Lone Star School

Another one of our little country schools was Lone Star School.  The school was in operation by the late 1880's and in the year 1903 there were 77 students on the school census.

The families of Woodall and Hill lived in this area and they had 28 of the 77 children attending school there.  Many of the other families were also related.  They included children from the families of Boone, Jennings, Campbell, Rushing, Parmley, Harris and Crider.

The school was located about half-way between Crayne Cemetery Road and S. R. 1107 on the Lone Star Road.

There has never been a picture located of just the school, but several school groups have been made by the school or on the steps of the old school.

This picture was made about 1943 and these students were in the 8th grade.

Left to Right: Teresa Hill, Dorothy Jennings, Clara Mae Woodall and James Belt. (Later Clara Mae returned to the school as a teacher in the 1950's.)

Wonder what ever happened to the bell that you see in the picture.  

The school was closed in 1958 and one of the Woodall family bought the old wooden building, tore it down and used the lumber to build other things on his farm.

Today all that remains of the once busy little school is the old iron pump still standing in the field where the school sat.

Picture made in 2012.

Freedom Baptist Church

Freedom General Baptist Church was organized June 21, 1853.  Land for the church building was deeded to the trustees, A. H. Belt, William Jopland and Thomas Riley, by Alfred Moore.

The first church was a log building with only one window to the side.  The next was a frame building.  The  third building was destroyed by a tornado May, 17, 1946, and was replace in 1949.   This is a picture after the tornado destroyed it.

In 1972 the church building was enlarged by adding a new wing on each side.  

In 1998 the church had outgrown it's present 50 year old home and a new expansion project was being done.  It included a fellowship hall and handicapped accessible restrooms.  The project also included new windows and a new steeple.  The picture above is how the church looks today.  

Freedom Baptist Church is located about 3 miles west of Marion on Hwy. 91 North and is an active church today.

Winter Weather Causing Unusual Events

The unusual wet and icy, wintery weather they think, is what caused the several ton boulder to come off the side of Pine Bluff on Blackburn Church Road,( shown in an early Blog post), and now the Cave-In-Rock Ferry is closed due to ice in the Ohio River which was put there by the ice from the Wabash River farther up North.

This picture was made about 10:00 am Thursday, January 9th, 2014.  I was standing on the Ferry Ramp on the Kentucky side.  The Kentucky side was free of ice, but on the Illinois side it stretched as far as the eye could see.

You can see it all along the shore line and around the tied up ferry boats.  As I wasn't able to get any closer you can't really see how large and how much ice that was really there. 

 A picture taken from the Illinois side of the river, you can see the ice more clearly and also the current in the river.

The Old Nash Dealership

This is one of the old familiar business buildings that was torn down to make room for the new Marion Fire Station a few years ago.

From some information found from the files of the old Crittenden Press comes this informative information.

Marvel and Harmon, New business opened in April 1953.  The Nash Dealership.

The building, before Marvel and Harmon purchased it and remodeled, it was a one-story and unsightly, badly in need of repairs.  It has been a poultry and egg dealer's place of business.

Now it is a 2-story building with completely modern display and sales room, with offices on the second floor.  In the rear of the showroom is a completely renovated service department.

After the Nash Dealership closed other local businesses were housed here, in the 1970's for a time there was shop here that sold sewing material and sewing supplies.

Here is an old Marvel & Harmon Nash ad that was in the 1955 Marion Reporter local paper.

Marion, at one time, had a car dealership about on ever corner of the town, as was the same with Gas stations.