One hundred years ago this week, railroad agents at Pine Bluff arrested two 18-year-old Jonesboro women for stowing away in a boxcar.
The Arkansas Democrat reported that Miss Ruby Cone and Mrs. Rachel Mahan left home because they were tired of farm work. Alone when discovered, they must have admitted to traveling with a man, because police later arrested 18-year-old Jesse Berry.
The Democrat called them “girls.” The girls said they were headed to El Dorado.
Let us pause here so English majors may enjoy the ironic history of the name.
Runaway teenagers were not surprising news in 1922, and wandering young women were a social disaster. Were these innocents, led astray? Had their romantic natures revolted at the routine of rural life, causing the bright lights and natty men of the big city to loom in the mind’s eye? Could they possibly be predatory girls?
Unattended 18-year-olds might be anything.
Agents had turned them over safely to Pine Bluff Associated Charities (a predecessor of the Community Chest and United Way) while their case was investigated. Whatever the outcome, it was not reported in Little Rock newspapers as far as I can tell from the archives.
