I have been sharing on my Larry's Creative Zone about the small town of Murray, Iowa. I want to share just the one photo here of this brick building. I am told that my Uncle Carl owned this building before I was born and he ran an Implement Store. I only knew it as Kimball Implement, and my dad worked for them at one time as a mechanic. I really don't know if he was working there before he was drafted into the war, or he worked there when he returned from the war. Maybe my older brothers know, no one else to ask. The building sold International Harvester tractors and repaired all kinds of tractors. When I was in grade school my Uncle Leo was one of the main mechanics there.
As a good business move, in the early 60's, the Kimball's moved their business to Osceola, a much larger city and they sold tractors and equipment with a large inventory always on hand. My Uncle Leo went with the business to continue working for them.
I am not sure if there is a strong business in this building now. I have seen people around and working on cars. They don't have a sign to identify themselves. The building is a more modern building compared to the wood structure across the street or the fire station which is a lot older. The bench is in memory to someone in town.
The picture has a lot of other things going on in it. You can see down main street where it is all residential houses. Can you see the Methodist Church? The town had this church on the north side of the tracks and two other churches were on the south side of the tracks. Fortunately the train line is the main passenger line for southern Iowa so the train still goes through town.
4 comments:
I love the idea of history of buildings .. We all do histories of families and histories of people but buildings have histories that cut across economic and social history like a core sample through a rock strata
It is always interesting to read about the history of other places and times. This building seems to have quite a history. It is interesting that they have a cattle trailer parked next to the building. Maybe a farmer owns it now.
It's great to know the history of old buildings. I see so many that no one knows anything about.
Sunny :)
Fascinating to have the history of this building brought to life. Still having a railway going through the town is fortunate. We should be making more of our railways rather than cutting them back.
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