BY MIKE AVITT I found something really interesting about the religious life in Knowlton, so I’ll just share everything I have. On July 20, 1922, lightning struck the Methodist Church and burned it to the ground. What the newspaper said about the history of the building came as a shock to me. This church building…
Read MoreBY MIKE AVITT I took this week’s photo while Keith Adams still had his barber shop in the north end. Keith’s Barber Shop closed about the first of February 2008. The Kellerton IOOF Hall stands where the St. Joe Hotel once stood. In my early research, I thought St. Joe Hotel was another name for…
Read MoreBY MIKE AVITT Florence Lawhead supplied me with a Sun Valley Lake newsletter, dated June 1973, which contains information I did not previously have. I will use that newsletter and the May 31, 1973 Record-News for this week’s article. The marina was already built by June 1973 as a square dance was planned for July…
Read MoreBY MIKE AVITT This week’s picture comes from the Eleanor Hacker collection by way of Michell Ricker. We see what appears to be a dirt parking lot in front of the West End Market at 1004 W. South Street (Highway 2). The West End Market was opened June 16, 1950 by Leo Hacker and Nick…
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BY MIKE AVITT Thanks to David Cunning for this great photo of Bob Geigel and Mount Ayr High School wrestling coach, Doyle Thomas, in an exhibition match at the Mount Ayr High School gym on March 24, 1965. You may remember Bob Geigel from his days wrestling for promoter Gust Karras on Big 2 Wrestling…
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BY MIKE AVITT I took this week’s photo on May 15, 2010. This was originally Monroe No. 8 and it was moved to the Daughton property north of Kellerton after being retired as a schoolhouse. Bob Sickels and a crew moved the building to the Ringgold County Fairgrounds in October 1992 where the restoration work…
Read MoreBY MIKE AVITT This hotel was located at 202 N. Taylor and was the second most successful hotel in Mount Ayr’s history, behind the Mount Ayr Hotel. Other hotels in the early days included the Williams Hotel, 107 E. Adams; the Ellis Hotel, 109 E. Madison; Commercial Hotel, 206 N. Taylor; and the Crawford Hotel,…
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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.…
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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…
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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…
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