Snapshot of History by Mike Avitt

BY MIKE AVITT This week’s photo appears on the front page of the July 28, 1960 Mount Ayr Record-News. The 1948 Cadillac hearse had been converted into a rescue unit with the donated services of Shafer’s Service Station, Ames Cross Garage, Underwood Auto Parts, Fennema Implement, Roe Implement, Jim Burge, Lester Grindstaff, and Howard Paist.…

BY MIKE AVITT I have cropped this week’s photo to make it more newspaper friendly. Shown are houses in Sheldon Heights in Mount Ayr looking north: 107, 103, and 102 Shellway Drive. You might be able to see the houses at 107 and 102 were built on the same floor plan. Sheldon Heights was named…

BY MIKE AVITT Thanks to Jeff Klein for this week’s picture of his great-grandfather’s house in Mount Ayr. The house belonged to Everal Sumner Downie and it has an interesting history. The house is located at 219 Dunning Avenue. This street is named after the Dunning family, Mount Ayr’s first residents, and is located in…

BY MIKE AVITT I borrowed this postcard before I got a computer so I had an 8×10 color copy made and returned the postcard. While in possession of the original picture postcard, I could make out the 1924 license plate and the sign on the roof – “Kellerton Oil Co.” As far as I know,…

I’m somewhat obsessed with the early days of Hy-Vee. I’ve read, “The History of Hy-Vee: 75 Years of a Helpful Smile (2004),” by Kathleen Gilbert, so I know where there are gaps in the information. And that’s what I focus on. In April 1923, Charles Hyde and his family moved to the Duncan property in…

I’ve been trying to find the origin and history of Charles Hyde’s and David Vredenburg’s first store they owned together. We know it was in this building in Beaconsfield, but the exact date is not known. We also don’t know for certain who built this building and when. This week, we’ll look at the Beaconsfield…

Thanks to the Diagonal Printing Museum for this week’s picture. I’ve been into the Ringgold Record newspapers and picked up some information on Goshen. This is the town that moved to the crossing of the Humeston & Shenandoah and the Chicago, Kansas City, & St. Paul Railroad to form the new town of Diagonal in…

I was in the Bethany, Missouri Post Office today (Jan. 5) and I froze as I walked in because the floor plan and interior is almost identical to Mount Ayr’s post office. There were really only two differences. The second exterior door at Bethany was on the side and the door from the lobby to…

BY MIKE AVITT This week’s picture comes courtesy of Douglas Harding and shows the Delphos depot in all its glory. This photo gives us a clear view of a manual train order signal and I’ll explain the how and why. Delphos was established in 1880 when the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy extended their railroad line…

This week’s picture comes from Lenore Saltzman’s photo album. It shows the old Farmers Produce building at 205 N. Taylor in 1973 which Mount Ayr Implement was using for storage at the time. I thought I wrote an article about this building, but I can’t find it, so maybe I didn’t. This building appears on…