Snapshot of History by Mike Avitt

By Mike Avitt This week’s photo was taken in 1895 or 1896 by professional photographer J. A. McClanahan. This picture and many others by McClanahan appeared in the June 12, 1896 edition of the Twice-A-Week News, which was an extended, souvenir edition featuring many of Ringgold County’s business leaders and commercial enterprises. Pictured here is…

I am a member of the planning committee for the Mount Ayr Sesquicentennial Celebration which will be held next year. We have discussed many ideas including placing placards or signs on historic buildings indicating when they were built and what was the initial purpose of the building. But what about the buildings that are gone…

By Mike Avitt There is some disagreement about when some of our older churches were built. The disagreement is between the newspapers and the centennial books. Most people are unfamiliar with the digitized newspapers, so we will look at some early newspapers to see what they say. The church pictured this week was dedicated December…

Last week was a look at some church parsonages and I have information on a couple more. In June of 1985, Reverend John and Bessie Biddle answered the call to pastor the Assembly of God Church in Mount Ayr. Their first residence was 105 East Monroe, which was a parsonage. I didn’t know that house…

Remember when your preacher lived in a parsonage? Well, some still do, but the numbers are slowly going down. Let’s look at some current and former parsonages. There is a trailer house in the parking lot of the New Life Family (Assembly of God) Church in Mount Ayr that was put in place when Rev.…

By Mike Avitt This week’s picture is from a circa 1910 postcard showing the First Baptist Church and parsonage in Mount Ayr. The church was located at 201 W. Jefferson but faced Fillmore Street. The parsonage was located at 105 W. Jefferson and this residence was replaced with the current ranch-style home in 1963. The…

McDonnell Appliance donated an item to the Mount Ayr Depot Museum this week. It is one of those little metal racks that hold non-personalized checkbooks. In the 1980s and before, local businesses offered counter checks to its customers with the names of local banks on the checks. No account numbers needed. The banks identified the…

By Mike Avitt Thanks to Bill Stringham for suggesting this topic and thanks to Donna (Hartman) Jones for the photo and some info. I didn’t think I would find much information on the Popcorn Stand, but I did. The Popcorn Stand was on the east side of the Mount Ayr square in the vacant lot…

The Benton Community Center was built in 1992. Before that, some Benton events were held at the former Methodist Church. I didn’t have information on that church’s last service but I was able to find it. In the years 1966 and 1967 the church directory in the Record-News listed Raymond Banner as the person delivering…

By Mike Avitt Using mostly the Ringgold Record newspapers, I found some early history on Clearfield. Beginning in 1907, I have access to the Clearfield Enterprise, and in 1910, the Lenox Timetable. There is a beautiful mural on Clearfield’s main thoroughfare and I took this week’s picture of that mural last week. The Humeston &…