Snapshots of History
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By Mike Avitt
The information with this photo says the picture was taken in 1899. Mr. Reger would live only two more years.
William Alfred Reger was born February 18, 1852 in West Virginia. He came to Mount Ayr in 1870 and married Mary Ellis, daughter of Francis Ellis, the man who started the Mount Ayr Hotel.
Reger worked for a Mr. Windle and eventually became Windle’s partner in a retail business.
Reger became Mount Ayr Postmaster in 1882 and went into the retail musical instrument business after that. In 1886 he built a store building where the senior activity center is today. The previous building on that lot was the Crawford Hotel, a rooming house that burned in 1885.
But Reger was not the first music store I found.
An ad in the May 26, 1881 Ringgold Record shows G. C. Muir was selling sewing machines and organs at a Mount Ayr location. Organs were in demand because that was the primary instrument at churches and high schools in those days. And organs remained popular for decades.
In the 1890s, J. H. Richardson opened a music store and soon took on a partner in the form of John Lineburg, a native of Sweden.
Their store went for several years.
Phonographs began to appear about the turn-of-the-century in this area and they were very popular but so were fiddles. All of the major celebrations 125 years ago had fiddlers or a fiddlers contest. Where these fiddles were purchased, I do not know. Okay, back to Reger.
W. A. Reger and his wife Mary are the ones who, in 1891, had the house built at approximately 1208 E. Columbus where the Lanphairs live today.
The house was still there in the 1990s. Mr. Reger died in October 1901 and Mary and her son James took over the business.
In February 1907, H. D. Geringer opened a music store in the Vorpe building (117 N. Taylor) and six months later Geringer bought the stock of Reger MusicHouse.
Geringer then sold his business to Ira Merritt on September 1, 1909. Merritt moved the music store to 115 N. Taylor in August 1911. In the meantime, Mary Reger started her own music store on the east side of the square and sold her stock to her son-in-law, Ira Cunningham, in 1911.
Radios began showing up in Mount Ayr in 1922. By 1927, J. B. Currie was selling radios and phonographs.
Soon radio shops were everywhere. But not everyone had electricity which radios required.
The first television set in Ringgold County was on display at Marrs’ Radio Shop in July 1949.
Many of us remember Runyon’s Music Store. It opened in November 1971 at 120 S. Taylor Street and closed December 1974. Fun Town opened in this location two months later.
