Until the mid 1950’s, coal was the predominant heating fuel for most houses and apartments in our neighborhood. After all, it was abundant and easily mined from nearby. It was an extremely dirty way to heat. Every chimney spewed thick, black, sooty smoke all winter. That made it difficult to dry clothes on lines in […]
The Southside neighborhood area was one which produced many items that were durable, and were meant to serve a given purpose at the time. Several of these items are still around and are useful in one way or another. I think it is unique that our villages of 800 or so houses and the accompanying […]
Back when I was a young boy growing up in our Southside neighborhood, we had a lot of men who would ring our back doorbell asking if they could have something to eat. The Great Depression and World War II made for a hard time for many people. So from 1929 until around 1946 there […]
There were a lot of “start up” businesses in America at the end of WWII. One of our neighbors, Jim “Hobe” Stanton, who lived in the 400 block of West Pine Street, decided to start his Rich-R-Tone Record Company in 1946. His first records were the 78-speed records. As he progressed through the years, he […]
