One of the Linebarger era cottages, built in the late 1920s, still stands at the southwest corner of Highway 71 and Suits Us Drive. The now boarded-up white cottage, with the modern-day address of 13475 Lookout Drive, was built by the Linebargers on a lot purchased by Memphis, Tenn., resident Frederick W. Lucas (no relation to this article's author) in February 1926. A hand-written notation on the sales card says "Young man -- Cotton -- Golf Nut." Since the Linebargers had opened a nine-hole golf course alongside Lake Bella Vista in 1921, that was evidently one of the attractions for Lucas to vacation in Bella Vista. He agreed to the figure of $900 and made payments of $20/month for several years. He owned the cottage for 40 years until his death in 1966. Like other Bella Vista cottage owners, he sometimes made his cottage available for others to lease when he wasn't using it. The Linebargers' newspaper, the Bella Vista Breezes, sometimes mentioned over the years that the Lucas cottage was occupied by various people from Memphis.
Lucas was born in Athens, Georgia, in 1894, to John and Kate Lucas. By the 1910 census, when he was 15, his family was living in Memphis, which is where he continued to live the rest of his life, except for the time he served in the Army during World War I, starting in 1918.
After the war, Lucas followed his father into cotton. His mother's 1943 obituary says that she had married "well-known cotton man John Hamlin Lucas" (who died in 1922). As a young man, Fred Lucas trained in the cotton brokerage firm of F.M. Crump & Co. and later worked for Cook & Co. cotton brokerage before opening his own firm, Fred W. Lucas & Co., in 1943. He became a prominent community leader, serving the Memphis community as president of the Southern Cotton Shippers Association, the American Legion, the American Red Cross, and the Memphis Cotton Exchange (1939-1940). An entry on www.ancestry.com states, "Executives of the Exchange since its establishment (at the end of 1873) have been some of the South's outstanding cotton men and philanthropic citizens. It was largely through their efforts that Memphis became the 'spot' cotton marketing center of the United States, and so of the World."
Although cotton was bought and sold in Memphis for most of the half-century before the Civil War, a cotton exchange was not yet formed in Memphis. Following the organization of cotton exchanges in New York (1870) and New Orleans (1871), Memphis cotton buyers pushed for an exchange in Memphis.
When the Memphis Cotton Exchange formally opened at the end of 1873, it established a 'spot' market with no provision for trading in futures contracts. Cotton sent to Memphis was bought and sold on the spot. The cotton exchange was a "members-only" club. In general, only buyers and sellers and people who worked for them were allowed on the exchange floor. The cotton farmers generally stayed outside, so there had to be a real sense of trust between the farmer and their representative on the exchange floor. The Exchange remained in existence for over 100 years, until 1978.
Fred Lucas died in Memphis of lung cancer in July 1966. His death certificate listed his occupation as "Retired Cotton Merchant." He was unmarried and survived by two sisters. His estate sold his Bella Vista cottage in 1967, and it has gone through a half dozen owners since then, with the last sale being in March 2020. The future use of the property is unknown at this time.
Information for this article came from the files of the Bella Vista Historical Museum and the websites www.ancestry.com and www.tennesseeencyclopedia.net. For more information about Bella Vista history, visit the Bella Vista Historical Museum near the corner of Highway 71 and Kingsland. Visitors are welcome from 1 to 5 p.m., Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
