Bivins

If you want to preserve history, paint it and put it in a town’s library. That’s the ticket. And it’s what the late Evelyn Beard did for our history.

Walk into the Atlanta Public Library and look around its walls. There one will find a colorful scene of yesterday. It’s an art work of Bivins, perhaps, in the 1940’s.

Several youths are shown playing on the wooden bridge which crosses railroad tracks pretty far below. One of the youngsters is Evelyn Beard herself. She’s the one with yellow pigtails.

They are looking northward towards Atlanta and the track is going through a deep cut in the hill. A gradually lessening of depth will continue until Bethsaida “Y” Baptist Church. Even here, the roof tops of the train cars will just begin to be level with the land.

The late L. E. Endsley, in his history of Bivins, told of playing here.

“I must have stood where those children are in the painting and looking in that direction a thousand times. Growing up we would gather on the bridge to talk and see what was going on in the town. When we weren’t working on our farms, we sometimes spent hours up there.

“Some of the daredevil boys would walk on top of the guardrails. Fortunately, nobody ever fell down onto the railroad tracks below. It is amazing what kids will do to entertain themselves. We had no TV or video games, so we got together and hung out on the bridge.”

Beard’s painting of her childhood memories of Bivins is a masterpiece for many Cass Countians. Beard lived for many years in Atlanta and won local and state awards for her art work.

She had a special talent about which Linda Whitley once told in a news story.

“A Mount of of Blessing open tabernacle was near town, and I could hear the music and sounds ... My dad Luke Watson told me that Evelyn Beard would attend and stand in front of the congregation and paint pictures of the preaching as it was being delivered.”

Beard had graduated from the Texas State College for Women in 1939.

Bivins today is but a whistle stop. Traffic whizzes across the now iron and concrete bridge. No one stands on the bridge and looks at the tracks below, but some write and paint on it. Several buildings are overgrown. There’s no trace of others.

The story of J. K. Bivins is memorable, too. He joined the Confederacy at 17 with Company B of the 7th Texas Infantry and was captured in a Southern defeat at Fort Donaldson, Tennesee.

He was even held as prisoner for seven months in Chicago. Said to have been “industrious” in prison, he was finally released in a prisoner exchange and went on to fight in other battles.

When the war ended, he apprenticed himself to G. A.Kelly, founder of Kelly Plow Works at Kellyville near Jefferson.

He started his first sawmill at Gladewater and entered the lumber business in Kildare with G. C. Venable of Memphis, Tennessee. He opened the Bivins Mill on Christmas Day 1884.

At 38, he married Viola Cobb of the Good Exchange Community. It was said Cobb’s hand in marriage had been sought by many.

The Bivins, Venable and Company Mill hit hard times in the 1890’s, as did many businesses. It was said, however, when his companies closed, J. K. Bivins’ employees were treated as well as could be expected.

Bivins moved to Arkansas and became successful again.

He returned to Bivins, the town to which he had given his name in 1884, and began to rebuild in the 1900’s.

Today, Bivins is approached from Atlanta by a drive south along the scenic and peaceful State Highway 43.

Like a passenger express train, one will hardly slow down on the bridge that Evelyn Bridge once painted and others played upon. That scene and those lives, however, live on through the gift of art she gave.