1. Medicine Mounds

2. Early years and family

3. Historic preservation

4. Texas Country Reporter

5. Museum access

6. References

(2) Potts turned her father's former Hicks-Cobb General Store into a museum with non-profit status as a 501 (c) (3) public charity.

(3) Potts recalls Medicine Mound in its heyday as "rural America, and it was complete. We had everything we needed right here. . . ."

Medicine Mounds

Medicine Mound is near four dolomite hills known as Medicine Mounds, which are considered sacred by the Comanche and Kiowa Indians who believe that the landmarks contain mystical spirits to improve the quality of their lives. The mounds are on private property and not available for public tours beyond an outer five-mile limit. One can see for approximately fifty miles from the top of the mounds.^[2]

John A. Bates of Ferndale in Oakland County, Michigan, near Detroit, the former executive director of the Downtown Medicine Mound Preservation Group^[3] and a cousin of Myna Potts, recalls having visited the ghost town when he was a boy: "The Comanche would come to the Medicine Mounds for their healing powers, often trading flint and other goods and racing their ponies around the mound below us. . . . We carefully descended about seventy-five feet or so to an almost imperceptible track that circled the entire mound, which was used by Quanah Parker's braves to test their horsemanship. [In 1966], this 'track' was still quite visible, especially for a young man with a fertile imagination. Sadly, it is slowly disappearing as the young cedar trees begin to reclaim the ground."^[2]

The four mounds, which range in elevation from two hundred to five hundred feet, were Comanche campsites and ceremonial grounds. The mounds had abundant spring water which encouraged hunting, the gathering of medicinal plants, and for worship. The Comanche Nation still considers two of these mounds to be sacred: the tallest, Medicine Mound, and the second tallest, Cedar Mound. The Indians return to these sites to gather plants and herbs and to seek spiritual guidance.^[4]

Early years and family

Potts was the only daughter of five children of Ira Lee Hicks (1886–1966) and the former Lillie Bell Holmes (1892–1989), who are buried in Chillicothe. She was born in Bonita, an unincorporated community in Montague County northwest of Denton. The Pottses moved west of Wichita Falls to Medicine Mound in Hardeman County when Myna was still an infant. Ira Hicks and his brother-in-law, Lon Cobb (died 1942), operated the Hicks-Cobb General Store, since the museum which Potts oversees as the major focus of her historical preservation efforts.^[5]

Potts attended elementary school in Medicine Mound and graduated from Quanah High School in Quanah, the seat of Hardeman County, named for the Comanche chief Quanah Parker. She attended Texas Tech University in Lubbock for one year. Potts was married to John Luther Potts, Jr. (1922-2011),^[6] who retired from the Lykes Shipping Company of New Orleans. As a skipper in the merchant marine, he was away from home in Chillicothe six months at a time, a situation which led Mrs. Potts to master the ham radio to maintain communication with her husband.^[5] The couple had one son, David Lee Potts (born January 12, 1947).^[7]

Historic preservation

Potts grew up in the store, which she still describes as her "playhouse". In addition to the Hicks-Cobb General Store, Medicine Mound in its heyday had the W.W. Cole Building, a combination bank, drugstore, gasoline station (with rusty pumps remaining), and post office, a laundry (specifically, New York Steam Laundry), a school, and a church. U.S. Highway 287 bypassed Medicine Mound in the late 1920s, and the community slowly declined in population.^[8] The ghost town is located at the junction of Texas Farm or Ranch Roads 91 and 1167, which can be reached from U.S. 287 southward at Chillicothe or several miles further west of Chillicothe. It is southeast of the county seat of Quanah.

The population steadily declined from some five hundred to nothing, meaning a ghost town, though the 2000 census placed the count at fifty, most living away from the town itself. When Hicks-Cobb closed in 1966, the town died. There are four Texas Historical Commission markers outside the old store dedicated to (1) the community of Medicine Mound, (2) the Hicks-Cobb store, turned into a museum by Potts, (3) a Works Progress Administration sanitation project from the 1930s, and (4) a pioneer cemetery south of Medicine Mound, which is believed to have a total of nine graves.

On April 5, 2008, Potts addressed the West Texas Historical Association annual meeting in Canyon south of Amarillo on her historical preservation work and her attempt to highlight the contributions of rural Americans.^[10]

Texas Country Reporter

In 2007, Potts told Bob Phillips in his Texas Country Reporter syndicated television series that Medicine Mound "was rural America, and it was complete. We had everything we needed right here. . . . I want the people remembered who settled the area. . . . [This place] has meaning; they had a place in history." ^[11]

Phillips narrated his observations as follows: [Potts] is one woman determined to keep this town's history together. . . . We found Medicine Mound on Highway 1167 far from anything but the hills that the native Comanche held sacred, the mounds that give this place its name. Once we were here, we felt close to those who built the community, and the past didn't seem so far away."^[11]

Museum access

The museum is particularly known for its extensive collection of hundreds of photographs of early pioneers as well as old bottles, store fixtures, and a variety of items once sold in the mercantile, such as hats. Potts began assembling the pictures when she worked with western author Bill Neal, who wrote on a book on the region, Our Stories, Legends of the Mounds.^[12]

Museum hours are usually 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday but also by appointment. In many ways, Medicine Mound Museum is Potts' "personal museum", the story of her own life.^[13] There is a highway rest stop on U.S. 287 to assist travelers desiring to detour to Medicine Mound to see the four mounds, the historical museum, and the ghost town.^[14]

References

• Cricket Kuwait
• Cricket Leigh
• Cricket Manager
• Cricket net
• Cricket on 5
• Cricket on the hearth
• Cricket oval
• Cricket pad
• CricketPaint
• Cricket pavilion
• Cricket player
• Cricketplayer
• Cricket portal
• Cricket power play
• Cricket rankings
• Cricket (roofing)
• Cricket (roofing term)
• Cricket Saint Thomas
• Cricket score
• Cricket Scores
• Cricket Scotland
• Cricket Sixes
• Cricket Snapper
• Cricket snapper
• Cricket South Africa