Shortly after the turn of the century the family
crested on rising financial fortunes in this brandnew,
thriving, frontier town so infected by the unbounded
optimism for the future which was altogether
typical of that day and time. It just seemed
that the sky was the limit.
Then, after Fate had so generously bestowed its
richest favors on the Tidmores, suddenly, it turned
on them and unleashed an absolute, unmitigated and
focused fury on all five of the family members, and
relentlessly ground them down into their own separate

and varied, but equally disastrous 
hells. A
tale of suicide, attempted (multiple) murders, arsons,