Thanks to Merle Walter for this week’s photo. Merle says he got it from Bob Ricker years ago. This week we’ll look at the final years of the speedway. The first race was held in 1957 and was sponsored by the Mount Ayr Jalopy Club. At this time, the track was called the Mount Ayr…

By Mike Avitt This is the only photo I have of three business buildings that burned in 1927. The 1927 fire is historic in that it was the last fire on the Mount Ayr square to involve wood-frame buildings. And this fire changed the landscape of the Mount Ayr square. Fire was discovered in the…

My friend Karen Simpson gave me a stack of old newspapers a few weeks ago and in it I found a supplement to the Afton Star-Enterprise about the history of Shannon City. It was dated May 21, 1981 and was written and compiled by David Pugh. Mr. Pugh was a publisher of both the Diagonal…

By Mike Avitt Last week I mentioned several of Mount Ayr’s grocery stores in the 1930s. This week we’ll look at some earlier than that. The building in this week’s article was built in 1891 for grocer H. H. Wilson. Mr. Wilson passed away in 1922, but many readers will remember his son, Attorney Frank…

United Food Market was a small chain of grocery stores in southern Iowa 90 years ago. In 1933, UFM opened at 107 S. Fillmore, the present location of Every Step. This location was also the site of Mount Ayr’s first chain grocery store, A&P, in 1928-29. The new manager was Richard Barton who had previously…

By Mike Avitt While going through a very large number of Clair Heyer photos, I came across three pictures of Corinth School, Jefferson Township No. 8, dated 1966. This schoolhouse was located in section 28 of Jefferson Township on county road J-20, two miles east of the Pole Road (P-33). However, a 1904 plat map…

Diagonal’s first school building was believed to have been built in 1892. Previously, Washington Township No. 3 was used as Diagonal’s school. This week we’ll look at the first year of Diagonal’s existence – 1889. In late 1887, the Chicago, St. Paul, & Kansas City Railroad laid its tracks through Ringgold County creating the towns…

By Mike Avitt This week’s picture shows the Chicago Burlington & Quincy depot looking north. In the background to the right, a couple of houses can be seen and those houses are in the original town of Redding. I also find it very interesting that the railroad put the depot between Old Redding and New…

This week’s picture comes from a postcard with a caption that reads, “4069A Christian Church, Ellston, Iowa.” My experience with these types of postcards tells me this card is from the years 1910-1912. We can clearly see a house to the left of the church. The Evangelical Church in Wirt (Wirt became Ellston on January…

By Mike Avitt Bob and Kay Sickels took this week’s picture in 1992, prior to the restoration process. The depot was restored and opened as a museum in 2000. The Burlington Northern Railroad officially closed the 19.7 miles of line from Lamoni to Mount Ayr on April 8, 1976. It is likely rail service ceased…