The St. Francis County, Arkansas town of Hughes looms large in the blues world. Alan Lomax visited in 1959, recording musicians like William Brown, Roland “Blue Boy” Hayes and Forrest City Joe. Someone (probably Steve LaVere) recorded Joe Willie Wilkins playing there in 1972. There are stories of Sonny Boy Williamson II performing in Hughes as well. Like many Delta towns, Hughes was loaded with juke joints and euphemistically-named cafés. Like many Delta towns, the mechanization of farming and the integration of schools led to an outmigration of both white and Black residents. The dissolving of the school district a few years back finished the town off.
The Yelp app on my phone indicated that the Hughes Drive-In was closed permanently, but fortunately that was not the case. They were very much open, and I was able to purchase a chocolate peanut-butter sundae to cool off. The place does seem to be for sale, however, and its future uncertain. It is the only remaining restaurant in the community, as the once-famous St. Francis Restaurant has closed for good. Even in nearby Horseshoe Lake, the lakefront Kamp Karefree restaurant and the Blackwater Landing restaurant are both closed for good.
Down in Hughes, two men were arguing fiercely in front of a liquor store, with a good deal of profanity. The business district of Hughes once existed on both sides of the railroad track, but almost all the storefronts are vacant, and a few of the buildings have either burned or collapsed. One man sitting on a bench outside a juke joint was willing to talk to me about the blues, but although the juke was open, I could sense that I would not be welcome to walk inside to where the pool table was, much less snap a photo. The old man told me that there had not been any live music in Hughes in many years.
A short distance away, I came upon an abandoned church, with a portion of its roof damaged, as if a tree had perhaps fallen on it. Steps away was a street called Maiden Alley, with very small block houses, most of which no longer had their roofs. Amongst the tall weeds and mud puddles were thousands of buzzing insects. I made a hasty retreat.
While Hughes is a historic site of the blues, it only really has potential as a tourist destination if some sort of museum or live music venue were opened there. And few people would be motivated to move to Hughes without a school district. Right now, Hughes is a town singing the blues.