Photos show earliest members of 71-year-old Gainesville Saddle Club
The Gainesville Saddle Club photo on page 1 shows riders in the club a few years after it was organized in September 1955, when this photo was taken. The Sept. 8, 1955, edition of the Times reported members of the newly organized club “paraded around the square, and it was one of the largest and best displays of horses seen in Gainesville in a number of years.” This photo appeared in the next week’s Times with the riders identified as, from left: H. V. Gaulding, Ira Duggins, Joe Bill Blisard, Stacy Landers, Nancy Lou Gaulding (Walker), Pearl Wood, Emmett Edmonds, Stanley Chaney, Edley Hamilton, R. G. Landers, Elbert Hale, J.O. Wood, Robert Dreckman, Paul Hambelton, Dallas Herd, Jack YUates, Al Farless, Charlie Kirkland, Ray Wallace and Don Copelin.
Gainesville resident Robert Klineline recently donated this photo to the Ozark County Historium. His sister, the late Pam Klineline (Cramm), is on her horse at the right end of the lineup of riders, all members of the Gainesville Saddle Club. Pam Carter Hutchinson, Pam Cramm’s friend and Gainesville classmate, is at the other end of the line. The date and event are unknown, but it’s thought to be been taken between 1958 and 1960. The riders are pictured in front of Janian’s Holiday Inn, a former Theodosia landmark that burned in 1981. Riders’ names are not confirmed but are thought to be, from left: Pam Carter, Beulah Hamilton, Elmo Hambelton, Arzie Hambelton, farrier Henry Hubbard, Nell Carter Pierce, R.G. Landers, Stacy Landers, Gary Hambelton, Beverly Stevens (Darnell), Mark or Eddie Gault, (the next two are unknown), Edley Hamilton and Pam Klineline and Don Copelin.
When the Times contacted Gainesville native Stacy Landers, now living in Washington, Missouri, about the photo on page 1 of this week’s Times, to ask if he remembered being one of the horseback riders lined up below Janian’s Holiday Inn at Theodosia, his answer was a surprise:
“I have a copy of that picture hanging in the den,” he responded.
In the Theodosia photo, Stacy, then around 13 or 14, sits astride his horse Smokey next to his dad, the late R. G. Landers, in the center of the lineup on his horse Firecracker. (So named, Stacy said, because he was named on the Fourth of July. "A great, smart horse," he added.)
Stacy, now 80, didn't remember the date or event that had brought the riders to Theodosia, but he felt sure it was a Gainesville Saddle Club outing of some kind.
His first cousin, Pam Carter Hutchinson, also a young member of the saddle club, is in the Theodosia photo too, sitting on her horse Lady at the left end of the lineup. She said in a phone call from her home in Branson last week that she thought it was either a July 4 or Labor Day event. Pam estimated the date as being between 1958 and 1960 because she knew it was a year or two after she and her parents, the late Beulah "Toots" and Hayden Carter, moved from Gainesville to Kansas City in 1957 temporarily so her dad could attend barber school there.
Still active today
That would have been two or three years after the Gainesville Saddle Club organized in 1955, as reported in the Sept. 8 and Sept. 15, 1955, editions of the Times. The photo on page 4, of horses and riders lined up in front of the Ozark County Courthouse, accompanied the Sept. 15, 1955, story, which appeared under the headline, "Interest Revived in Horseback Riding."
The caption said, "An interest in horseback riding is being revived in Ozark County as shown from the above picture which was taken recently of a group of riders on the square in Gainesville. A saddle club has been organized with H. V. Gaulding being elected president."
The Gainesville Saddle Club is still active today, 71 years later, with meetings held at 6:30 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month at the Gainesville Saddle Club Grounds. Ed Wills is the current president. For more information, visit the club's Facebook page: "Gainesville Saddle Club - Gainesville MO."
The club hosts frequent shows and other events, including the Bulls & Barrels junior competition held Sunday, Sept. 12, and the upcoming Ozark County FFA Bull Blast to be held at 7 p.m. Sept. 18, during Hootin an Hollarin.
Memories of club's early days
The Gainesville Saddle Club's first-ever horse show was held on Oct. 23, 1955, a few weeks after the club organized. The Oct. 27, 1955, edition of the Times reported, "An estimated crowd of over 700 were in attendance here Sunday at Gainesville's first annual horse show sponsored by the Gainesville Saddle Club. . . . Moving pictures were taken of the show by H. T. Harlin, which will be shown to the public sometime this winter. The show was held on the new city park site which was leased recently from Ralph Amyx and Mrs. Gradie Sanders by the saddle club. . . . The field has been graded and leveled and an entrance driveway has been constructed on the west end of the field."
This site, now owned by the city of Gainesville, has continued to serve as Gainesville's "Saddle Club Grounds" since then.
Stacy Landers has fond memories about the saddle club's early days. Club president H. V. Gaulding was his uncle, and his dad, R. G. Landers, was a skilled horseman. They welcomed Stacy to join them in club activities, including the trip to Theodosia.
"I still have the 48-star flag carried by Dad [in the Theodosia photo] and a gold-and-blue banner we carried in parades," Stacy said. "It was so much fun."
Stacy shared other memories about the horses his dad owned and rode in saddle club events. The Landers family – R.G. and his wife, Mary Ruth, plus Stacy and his two sisters – lived at what is now Third and Elm streets in Gainesville. The horses were pastured on relatives' nearby lots at Fourth and Fair streets and another below the Harlin House on Harlin Drive.
One of Stacy's horses was named Lucky – but apparently wasn't. He was found dead one morning; R.G. said he'd been struck by lightning. Another was Queen. "She used to puff up when you put on a saddle. You had to retighten the saddle girth," he said.
Another memorable horse, Betty Jo, was "hard to ride," Stacy recalled. "Someone had twisted her ears, and they could not be touched." His dad had a halter cut to avoid touching Betty Jo's ears. R.G. "had to hold her [bridle] bit in his left hand and pull her head around as he would swing into the saddle," Stacy said. "She would make a couple of quick turns and then be fine."
Stacy also recalled that the late William Dale Sanders "was a big horseman and a leader" in the Gainesville Saddle Club. "He traded horses all over. He had been a bread truck driver and knew all the places horses could be had," Stacy said. "He would buy up several horses and break them to ride well. Then he loaded them in a tandem cattle trailer and hauled them to California. He had a place, a rural motel, where he would set up shop and sell them for what Dad said was a high price."
Riding horseback to saddle club events
Stacy remembered seeing the Theodosia picture hanging on the wall of Larry Grisham's former insurance office in Gainesville (now the Shelter Insurance office owned by Doug Hawkins). Asked about the photo, Larry acknowledged that it had been displayed in his office before he retired in 2015 after 45 years with Shelter and its predecessor, MFA Insurance. It was probably there because his dad, the late Christy Grisham, was very active in the Gainesville Saddle Club and loved participating in saddle club events, Larry said.
Christy isn't in the Theodosia photo, however.
"He may not have had a way to get his horse there," Larry said. "He didn't own a trailer. He always had to ride his horse down the creek road to get to the saddle club grounds."
Christy and his wife, Alaska Grisham, lived on Highway 181 about a half-mile below the entrance to Caney Mountain Conservation Area. To get to saddle club events in Gainesville, Christy rode his horse over the hill above their farmhouse (still owned by the Grisham family today) and down what is now County Road 103, known locally as Ballpark Road.
The history of the house
There's another historical note about the remarkable photo of the 15 Gainesville Saddle Club members at Theodosia. At the time the photo was taken, in the late 1950s, the Theodosia landmark house behind the riders was known as Janian's Holiday Inn. It was originally a 12-room home built in 1903 by Jim Herd for his family in Theodosia, a village on the west side of the Little North Fork of the White River. Herd also built a store and post office there, as well as a mill. Writing about the history of Theodosia, the late Mary Graves said the big house, when it was built, was "the talk of the area."
The house was the Herd family's home and then became a hotel for "drummers" (salesmen) and others traveling through the area. It changed hands through the years, and in 1945, a colorful Armenian immigrant, Armand Janian, bought the house for $3,000. Janian had moved from Chicago to Ozark County to take advantage of the tourism he believed would happen when Bull Shoals Lake was impounded in 1951.
As the lake rose, Janian had the house moved a short distance up the hill and southwest to a site near west end of the "Million Dollar Bridge" that spanned the new lake on what is now Highway 160. It was the only building left of the original Theodosia village after other structures were torn down or washed away. The "Holiday Inn" name was taken later by a national hotel chain.
From 1966 until 1973, the old, remodeled house was the headquarters of developer Gene Wood's Theodosia Hills real estate development corporation. It then passed through other owners and uses until it was destroyed by fire in February 1981. At the time of the fire, it housed the popular Hill and Hollar Restaurant and Lounge.