HARD TIMES WERE....... A-----COMING

EXCERPTS FROM "TATUM....A PLACE CALLED HOME"

BY CECIL WILLIAMS

After the demise of the newspaper and the death of "Uncle Fox" Tatum, the town entered a depressed period. "Hard times" seemed to mark this era in the history of Tatum and the farming area around. Cotton was the crop that helped farmer produce some money for the purchase of such items as cloth, flour, sugar, salt and other necessities. World War I didn't hurt the town much but the Crash of 1929 did. The bank closed, business were lost, homes gone...but a bright spot in the towns economy was the discovery of oil around Killer and the need for labor and materials.

The coming of World War II helped rejuvenate the town somewhat, but it also caused a severe drop in population because its young men went to war and many other citizens moved to cities where they could get good jobs in defense plants and the shipyards of the Gulf Coast.