“Poor Do” was the nickname the trading center of Attila carried after Richard P. Dodds opened his business of buying and prizing tobacco there. Some pessimistic neighbor felt Fanny and Dick had made a poor choice
Attila Google view
of business and location. With foreboding head shakes, he remarked, “It will be a poo do for them to try and do any business there to any amount.” And the classic name given by the first postmaster was soon reduced to the vernacular in all but official usage.
Attila became a thriving tobacco center, in the days when that money crop was hauled in wagon trains to the river or railroad. The wagoners camped by the roadside when their slow oxen finished a day’s hauling. One of the dishes on their campfire menu was “poor do pudding” made by crumbling cold cornbread into hot water and milk.
(Extracted from Pioneer Folks and Places, Barbara Barr Hubbs, 1939, on sale at the Williamson County Museum)