A look back at Blair; a former resident remembers

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[BLAIR - What do you remember about Blair, Illinois, in 1923?

My name is Russell Mahan. I am 91 years old and remember Blair as it was when my family moved away from the town in 1923.

I was born on December 23, 1918, in an old house which used to stand in the northwest corner of Blair, in the "suburbs". Since the room in which I was born had walls built of logs, I guess you could say I was born in a log cabin. My dad and mother were David and Grace Mahan, and I had a sister named Irene.

At that time, Blair had 18 or 20 homes, and population of 75 people, kids and all. There were two churches and two stores. Miss Anderson owned one store at the southwest corner of the Sparta-Chester and Blair crossroads and George Schulz owned the other one, which was at the southeast corner. He also sold cattle and horses behind the store. His son, Clifford, ran the cattle and horse business. Gus Niemeyer had a blacksmith shop and a molasses mill on the northeast corner of the crossroads.

Some of the men worked in the area coal mines. Some were carpenters, and some worked in the sawmill. Four or five men were farmers. Land was farmed on the outside of Blair. My father was a farmer. He helped his dad, Samuel Reuben ("S.R." or "Reub") Mahan, farm his land and with his threshing machine, and he also had some land of his own.

There was no post office in Blair (mail was delivered from Sparta), but there was a telephone exchange in the home of one of the residents, Ruth Jones. There were usually five or six people on a single line, a "party line", who could call each other directly. Other people, on different lines, needed to go through the switchboard. The people on the party line had their own rings, like one long ring followed by two short rings, or four "shorts" and two "longs", and so on. So, based on the pattern of the rings, you could tell if the call was for you. You also knew who was being called if it wasn't for you.

As in every town, there were social events. Each of the churches had a yearly social for everyone. A circus came to town one year and needed a large area, such as an open pasture. They used the one next to our house, so we had free admission to the whole circus.

Blair had an open well in town, and people would draw water for their horses as they came through town. Water was drawn up with a bucket to fill the trough. One time I remember, some guys standing close to the well and they started scuffling. Pretty soon, one fellow's cap fell down into the well. To retrieve it, they had to tie a rake to a rope to hook the cap.

I remember another "big event", which was a horse race to settle an argument about whose horse was the fastest. After the race, the loser told the winner that his horse would have won, but the winner's horse kicked dust in his horse's eyes.

I was very young in those days, but I have fond memories of Blair. If anyone interested in Blair would like to contact me, I'd like to hear from you. My address is: Russell Mahan, 800 Baldwin Road, New Athens, IL 62264.