It was said about the square that the sand was so flea-infested that if one picked up a handful of it, by the time the fleas had all hopped away, there was no sand left. The stock law probably killed the flea story, but under the paving the sand is still deep, believe it or not. And the editor of The Gilmer Mirror says that fleas still live in that sand, believe it or not. At least, he says they were very much alive when The Mirror installed a new press a dozen or more years ago. It was necessary to excavate about four feet to build a foundation and have a roomy pit under the press. In doing so, the fleas came out of their hibernation and for weeks kept everyone in the office scratching. Worse than that, the man sent here by the factory to install the press was apparently allergic to fleas. At any rate he was so flea-bitten and covered with whelps that he had to be examined by the county health officer to prove that he did not have the smallpox, as some accused him. In the early fall of 1903, someone got the idea of aiding the farmers who might haul two bales of cotton to town, but could not make it through the sand and across the square. Often it would take two teams to pull one bale of cotton through the hub-deep sand. At that time there was a sawmill and planer in the northern part of town, and shavings were hauled and spread over the sand. Citizens marveled when they saw two horses trotting, get—trotting—across the square, pulling a bale of cotton. But the sand swallowed the shavings so quickly that this “paving” did not prove practical. About 1907 the night train arrived about four o’clock in the morning. A passenger alighted, but decided it was too late to go to bed, instead he wandered to the deserted sand square. That morning another paving idea was born. This “unknown man” thought that a good solution would be to scrape down the clay hills joining the square and spread this clay over the sand to form a hard surface. As the merchants arrived on the square that morning, this dreamer presented his plan. He sold the idea so well, that by mid-morning, teams and scrapers were assembled and moving clay in. The south, west, and part of the north side were covered. This experiment was more successful, and made it easy to think through to crushed iron ore rock, the immediate predecessor of the present brick paving, which was laid in 1926 when Dick Denman was mayor. The deep sand of Gilmer is now only a memory. Animals Had Free Run of Square By Mrs. J. M. Hays