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…
Read MoreI 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…
Read MoreBY 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…
Read MoreThis 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…
Read MoreLet’s see if we can finish our tour of the Mount Ayr square buildings this week. The building that houses the Mount Ayr Record-News at 122 W. Madison was built in 1977 by Bill Warin and Verd Bailey as their law office. Production Credit Association moved here in 1980 and the Record-News located here in…
Read MoreDavid Pugh took this photo in 1994. It shows Extremes Pizza at 114 W. Madison and Cunning Co. Inc. at 112 W. Madison. Aunt Jennie’s Attic occupies 114 W. Madison today and has been there since 2005. John Blauer built the first brick building on this lot in 1897. Mr. Blauer owned and operated a…
Read MoreBY MIKE AVITT We continue around the square with a look at 104-110 W. Madison. In this week’s picture, you can see 104-108 W. Madison all have the same brick facade. These three storefronts were built by Sellards and Merrill in 1893. I believe Sellards owned the two buildings on the west and Merrill owned…
Read MoreThanks to Phil Freeland for this week’s photo. I won’t have the space to go into detail about the offices upstairs so I’ll just say many of Mount Ayr’s more well-known lawyers, dentists, and photographers had offices on the second floor at 100-102 W. Madison. This building was constructed by William Timby in 1890 after…
Read MoreWe continue our tour of the Mount Ayr square with a look at 108 S. Taylor, the Lucky Lanes building. William Timby erected a two-story brick building here in 1891. John Wall moved his grocery store into the north half of the double storefront and B. C. Warren opened a drug store in the south…
Read MoreWe continue going around the square beginning with the Mount Ayr Christian Church. The current church building, at 201 W. Monroe, was built in 1981-82 and dedicated March 21, 1982. The previous church here was built in 1913-14 and burned in February 1980 while being remodeled. To my knowledge, the current building is mostly unchanged…
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