Dam 50 Sign - Home again

When visitors visit River Side Park in Crittenden County, to camp, fish on the Ohio, have picnics or just sight seeing, many do not realize that it once was a U. S. Army Corps of Engineers dam location.  

When the dam was destroyed in Oct. 1980, everything pertaining to it's location was also removed, including the signs.  

One of the original signs that was located on Ky. 91 marking the location of the dam was stolen but later turned up.  Evidently someone that stole the sign decided it wasn't a good thing to have it for the sign was found sometime later in a nearby creek.  

The sign was then donated to the  Crittenden County Historical Society.  The society wanting this important part of our past history to be preserved and remembered helped in having the sign reset at the dam site close to where the lock house use to set. 

The red arrow on the sign now points to the spot on the Ohio River where the dam used to be located.

We truly lost some of our old history when Lock and Dam 50 was destroyed to make way for the new more modern and functional dam located at Smithland, Ky. 

Although the now Riverside Park is a little out of the way to get to, it is really a beautiful and scenic place to spend a Sunday afternoon having a picnic with family or friends with the mighty Ohio River as a background.

Pictures made Sept. 16th, 2012

Rosedale School

One of our county schools that very little history has been written about is the Rosedale School. 

It must have been located in the Tolu-Irma area of the county, judging by the family names of students that attended there in the early 1900's.

The picture was made in the school year 1922-23.  It must have made by Miss Geneva Wilcox, who was the teacher during this time.  

Her students at this time were, Ruby Gilland, Dimple Watson, Reba Herrell, Syble Kimsey, Fort Watson.

The little school closed in the 1930's with the students being sent to the Tolu School.  It's a shame not more history about the school was recorded all those years ago.  For now it's almost faded from our history.

Esther Love's New Stone At PIney Fork

Esther Love, who's tombstone had been marking her grave site for 168 years, had gotten in a sad state.  It had been broken off at the base and lost part of it's inscription.  Such a remarkable stone and a fascinating history it has carried with it all these many years. 

 I can't help but wonder about the personality of Esther, for wanting this tragic event put on her tombstone.  A remarkable lady with a mind for the future and wanting this history to be remembered, I am thinking.  For when one reads the inscription, you can't help but want the "rest of the story."  Her old stone, though not fancy or intricately carved, is definitely one of a kind and deserves a special place in our history.

The picture above was made in 1991 and was still in good condition, although the bottom had been covered with dirt to try and help hold it up.  In the next few years the stone got knocked down and the bottom was broken off with the inscription about her husband.

Here is Esther's new stone.  I do think she would be very proud of this and that Crittenden County wanted to preserve her history.

The story behind the new stone is a kind generous person had offered to purchase her a new stone when he saw the condition that the old one was in.  When Henry and Henry Monuments, here in Marion, found out about the situation, they wanted to donate the new stone, with the installation  included.  

Henry and Henry Monuments is our locally family owned business here in Marion and they are so generous with helping the whole community with projects such as this one.  They have helped restore, reset, and design many stone historical monuments through out Marion and Crittenden County. 

Esther's old stone is still at the cemetery, but her new one marks her grave site, which is located close to her parents stones.  Piney Fork is such a historical cemetery and so important to our county.  It's care taker is the Piney Fork Cumberland Presbyterian Church located next to the Cemetery.

 

UPDATE March 2021 -

To preserve what is left of Esther Love's historical stone the Piney Fork Cemetery Committee has donated it to the Crittenden County Historical Museum.  It is encased in a frame and there is a little history booklet that you can read all about the stone, and why Esther had this engraved on her tombstone marker.

The Crittenden County Historical Museum is located at 124 East Bellville in Marion, KY.  The Museum will open for the season on April 7th, 2021, Wed-Sat, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM.

The Old County Clerk's Office

Crittenden County's Court House in 1960. 

This picture was marked as the last time the Court House and Clerk's office would be seen this way.

They would soon be torn down to make way for the new Court House.

The little building to the left of the Court House had been standing since about 1843, soon after the county was formed.  Although remodeled and changed in appearance it still had the same bones as the original building.  When it was torn down it was noted as the oldest building in Marion still in use.

Picture made around 1890 on Carlisle Street.  You can see the same building in this picture and the side of the Court House.  

Although the Court House was burnt twice the small County Clerk's office building was saved, so it's records were spared, still available for us to enjoy today.  We are so fortunate to have these records.  Caroline Byford, our County Clerk, does her best to preserve these records.  Many have been re-bound and put in archival sheet protectors, such as the earliest deeds beginning 1842 and the 1842 marriage records.

Businesses in Marion in 1935

In earlier years Marion was a very busy and growing town.  All of Main Street was full of all kind of stores for shopping.  You could find anything one would possibly need right here in our own downtown.

Here are two popular stores at the time and they continued until many years later.

1935 - T. H. Cochran and Company is the oldest hardware store in Crittenden County.  This business is well and favorably known thruout this entre trade territory, not only for the high grade of materials in which they deal but for the progressiveness and pubic spirited attitude of the owners, T. H. Cochran and L. E. Crider.  ( Mr. Cochran is leaning of the counter and next to him is Clara Nunn, Miley Hill is by Ms. Nunn.) 

Cochran's store occupies two floors of their building on South Main Street.  A large line of farming implements, stoves, kitchen ware, fencing, roofing and hardware staples is kept on hands at all time.  (This historic old store site, sits empty now, waiting for a new business to once again open it's doors and make it accessible to the public.  But times are hard and it's difficult to start a business that would be successful.)

The Red Front Food Store was located once where the new fire station is now located at the intersection of Main and W. Bellville St.

The popular store, the Red Front Cash and Carry Store opened Sat. Feb. 2, 1935. 

W. B. "Bill" Stout was placed in charge.  The store was the largest, most modern and best arranged of the entire group of 45 Red Front Stores over the state.   The refrigeration was the best obtainable and all other equipment was of the highest type.  The store was the leader of the group and the illumination and lighting is unsurpassed being the best west of Louisville. 

Many people remember the days when the Red Front Food Store and Cochran's Hardware were popular places to shop.

Marion's Forgotten Pioneer Negro Cemetery

Mr. Tom McKinney has worked for several years on the Black cemetery that is located in a corner of his property at the end of North Weldon Street.  This is the cemetery where Marion's pioneer Negro citizens would have been buried.

 Forgotten for many years, the cemetery has been there, unknown and unnoticed by most of the local people.  Only a few of the older Negro generation remembered anything about the cemetery.  Now they are gone.  Mr. McKinney gathered as much information from the few remaining ones that he could.

Wanting to preserve the little pioneer cemetery, Mr. McKinney in resent years has had it surveyed and now fenced as to protect it as best he can.  He has had a new wrought iron entrance installed this summer.  It says CA 1840 - Old Marion Negro Cemetery.  Picture above.

Also this year I went with him and did some grave dowsing and found many unmarked graves.  Many have sandstone rocsk as head stones, and many are just sunken places in the ground.  One very historic stone that is there, is for Edward D. Churchill, a Civil War Veteran.  He has a government stone.  Served in Co. I, 8th US Colored Heavy Artillery.  The only Negro Civil War stone in the county. 

Through research from the old Crittenden Presess, I have found many obituaries of Black people that were buried there, and also Death Certificates that tells of many unmarked burials.  We have compiled a list and Mr. McKinney, at his own expensive,  had Henry and Henry Monuments to  create a memorial stone.  It is now placed at the entrance of the grave yard. 

Front of the newly set stone, with names and dates of ones that we have documentation for being buried here, but has no stone.

The back of the stone has a very appropriate memorial for those buried here without a tombstone.  They are no less loved, but are known but to God.

Mr. McKinney is a kind and caring person to want to preserve this part of our history that has laid untouched  for many, many years.  He still has plans for more cleaning and clearing of the area.

Summer Drought of 2012

Here we are once again making history with the weather.  This time it is the heat and the drought of 2012. 

Spring came in hot with the summertime heat and no rains for weeks and weeks.   Weeks of 90 and 100 degree weather with no rain.

 We have had droughts before but not with this excessive heat for 3 months now.  It has taken it's tole on the countryside.  The picture above is what was once a green yard, the grass now burnt to a crisp.  It crunches when you walk on it.   So are the pastures, burnt and dried up.

The farmer's have been hit hard, the corn was planted early this year and the land was dry and could be planted early, but with no rain, many corn crops look like the one on the left, burnt from heat and curled up from lack of moisture.  Although it looks like it is about ready to be harvested, it was only in the early stages of the ears of corn growing and filling out.  Now dried up on the stock.  

So we will write yet another chapter to our history making weather in Crittenden County.