Looking Backward 7.12.2012
25 Years Ago
July 9, 1987
Due to the great response to the Friday night music events on the square, programs have been scheduled for July 17 and again on July 24. Entertainers are invited to come down to the square and join in the informal musical program on Friday evenings.
The Douglas County Fair opens for a 4-day run.
Miss Ruth M. Miller, daughter of Rev. and Mrs. Frank A. Miller, Ava, received her Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from the Southwest Missouri State University.
Several students from Ava High School recently participated in Bobcat Basketball Camp that was held June 22-26 at the School of the Ozarks. Those attending: Brad Jumper, Chris Bekas, Aaron Miller, Halle Adams, Scott Sallee, Dean Guill, Scott Silvey, Gary Jenkins.
April Eller, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Dennis Eller, Thornfield, and Lorie Haden, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Dall Haden, Squires, received the 1987 Presidential Achievement Award for academic excellence at the close of the 1986-87 school year. The girls are 1987 graduates of Thornfield Elementary School.
Inez Dobbins was hostess for the Arno Club on July 1, which met at the Fair Grounds Pavilion at 11 a.m. A picnic lunch was served to eight members and three guests Joyce Norman, Edna Mae Huff and Jessica Lynn Jenkins. The blessing was given by Gerry Hartley.
SQUIRES –– Estimates of the crowd attending the Independence Day Celebration on July 3, ranged from 1,500 to 2,000.
HAPPY HILL –– Irene Farris and Jean Wallace visited Pearl Benson Monday.
Springfield’s Terry Phillips made a break away from the pack on lap 11 and made a late charge to take his second late model feature of the season at I-44 Speedway at Lebanon Saturday night.
50 Years Ago
July 5, 1962
If everything goes as now scheduled, Ava Industrial Development Corporation’s new 34,000 square feet addition to the Rawlings Manufacturing Company building will receive final inspection on Friday of this week, and will be occupied by the Rawlings Company on Monday, July 9. At the last report, employment at the local Rawlings plant was slightly in excess of 200 persons.
Service station owners may not like it, nor possibly the oil companies, but how the drivers of automobiles love these price wars! New prices posted at Ava “major brand” service stations Monday were one-third lower than they had been in past months –– 20.9 cents for regular and 25.9 for ethyl or premium grade. Independent stations started selling regular grade for one cent less – 19.9 cents – and ethyl at 23.9 cents. This includes 9 cents per gallon state and federal taxes.
A change in the operation of the Standard Oil station in north Ava was made this week. Stock in the station operated as the H&M Standard Station by Wm. Heinlein and Harold Mitchell, was sold to the Ava Oil Company, owned by J.G. Heinlein, but Mitchell will remain as manager. J.G. Heinlein said that other personnel of the station would remain, including Jerry Huffman and Tom Pierce.
Jim Bonner, 25-year-old Army veteran, has been assigned as forest assistant to Douglas County by the Missouri Conservation Commission and he will be in charge of forestry fire control here. Bonner succeeds Richard Chilton, who resigned in May. Bonner said that Stanley Chaney has succeeded Lawrence Ray Stillings at the Dogwood fire lookout tower. The Squires tower recently was completed and Floyd Dry, who has been a towerman since the first of this year, will be the towerman there.
We might as well utter a prayer and get into the controversy, since there seems to be no agreement among the clergy, the law profession nor the general public as to the merits of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling concerning prayer in public schools, made June 25.
ARNO –– Mr. and Mrs. Walter C. Good and son of Bolivar dropped by Arno store Friday evening and renewed old times of several years ago when a boy. Mr. Good has been at Ava Drug Co. in Ava as pharmacist while Boone Norman, Jr., is on vacation. Mr. Good lived at Arno. His father, his brother and himself were all doctors.
MT. TABOR –– Miss Diann Taber of Ava spent the weekend with her sister, Mrs. Raymond Sanders and family.
The suburban home of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Thurman, about 1 ½ miles north of Ava on old Highway 5, was damaged by lightning last Thursday afternoon. A lightning bolt knocked a hole in the roof of the home, burst a chimney, and disarranged furniture in the living room. The television set and a table were completely torn up and the refrigerator burned out. Fire did not break out.
75 Years Ago
July 8, 1937
Earlier in the year the federal government made an appropriation to buy materials to use in controlling grasshoppers. Douglas County was allotted a third of a car of this material, sawdust, bran, and poison. A mixing station was established Tuesday in the building formerly occupied by the Dairy Belt Cheese Factory northeast of the square.
Mrs. Vol Mitchell pleaded guilty in the court of Justice C. H. Ross Wednesday to a charge of possession of home brew. She was fined $2 and costs. The charge was based on evidence found in a raid Saturday on Mrs. Mitchell’s living quarters in the Chas. Victor property west of the Roe Johnson store. Sheriff Lincoln M. Barnes, Deputy Lester Eslick and City Marshal Howard Heimeyer made the raid. They confiscated ten gallons of home brew, eight dozen bottles, a capper and caps.
A crowd estimated at about 4,000 persons witnessed a fireworks display that was the climax of Ava’s Fourth of July celebration at the city park Monday. Other highlights of the program were contests, races, singing, baseball and band music.
Men’s softball play on the Ava school grounds, which so far has been confined to scrub games of work-up, will take on a more dignified aspect Friday evening when two full teams are expected to oppose each other on the diamond. The group elected Ellis Mitchell and O.M. Swick as captains to form teams for Friday evening. Mitchell’s team: Dale Burks, Dave Joslyn, Roscoe Spurlock, Henry Shipman, Charles Burris, Peck Jenkins, Lev Crumley, Frank Givans, Lawrence Croslin, Ray Hailey, Russell Ferguson, Elmer Haskins, Bill Brooks, C.E. Browning, John Fawcett, Boyd Robinson, Lem Northrup, Tan Edmonds. Swick’s team: Ray Royce, Joe Pitts, Clarence Spurlock, Clarence Clinkingbeard, Oral Atteberry, Lyle Pettit, Roy Tharp, Noel Sutherland, Clifford Reynolds, Claude Hibbard, Floyd Curnutt, Tom Brooks, Everett Hesterlee, W.I. Barker, Boyd Forsling, D.W. Tillman, Ray Livingston, Bill Norman.
The Ava Post Office will be closed Saturday afternoon after 1 o’clock, effective July 17, it is announced by Robert L. Ellis, postmaster. The change is made in order to reduce clerical expenditures as much as possible.
Lloyd Reynolds, Jr., who has spent the past six months in Springfield where he has been a student in Draughons Business College, arrived in Ava Wednesday and will spend the remainder of the summer here with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. L.E. Reynolds. Junior will return to school this fall to finish his course.
ATTENTION FARMERS! We will pick up dead animals – cows, horses and mules – FREE OF CHARGE. Call or get in touch with Sallee Motor Co. Ava, Mo. Phone 22.
100 Years Ago
July 11, 1912
The businessmen of Ava and several farmers near by, have become interested in an annual County Fair, and pursuant to a call, they met at the courthouse in Ava last Monday afternoon for the purpose of determining and discussing the advisability of holding an annual Fair in Douglas County.
The nation’s birthday was fittingly observed in Ava last Thursday, when the citizens in and around town met at the park west of town and carried out the program as was published in the Herald prior to the celebration. In the early morning our people were awakened by cannon shots from the blacksmith’s anvil, which made it apparent that the 4th of July had arrived.
Geo. W. Wright, formerly of Pansy, this county, but now of Springfield came down to Ava last Monday and spent the day interviewing our citizens with reference to an electric light plant for Ava. He makes the proposition to install a light plant here at his own expense, and all he asks of the people of Ava is a free franchise from the city for a period of twenty years.
New potatoes are selling on the market in Ava for $1.20 per bushel. Only a few weeks ago potatoes were selling here for $2.75 per bushel, and merchants were hardly able to ship them here at any price. It’s the scarcity of the article that makes the price high, so to “raise more stuff” is the secret to reducing the high cost of living.
Public school teachers in Missouri are endeavoring to place the education of children on the solid basis by providing a definite maintenance tax through a constitutional amendment. The measure is a mill tax and if accepted will take the place of the present school tax.
The new capitol will be constructed of Missouri materials.
With electric lights and a new hotel building wouldn’t Ava loom up.
Socialist speaking at the courthouse next Saturday at 2 o’clock, July 12, 1912, by H.E. Peters of Chicago. All cordially invited to attend.
A girl baby was born to Mr. and Mrs. James Huffman of south of town June 30th, 1912. Dr. James was the attending physician.
NOTICE –– Any persons found trespassing or picking berries on my farm will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Mrs. J.R. Spurlock.
We want teams to haul ties from our 600 acre tract of timber near Sweden, will pay 15 cents each for hauling 6×8 and 50 cents per hundred feet board measure for hauling switches ties both sawed and hewed. See J.P. Stone, inspector for Fullerton Moses Tie Co., Ava, Mo.
DENLOW – Casper Pennington and Charley Vancil treated their friends and neighbors with an ice cream supper last Saturday night.
125 Years Ago
June 23, 1887
There have been no lawsuits in Ava this week and the town don’t hardly know how to act.
Indian Troops Ordered Into Garrison. Washington, June 17 –– An order has been issued from the War Department directing Company B Fourth Calvary now in Arizona territory, and Company B Sixth Calvary now in New Mexico territory, to garrison Fort Myers, near this city. Both of these companies have seen long and arduous service in the Indian country. The Fourth Calvary Company under command of Capt. Lowton took a prominent part in the Geronimo campaign, and is now chasing the hostile Apaches in Arizona. It will not take its new station until relieved by Gen. Miles, Company B, Sixth Calvary, who will be sent east in a few days.
NEW YORK, June 14 –– The opening of the Coffee Exchange yesterday was the most excited in its history. The buying orders generally came from S. Gruner and Crossman & Co. These firms represented the clique, which first started the boom in coffee about eighteen months ago, and caused it to advance from 8 to 18 cents a pound.
In Dakota Thursday the mercury indicated 100 degrees.
Chicago gamblers have been officially notified that they must close their houses at once and remove their implements.
The White Star steamer Britannic, which was lately injured in a collision, has been repaired and sailed Wednesday for Liverpool.
Tennessee will vote on a prohibition amendment to the State Constitution in September.
The accounts already published of the adventures of Gilder and Griffiths, the two well-known Arctic explorers, are now supplemented today by further interesting incidents of their search for the North Pole. That they failed to reach the object of their perilous journey was not fault of their own, but rather result of circumstances over which they had no control.
Dr. Lee has rented the store building of Capt. Pennington and will shortly open a full line of eatables therein.
The oldest daughter of Mr. Jeff Hodge who resides about six miles east of Ava was bit by a rattlesnake late Wednesday evening while on her way to the spring for water. Dr. Hailey was called and reports the case not unfavorable and thinks that she will soon be around again.
There is some talk again of a brass band being organized in Ava.
Funds are being raised for the erection of a house for church purposes. Some two hundred dollars have already been subscribed and everything looks successful for a church building in the near future.
BRYANT NEWS –– Mr. James I. Cameron and Miss Sarah C. I. Miller were united in the bonds of matrimony on the 18th inst. Squire Bowdre of Boone tp., tied the knot.
We notice by the Marshfield Chronicle that the trial of Chas. M. Landis, who was charged with stealing some $30,000 from the old Webster County Bank while he was acting as cashier, was terminated last Saturday evening, the jury bringing in a verdict of not guilty.
