Feb 17, 2009
SOURCE: The Log Cabin Democrat
You may have caught the item in Yesterdays in the Log Cabin Democrat the other day. Farmers and trappers in the county reported a "highly profitable" season of trapping and selling hides of fur-bearing critters.
It was the 1933-1934 trapping season. Let your mind picture the times if you can. This was the Great Depression. Money was either scarce or absent altogether for most people around here.
Some folks set out traps, caught animals and processed and sold their pelts.
Quoting from the Log Cabin of that day, "J. Almond Milam of Greenbrier, veteran buyer, said more than 18,500 opossum hides had been shipped from Conway this season, along with hundreds of mink, skunks and coon hides. Mr. Milam estimated that more than $12,000 had been paid trappers for their products. The average price paid for opossum hides was 55 cents; $4.50 for mink hides, 70 cents for skunk hides, $3 for coon hides and 50 cents was paid for the lone beaver a Conway buyer had purchased. Most of the furs were shipped to St. Louis."
Take that price of 55 cents for a possum hide 75 years ago. If you convert it to 2009's money, a possum hide brought better than $20.
"More than 18,500 opossum hides were shipped from Conway." That may not mean that all the possums were trapped in this country, but, golly, 18,500 is a passel of possums. We apparently had a fur market here before we had a bus factory or a data management operation.
Trapping as a vocation or even a sideline has gone the way of buggy whips and Linotype operating. There are a few trappers active in the Conway area, a very few. And they make a little money doing it.
There was one beaver hide involved in that report form 75 years ago. Beavers were scarce then and made a comeback with a bit of help from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission between then and now.
Talk to a veteran farmer or landowner and mention beavers, and you are apt to get a negative response. Beavers are nuisances to them. They build dams and flood fields.
Back to the possum hides. This was an item that triggered a wondering mind. Possums are ugly, ugly, so what good are their hides?
Our good friend Google helped us with this question.
A company in Niagara Falls, N.Y. offers possum hides, well tanned and with head and tail attached, for $35 each, plus shipping. Hey, when you translate that 55 cents of 1934 to today's money, this may not be a bad deal at all.
Want a special gift for that special person? Give a possum hide with head and tail attached. It'll be a real token of affection.
Then Mr. Goggle offered a second bit of interesting information. Another company told us, "Our Possum Fur Throws are handcrafted to absolute perfection. Only the finest possum furs create an opulent and luxurious feel, soft and silky as mink and warmer than wool." A photo showed one covering a full- or queen-size bed.
This company is in New Zealand, and that's farther from us than Niagara Falls, N.Y. Are we missing something?
That Internet photo of the possum fur throw in New Zealand didn't look much like the possums we see dead on the side of the road around here or the ones that sometimes sneak into the yard after dark to feed on bird seed and such. The New Zealand possum was brown and solid and nice looking. Our Faulkner County possums tend to be gray in assorted shades, even virtually black. Their fur is not attractive.
But, yes, we know from experience in touching it that a possum's fur is soft.
In that 1934 report, raccoon hides brought $3 each on the average. We've got raccoons galore around these parts. Somebody come forth with a bed cover made from coon hides, and he or she may well have a recession-countering enterprise.
No, we don't think raccoon coats, that opulent symbol of the 1920s, will return to high fashion.
