Forum Flashbacks: Aug. 31-Sept. 6
FORUM FILE PHOTO
50 YEARS AGO: “Pioneer Town with a ‘Space Age Spirit’” was the theme of the 23rd annual Graham Street Fair parade held Friday. Pretty girls caught the eye of the crowd which gathered to watch the parade (top) while local organizations provided floats to carry out the theme (center). The Nodaway-Holt Trojan Band (below) helped keep the spirit lively with music.
5 years ago
Christmas came several months early in Graham over the weekend during the south-county community’s annual Street Fair.
The three-day summer ritual featured live music, food, spit-and-polished 18-wheelers, vintage cars, antique farm implements and class reunions as hundreds of people lined Jackson Street for Saturday’s traditional parade.
This year’s theme — with temperatures in the low 90s — was “Winter Wonderland in August,” and plastic snowflakes, Santa hats, snowmobiles (hauled on trailers) and truck-pulled sleighs were the order of the day.
Hitching a ride in one of the snowmobiles were grand marshals Clenell and Laura Jo Prettyman, longtime mainstays of the Graham/Barnard area.
The Prettymans, former high school sweethearts, celebrated their 60th anniversary in May and have spent all but one of those years farming in southern Nodaway County.
50 years ago
The “clickety-clack of the railroad track,” as romanticized in folk songs, will eventually be just a memory to train passengers and freight train conductors.
A spokesman for Chicago and Northwestern Railway said his crew is working on the new “clickless” track west of Ravenwood. The crew is laying new track and because the track is being laid in quarter-mile pieces, instead of 39-foot pieces as before, the “click,” made by the joint of the track pieces, will come only once every quarter mile.
The process is unique to northwest Missouri and southwest Iowa. The crew began work south of Des Moines and were to work south to Kansas City, but officials were concerned with the poor quality of the tracks in this area and sent the crew to Conception Jct. to work northward.
“Unfortunately, we didn’t get far enough fast enough,” a spokesman said, “and that’s why we had the derailment last week.”
About 15 cars derailed at the edge of Ravenwood Aug. 20, spilling grain beside the badly worn tracks.
The spokesman added that a shortage of workers caused by the resumption of college classes slowed the work. “We need 70 men a day and we only have 50. With 70, we can lay five rails a day, about 1 ¼ miles.”
He said the men worked 10-hour days, from 7 a.m. to 5 or 5:30 p.m., four days a week. During that time, trains can not pass through the area. “Last night we had four trains waiting,” he said.
The railway contracted with a St. Joseph firm, Redstone Discount Center, to transfer the grain from the derailed cars into other cars so that it could be shipped on to its destination. The device used by Redstone works on the same principle as a vacuum cleaner, sucking the grain from the derailed cars and pushing it into new cars.
About 14,000 bushels of corn, wheat and soybean meal were transferred this week and the work was completed Thursday. Another spokesman for the railway said very little grain was lost in the derailment. He said, however, that four or five cars were totally destroyed in the derailment.
100 years ago
Robinsons Connected With Bank Since 1873
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Fifty Years Ago This Week, Theodore L. Robinson Bought Interest In Nodaway Valley Bank
Since 1873, some one of the members of the Robinson family has been connected with the Nodaway Valley Bank.
In 1873, Theodore L. Robinson bought an interest in the bank and assumed the duties of cashier. In 1889, he became president of the bank and in that year J. B. Robinson became cashier.
In 1894, Theodore L. Robinson died and his son, J. B. Robinson, became president of the bank and John T. Welch assumed the duties of cashier. Fred P. Robinson was elected assistant cashier. James B. Robinson has been president of the Nodaway Valley Bank ever since 1894. In 1904, F. P. Robinson was elected cashier and served until the summer of 1907 when he retired and was succeeded by J. D. Richey.
The Nodaway Valley Bank is the oldest in this section of the state. It was organized in 1863.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The 50-year and 100-year flashbacks are courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, viewable at shsmo.newspapers.com. The original 50-year article ran in the Aug. 31, 1973, issue of The Maryville Daily Forum and the photo ran in the Sept. 4, 1973, issue. The original 100-year article ran in the Sept. 1, 1923, issue of the Maryville Daily Democrat-Forum, which later would become The Maryville Forum.
