June 25, 1891
Friday a representative of the PRESS spent a few hours in Blackford, the place with so much notoriety, on the O. V. road eleven miles from Marion. Within the last year there has been a great improvement in the little village, and whatever it may have been it does not now deserve to be under the tongue of disrepute. A few unfortunate affairs occurred there earlier in its history, but it is now peaceful and pleasant, and promises to be a splendid business point. It is surrounded by a good country, and is some distance from any other town, and considerable business is done there in a small way.
The business houses there are
W. H. Hudson, groceries; Sam Morgan, dry goods, with R. L. Morgan as manager; Isaac Scott, groceries; John Simpson, groceries; N. A. Morgan, groceries and postmaster; Joel Taber, dry goods; Jas. Walker, blacksmith. All are doing well and are interested in the growth of the place, and will tell you that Blackford is coming to the front. Alex. Woody and Dave Crowell have a neat saw and grist mill and are enterprising men, who expect to add improvements to their property. But by far the largest business concern in the place is the Tradewater Lumber Manufacturing Company. Mr. Frank McCoy has charge of this business. A new mill, with all the modern improvements and conveniences for handling logs and lumber, has but recently been put up. It cuts from 25,000 to 30,000 feet of lumber per day, and is moving along in splendid shape. It is located on the banks of Tradewater river, and thousands of logs from the dense forest along the banks of the river for forty miles can be carried to the saw at a minimum cost. A switch from the O. V. to the mill also carries in logs and carries out the lumber for Chicago and other markets, where on account of its high grade it finds a ready market at good figures. Mr. McCoy is an experienced lumberman himself, and he has Messrs S. W. Davis and Frank Duncan, expert sawyers and lumbermen employed. The lumber yards are conveniently located and already have a large lot of fine hard lumber stacked on them. There are already thirty hands on the pay roll of the mill, and a planing machine will be put in shortly, and the working force increased. It is the largest rough lumber mill in this section of the State, and being situated in the center of an almost inexhaustible supply of timber, it will do an immense business for some time to come. Mr. McCoy is a fine businessman, full of enterprise, and will make this mill a success.
Recently the O. V. has put in a telegraph office and there is talk of a new depot in the near future, which shows that business is on the increase.
Blackford boasts of the second best school house in Webster county.
Source: Crittenden Press. (Marion, Ky.) 1879-1907, June 25, 1891, Image 3 - Chronicling America - The Library of Congress.
[My comments are in brackets.]
