Snapshot of History by Mike Avitt

BY MIKE AVITT At the Mount Ayr High School Reunion a few weeks ago, Connie (Ryan) Ferguson approached me with a request. Her Class of 1969 would celebrate their fifty year reunion with a walking tour of the Mount Ayr square and would I go along and identify every business as they were in 1969.…

BY MIKE AVITT I think Allendale’s official population is about 55 but something big is happening there and I’ll tell you about that in a minute. Dave Hardy sent me this picture of the Allendale Baptist Church in its early days. I believe the photo was posted on the Facebook group, Worth County Progress Organization,…

by Mike Avitt This photo is in rough shape but it is still very clear. A picture very similar to this appears in the February 26, 1931 Diagonal Reporter newspaper. The players are in the same position in the newspaper photo so I have their names. The front row is: Ben Camden, John Varner, and…

BY MIKE AVITT I scanned this photo from the collection of LaViece Barker many years ago. It’s high school reunion time so I’ll tell some stories about that. I went to my first Mount Ayr High School Alumni Reunion in, I believe, 2005. It might be 2006 but I remember I was the only one…

I was flipping through an Arispe Centennial Book recently and saw information about Frank and Marilyn Eighme’s gas station in Arispe. They entered into business at this location in January 1970. This got my interest so let’s take a closer look. Many of my readers may recall an article about Frank’s Service in “Our Iowa”…

The Mount Ayr Depot Museum recently received two scrapbooks from the James Pollock family tracing the history of Wishard Chapel. These scrapbooks are full of newspaper clippings, photos, programs, records, and other historical information. Thank you to the Pollock family! Wishard Chapel is located four miles north of Mount Ayr on Highway 169. A few…

This is Ringgold County’s first brick courthouse built in 1883-84. The east-facing  tower was 102 feet high. This courthouse was condemned in 1921 and razed in 1922. Low-quality material and a settling foundation were the reasons given for the condemnation. The bell tower in the foreground served as both a curfew bell and fire alarm.…

This picture postcard was at the Mount Ayr Depot Museum when I joined many years ago. I have never run it before because I don’t know the location. I initially believed it was the bridge just south of the Mount Ayr Water Treatment Plant but the shadows are all wrong for that. The back of…

BY MIKE AVITT This week’s picture should look familiar. It was painted onto the Peggy Whitson rock on the southwest corner of the Mount Ayr square by Bubba Sorensen. Ken Robertson emailed me some time ago asking for a picture of Beaconsfield for Bubba to use on the rock. I sent this photo and forgot…

I got a letter from Illa Heslop of Creston with some interesting newspaper clippings. I will focus on one of those clippings this week. In the 1970s, Harold Roberts, editor of the Creston News Advertiser, penned a column called, “’Round the Community.” Illa sent me one of his columns from 1978 about Pearl Kokesh, a…