I've been researching Caddo's oldest continuously operated business, which appears to be the lumber yard. Although it has changed ownership a few times, it has been serving the lumber and hardware needs of the community since 1872. The Caddo Lumber Company, located at 108 S. Arkansas, has been owned by Craig and Peggy Hall since 1972, and is currently managed by Misty Murphree. I'm in the process of adding the biographies of Edward Lingo and Walton Leeper to our Caddo website.
Caddo Is Sixty Years Old C. A. Hancock Says
From an interview in 1932-
“It was sixty years ago last October 15 when I first came to Caddo,” Said C. A. Hancock in a reminiscent mood Tuesday, apropos of the sixtieth anniversary of the opening of the Katy bridge over Red River.
“At that time there was only a small trading shack owned by Major Harlan in Caddo. A big depot, some 600 feet long was being built to house the enormous freight shipments expected from the north, to be reshipped by wagon train to east and west.
Major Harlan did a thriving business with his store at the time, trading with Indians and selling supplies to the construction crews of the railroad as the line was built toward Texas. I well remember that on Christmas day 1872 the first passenger train went across the Red River bridge into Texas. P. H. Tobin, still living in Denison, was the engineer.
Mr. Lingo soon came here and established a lumber yard, the beginning of the Lingo-Leeper chain. Until that time the people had to haul by wagon whatever lumber they had, a great distance from Arkansas. The old Hampton house a mile east of Caddo was hauled that way. It was a show place many years in this country.
The Caddo Herald
June 9, 1899
G.C. Rice, of the firm of Lingo-Rice Lumber Co. of Durant, was in Caddo Tuesday.
February 25, 1910
John Schenk, blacksmith- next door to the Brick Hotel, across the street from Lingo-Leeper Lumber Yard
May 2, 1913
Early Closing Agreement
We the undersigned merchants and business men of Caddo, Oklahoma hereby agree to close our respective places of business at the hour of seven (7) o’clock every evening o f the week except Saturdays, commencing May 1st and continuing until Sept. 1, 1913: The Bass Co. , H. G. Huffman, S. G. Pherigo, John Droke, Hogan Bros., Art Wright, R. Wilkowisky, Brigance Hardware Co., J. D. Freeny, E. L. Williams Co., Lingo Leeper Co. , Ben Siegel, Walters & Williams, R. L. Pace, Dugan & Ellis, Isidore Schaffer, G. W. Phillips Co., Sam Jed, T. M. Hargrave, Rockwell Bros. & Co.
August 28, 1931
Lingo-Leeper Safe is Jimmied by Burglars
Burglars robbed the safe of the Lingo Leeper Co. of about $20 Saturday noon, leaving signs of their visit but no trace as to the perpetrators.
It was while Bert Fryer, the manager had gone to lunch. He had closed the safe door, but he did not lock it, also he locked the office and gates to the yard, but evidently the thieves entered through a hole in the fence. A jimmy was used to prize open a window, and the same tool was used to open the cash compartment of the safe.
Officers were quickly on the job, and think they have some idea as to who the thieves are.
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