Pike Pickings – 5.10.23
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150 Years Ago
May 15, 1873
Since last Saturday the Mississippi at Hannibal has risen three feet and eight inches. There is some solicitude in regard to the levee along the Sny, but so far it is firm.
It is finally nice weather and the farmers are all plowing around Nebo. It has been so wet that they are all behind, besides having the blues bad. Though if it stops raining for awhile they will be in time yet with their corn crop.
After next Sunday the Methodists of Griggsville are to hold their services in the grove south of town. Their church is to be closed for a thorough renovation and repair.
School’s out and the girls and boys and young men and women will have a jolly dance at Bush’s Hall on Friday night. There’s to be no high school, grammar school or intermediate department, but all will meet and have a jolly old-fashioned dance. Come one! Come all!
There is a large wolf running around a mile or two north of Pittsfield that makes himself quite conspicuous by his free and easy ways.
125 Years Ago
May 17, 1898
May 17 and no ground broke for corn. The rain fell heavily up to yesterday, but today it is clear and sunshiny, looking as if the long wet spell is over. Roads very bad.
There will be a peanut sociable, with musical program, at the rectory of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Pittsfield next Friday night. Admission 15 cents.
It is the desire of Dick Gilmer Post No. 515, Department of Illinois Grand Army of the Republic to secure the cooperation of everybody in observing the custom of honoring the nation’s brave defenders.
May 20, 1898
And still it rains—no, it pours. An immense body of water has fallen since our last issue, and the plows still lie idle. Complaint has been made that the excessive moisture is fairly drowning the wheat. The river at Louisiana jumped up two feet Saturday night and Sunday it raised three feet.
Lightning burned out all the telephone boxes in Pleasant Hill last week, but the damage was soon repaired. There has been no plowing for corn as yet and the prospect to commence is bad.
It was a jolly crowd that met with Mr. and Mrs. W. E. Williams at their beautiful home on West Jefferson Street and proceeded in their own way to ratify Mr. Williams’ nomination for Congress.
The squirrels have been turned out in the courthouse park, and all persons are requested to keep an eye out for the small boy and his dog.
100 Years Ago
May 16, 1923
A seething, puffing, twisting windstorm bounced through this section Friday evening, hitting hard in spots and then passing high overhead for considerable distances.
The 1923 graduating class of the Chauncey L. Higbee High School at the K. P. Theater May 22 will be the largest in the history of the school, with 26 boys and 35 girls in the class. Paul Bolin, son of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Bolin of Summer Hill is class president and Alta Stark, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John H. Stark of Nebo is vice president. Pittsfield, with its $200,000 school plant, is the largest high school in western Illinois. A class of 40 will graduate from the 8th grade at the K. P. Theater Friday afternoon at 2 o’clock.
Barry High School will graduate a class of 28 next Friday. This is one of the largest classes ever to graduate from the school.
The cemetery known as the Taylor-Martin cemetery has been incorporated and the following trustees elected: Gilbert Martin, Ellis Strubinger, Gene Chamberlain, Walter Strubinger, Jim Easley and Otis Ownby.
Brother B. G. Reavis, who has been preaching at Pittsfield the past four weeks, will be preaching at Time Monday and Tuesday night.
The mercury recently registered from 104 to 110 in California’s Imperial Valley and trainloads of people fled to the coast to escape the heat. England is also suffering from a heat wave.
75 Years Ago
May 12, 1948
Two Pittsfield civic organizations were told that there is a tight oil situation in the country, despite increased oil production. Two reasons given were increased demand in the United States and increased exports under the Marshall Plan.
Bob Dell, junior class president, crowned Miss Eileen Robinson queen of the junior-senior prom at Pittsfield High School. She is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Amos Robinson of Pittsfield.
A total of 114 wells has been drilled in or near the gas belt on the Pittsfield-Hadley anticline since the first Pike County “gasser” was brought in on the Jacob Irick farm in 1886. That furnished natural gas to the farmhouse for 34 years.
Perry High school will graduate 12 seniors this year. The valedictorian is James Brim and the salutatorian is Tolbert Elledge.
Barry High School will graduate 30 seniors next week, New Canton High will have 11 graduates and Nebo High will graduate eight.
Actual construction work on a new garage building for R. C. Gray was started Friday, when the concrete footings were poured. The new garage is being built across the street from the Congregational Church. Mr. Gray started in the garage business shortly after returning home from World War I, and he has been one of Pittsfield’s most progressive businessmen.
50 Years Ago
May 16, 1973
The general public must become aware and realize the seriousness of the nationwide gasoline shortage. This was the consensus of several service station owners who gathered Monday morning for an interview at the Pike Press. Each of them has been allotted the same amount of gas or 90 percent of the gas they sold in May of last year. Gasoline production has not been able to keep up with the demand. “This gas shortage is for real,” said Clem Smith. The public must believe that a nationwide gas shortage can happen in a midwestern city like Pittsfield.
Brother Don Crater was ordained into the Christian ministry Sunday evening, May 6, at the Pearl Christian Church. The ordination services were conducted by Brother Leo Norton, minister of the Green Pond Christian Church and Brother Joe Rowlett, minister of the Pearl Christian Church.
East Pike High School is graduating 25 students May 30 and Pittsfield High School will graduate a class of 141 on May 31.
A bridal shower will be held Friday, May 18 at the Nebo Christian Church for Mary Lou Couch and Elba Buchanan.
25 Years Ago
May 13, 1998
Judy Crowder and her husband, Rodney, are working with Scott Hill and Billy Kidd to reconstruct a log cabin they found in the St. Louis area. They are erecting the cabin on property they own in Martinsburg. The cabin is thought to date from around 1820.
Pike County Historical Society president. Betty Lacy, says that work on the Shastid house at the corner of Jefferson and Illinois streets in Pittsfield is awaiting word on a grant that would allow extensive restoration of a house that Abraham Lincoln frequented.
The crowd celebrating the 47th National Day of Prayer endured a light rain on the south side of the square Thursday, May 7. Prayers were given by area ministers, including: Dan Krumrei, Eugene Guthrie, Ernest Revell, Ryan Hammitt, Scott Clark and Douglas Carter.
Mr. and Mrs. Lindell Burns of rural Nebo have announced the engagement of their daughter, Kimberly, to Michael R. Merryman. He is the son of Randy and Lisa Merryman of Bowling Green, Mo. and Peggy and John Marshall of Naples, Fla.
10 Years Ago
May 15, 2013
Justin Noble, chairman of the labor committee of the Pike County Board, says, “We are just at an impasse right now,” referring to the fact that 20 employees, working in five offices of Pike County, have filed a notice stating an intention to go on strike Friday, May 17.
Mitchell Barton, son of David and Debbie Barton of Nebo, recently received the HCE scholarship. The $250 scholarship is presented annually to a current high school senior from on of the Pike County schools.
Graduates this year include 88 from Pittsfield High School; 24 from Griggsvile-Perry; 25 from Pleasant Hill; and 39 from Western High School.
Compiled by Michael Boren
