What we see is local citizens hamming it up for the photographer. This photo is one of about 15 pictures that were salvaged from glass negatives discovered when the Mount Ayr Record-News moved from 119 N. Taylor to 122 W. Madison in 1988. Most of the other photos were self-explanatory but I couldn’t place this…
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I took this week’s photo in Ellston on July 23, 2010 after the exterior of the building had been completed. A similar photo appears in the Mount Ayr Record-News dated July 8, 2010. The building is located right on Main Street. The Ellston Centennial Book has a fairly detailed history of the American Legion Post…
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This photo was at the Mount Ayr Depot Museum when I joined in 2001. There is lettering on the wagon that appears to say,”A. D. Chance.” This would be Dorington Chance and the man in the wagon could be Dorington or one of his sons. A huckster wagon, seen here, was a traveling store which…
Read MoreI’ll pick up where I left off last week. Fry Chapel was dedicated in the fall of 1887 and a report of the finances was made public. Total cost of the building, including furniture and fixtures, was $1,100. There was still $300 of debt to be dealt with but that money was raised during the…
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BY MIKE AVITT I believe this week’s photo was taken in the early 1950s and shows Clyde Brand wearing a Standard Oil cap. A Red Crown gasoline pump appears on the far right and the Prugh-Dunfee Funeral Home can be seen on the upper left. Thanks to Mari McGehee for this great picture. This filling…
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Thanks to Mari McGehee for this week’s photo showing Gene Trask on East Madison Street. Behind Gene is the Sandwich Shop (left) and Art’s Radio & TV (right). I don’t believe I’ve covered Mount Ayr’s early radio and television shops so we’ll do that now. Most of my information comes from Record-News newspapers. The first…
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BY MIKE AVITT I was very fortunate to come across this picture of the Redding railroad station recently. This view is looking north and we can see some of the homes in “old” Redding on the right. Old Redding was about a quarter of a mile north-northeast of present-day Redding. A town company platted Redding…
Read MoreBY MIKE AVITT I must apologize for spelling Rodger Gatton’s name wrong in last week’s article. And I made an omission. Hanoco Oil Co. was a big distributor of welding supplies. People from many miles away came for their large inventory of welding supplies and equipment. So, last week I highlighted Hanoco Oil Co. of…
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BY MIKE AVITT This photo, which seems to have been taken in the 1950s, shows the Hanoco Oil Co. filling station and cottages on the west side of Highway 69, formerly the Jefferson Highway. The Jefferson Highway was the first transcontinental highway in the U. S. stretching from New Orleans, Louisiana to Winnipeg, Canada. The…
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BY MIKE AVITT Last year, I wrote an article stating the post office building in Diagonal was built in 1919. That was my error; the Diagonal Post Office building was erected in 1925. The post office did move to the east side of Broadway Street in 1919, but not to the building in this week’s…
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