Pascagoula Decoys: by Joe Bosco

Like duck calls, wooden decoys are functional folk art. Decades after they were handmade by a craftsman, they are still beautiful, functional and connect the owner to generations of his brothers who practiced the art of waterfowling before him. Collecting decoys is a consuming passion for thousands of hunters, and my friend and hunting partner Joe Bosco is no exception. So, it is with great pride that WaterfowlReview can announce that our local decoy historian has published his first book: Pascagoula Decoys. And what a great accomplishment of scholarship and entertaining writing he has achieved.

A lifelong Jackson County resident, Joe Bosco developed an interest in the decoys made in his hometown. Joe has spent a tremendous amount of time and effort compiling a meticulously detailed, yet easily readable, history of the different decoy manufacturing companies that once called Pascagoula, Mississippi their home. It never dawned on me before reading this book just how many innovations in the decoy making industry began here in Jackson County, Mississippi. Pascagoula Decoys chronicles the innovators behind the rapid rise and slow fall of the local decoy industry in faithful detail, and the book will certainly be a welcome companion for a new generation of decoy collectors.

The book relates how, in the 1890’s, the rise of market hunting in the United States created a previously unprecedented demand for decoys. At the time, decoys were crafted solely out of wood. The demand of market hunters for huge stools of decoys overwhelmed the ability of the traditional decoy carvers to keep up with orders for the handmade decoys. This led to the advent of the “factory decoy” created a dozen at a time on duplicating lathes. In the 1920’s, famed decoy maker Charles Grubbs, who is also credited with creating the commercial duck call in 1868, opened his first decoy factory in Pascagoula. Soon after, many other companies followed Grubbs to the Pascagoula area and began to compete for the decoy business. Soon, thousands of decoys per week were being shipped from Pascagoula all over the nation.

Jackson County, Mississippi lies in the extreme southeast corner of the State of Mississippi on the Gulf of Mexico. It sits in a large area of marsh and swamp that at the turn of the century was a thriving duck marsh. The county seat, Pascagoula, was a logical choice for decoy factories due to the abundant and readily accessible supply of tupelo gum and pop ash trees in the Pascagoula River system. These woods were lighter than the white pine used by northern decoy companies, yet still very buoyant and easily carved by woodworkers. The ash and tupelo gum trees were logged in the swamps, bayous and drainages of the Pascagoula River system, and then floated downriver to the sawmills and decoy factories. The availability of the river greatly reduced the transportation and raw materials costs for the Jackson County companies when compared to their more northern peers. Finally, the City of Pascagoula offered a large skilled workforce due to the significant number of sawmills and developed shipbuilding industry in the area. According to Bosco, all of these factors combined to make Pascagoula a highly desirable location and allowed the local companies the financial advantage to create national distribution networks for the locally manufactured decoys.

In addition to Grubbs, who sold his factory in 1925, there were many other local decoy companies in Pascagoula, each with its own distinctive style. Pascagoula Decoys chronicles each of the local companies, and the colorful local characters that ran them. For instance, Grubbs sold his company in 1925 to Hudson Decoy Company, yet was instrumental in persuading Poitevin Brothers to start building decoys and became Secretary of the company. A few months later, Grubbs had a falling out with the Poitevin, and moved to Texas to start yet another decoy company. All these histories and more are laid out in Pascagoula Decoys, with pictures of the factories, copies of old promotional advertisements and catalogs for each company.

Pascagoula Decoys does a great job illustrating both the common features and the distinctive differences between the products of the local decoy factories. Because most of the local decoys were turned on duplicating lathes, they retained lathe marks that look somewhat like shallow wavy ridges that encircle the bird. These ridges gave the appearance of feathers when the decoys were painted, and made for a more realistic looking decoy when seen from a distance than the smooth decoys made in other areas.

There were several innovations that came from the Pascagoula decoy companies. According to Bosco, the first patent for a decoy in the United States came from the Hudson Decoy Company for their concave bottomed decoy that trapped air and made the decoy ride higher in the water, yet trimmed 30% of the weight of the decoy. The legacy of the Hudson “VAC STAY” decoy can still be seen in the Herter’s “Suc Duc” that is still being sold today. In 1946, the Animal Trap Decoy Company in Pascagoula introduced paper mache’ decoys. In 1952, Animal Trap replaced paper mache’ with some of the first hard plastic (“tenite”) decoys available on the market.

Changing tastes in duck hunting equipment and a series of costly fires slowly ate away at the decoy companies that made their homes in Pascagoula. One after another, Hudson, Cumbest, Poitevin Brothers, Trehern and the others closed their doors. The last wooden decoys were probably made in Pascagoula in 1962 by the Pascagoula Decoy Company. PADCO then changed to manufacturing solid body foam decoys. Only Pascagoula Decoy Company and the Animal Trap Company survived into the 1970’s. Each of these local institutions closed their Pascagoula operations in 1971. Thus ended a golden era in decoy production in the United States.

All of this history is recounted in vivid detail in Pascagoula Decoys. The 159-page book is written in pleasant, conversational style and is absolutely packed with color pictures of decoys manufactured by Grubbs, Singing River Decoys, Pascagoula Decoy Company and The Animal Trap Company. It also contains old hunting pictures from the Pascagoula marsh and historical advertisements and catalogs from the local decoy manufacturers. The dozens of color photographs clearly illustrate the subtle differences in the products of the local manufacturers while lovingly showing the craftsmanship and artistry of the local manufacturers.

As even a casual observer can tell from perusing e-bay, the interest in collecting decoys from Southeast Mississippi is growing. Decoys from this area have been an undiscovered collecting treasure for some time. As more and more collectors enter the market, the value of decoys made by Grubbs, Singing River Decoys and the others will continue to increase. They have gone from 50 cents for a cull from a local company to hundreds of dollars at auction houses. Therefore, a savvy collector will want all the information possible on the local decoy companies. There is really no way a collector can gain any sort of a comprehensive understanding of the subtle differences in the decoys made in Jackson County, Mississippi without reference to Pascagoula Decoys. Joe Bosco has written the definitive work on decoys from this region. In addition of collectors, any duck hunter can find much information in this book to provide many hours of entertainment.

Pascagoula Decoys is published by Pelican Publishing, and may be ordered by calling 1-800-843-1724, or may be purchased online at www.amazon.com. I cannot think of a better gift for a Mississippi hunter, or any avid decoy collector. This book is sure to be referred to by generations of collectors and decoy aficionados for years to come. You will not be sorry if you treat yourself to a copy of this excellent book.