The old Revel General Store, built in 1907 in the Revel community in Woodruff County. I took the photo in March of 2006. In looking back at the photos I took of the store, I noticed that it had snowed a few days previously!
The old Revel General Store building is over 100 years old and is still standing in the tiny community of Revel, in Woodruff County. I visited with John W. Revel back in 2006 and he told me quite a bit about the community named for his family. Here is part of the story I wrote for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's Three Rivers Edition:
The small farming community of Revel in Woodruff County, located on Highway 260 south of the larger cities of McCrory and Augusta, was founded by John W. “J.W.” Revel, grandfather of John W. Revel who still lives there on the Revel farm. The community carries on its farming roots and is marked by a historical building that has been there nearly a century.
John Revel, who was born in Woodruff County and raised in Memphis and Revel, made his home in Revel as a young adult to operate the family farm that had been started by his grandfather, J.W. Revel. He recalls hearing many of his grandfather’s stories, including the one where his grandfather walked to Arkansas from Illinois after the Civil War.
“My grandfather said he remembers walking home from the war,” Revel said with a chuckle. That wouldn’t be an experience one would quickly forget, especially considering the one that preceded it. A North Carolina native who moved to Shelby County, Tennessee with his family, Revel, who then spelled his name Revell, enlisted in the Confederate Army along with three of his brothers. He was captured by the Union and was held as a prisoner of war for nearly two years at the Alton Federal Military Prison in Illinois, according to Woodruff County Historical Society publications.
“When they turned him loose he walked back to Arkansas,” his grandson John Revel said. It was after J.W. Revel’s release in 1865 that he walked back to the South and settled the land that came to be known as the Revel community. He first rented farmland and then purchased it, a total of about 1,800 acres.
“He homesteaded 1,800 acres of land,” Revel, who now lives on what remains of this property, said.
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Mr. Revel was full of memories and I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with him and seeing his model train station he built himself.
The website www.arkansaspreservation.org has a piece about the old Revel store and several other historical buildings in Woodruff County.
1 comment:
Nice article about my family history . John was my father's dad my father was Duke Revel.
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