Recycling Fort Chaffee Ammo Boxes, Building Houses!

By Jack James
If you haven’t noticed already, there are quite a few houses in the towns along Highway 22 that are small structures, or were before people began to build on. There’s a reason for that: ammunition boxes!
After World War II in the 1950s, Fort Chaffee was left with a tremendous amount of wooden ammunition boxes. So many, in fact, that the Army began to give them away. Enterprising Lavacians such as Guy Britian, Blant Rambo and Todd Sosebee began bringing them home by truckloads, breaking them down and built houses around Lavaca and Central with the lumber. Barling, Bloomer and Charleston have similar structures as well.
The boards were 33 inches long so they made the walls and the roofs with 2x4s being 33 inches apart instead of the standard 24 inches. Perry Johnson built himself a garage with them. Jake Patterson took the lids from the boxes and used them as a way to haul berries. Those were shipped across the United States.
These two room houses went up quickly and were rented or sold to families. Some still exist around town, most with additional rooms added as families grew. The area is full of resourceful people, who were recycling before recycling was cool!