Bond Vote

The Caddo Herald

August 8, 1913

$150,000 Court House Bonds Defeated by Three to One

In Bryan county Tuesday the effort to saddle Bryan County with a bond issue of $150,000 to build a court house and jail was overwhelmingly defeated. The Herald has not obtained all the figures, but from what returns it has received would estimate the result to be 2,500 against and 850 for the proposition.

A large vote was polled in the county and only about a half vote in Durant. Following are the figures so far received:

Caddo East  5 yes-141 no

Caddo West  12 yes-218 no

Kenefick  11 yes-51 no

Bokchito  6-172 no

Colbert  23 yes-76 no

Pritchard 1 yes-33 no

N. Bennington  11 yes-35 no

Blue  6 yes- 86 no

Durant Ward 1  36 yes-35 no

Durant Ward 2  150 yes-20 no

Durant Ward 3  173 yes-19 no

Durant Ward 4  97 yes-32 no

Bushnell  8 yes-17 no

Platter 24 yes-27 no

Seely  38 yes-12 no

Pleasant Hill  1 yes-31 no

Mead 48 yes-48 no

Silo 30 yes-37 no

Pirtle 4yes-43 no

Matoy 18 yes-31 no

Armstrong 9 yes-6 no

Wade 12 yes-30 no

Cade 8 yes-45 no

There are sixteen boxes missing from the above list including Calera, Achille, Albany, Roberta, Yuba, South Bennington, Jackson, Nursery. All of which gave large majorities against the proposition.

It will be seen by a study of these returns that it was not only Caddo that was against these bonds. Every box outside of Durant and near it, gave a heavy majority against the bonds and Durant only voted about half their strength, showing that the people of Durant themselves were not interested.

The main reason the people of the county did not vote for the issue was that it was too much; that less than half the land is taxable; that they wanted schools, churches, roads and homes for themselves before they voted an expensive court house; that they wanted to keep taxes down; that the proposition was indefinite as to amount to be used for building, for site, and for other purposes.