Retired Judge John Clark Love was the guest speaker at a recent meeting of the “Lunch Bunch” at the Skylight Grill.
The “Lunch Bunch” is made up of seniors at First United Methodist Church and their guests. Senior Coordinator Dorothy Harmon welcomed the group and introduced Judge Love.
He gave a presentation related to the history of the businesses and buildings around the Court Square and houses related to those businesses.
Judge Love pulled members of the crowd into his talk by asking trivia questions about many of the buildings pictured in his power point display.
He pointed out that photographs from 1937 and 1940, respectively, show many more cars parked on the Square than in the present day. The population of the area actually peaked right before the Depression and has been declining since.
One of the reasons that the area did not suffer as much as others during this time was that the Cotton Mill on Aponaug Road had 350 employees and was a great economic boon to the town. Workers made about 50 cents a day.
Many in the crowd remembered the bad smell of cottonseed oil cooking coming from the mill as well as the whistle which blew promptly at 7 a.m. each morning.
In the 1950s, Kosciusko had eight new car dealers and six new tractor dealers.
Judge Love also had a photograph of the old Kosciusko High School which burned in 1917 and several members of the audience recalled going to elementary classes in the back of a grocery store.
He had a picture of the old railroad depot and stated that Kosciusko once had passenger service by rail.
Judge Love gave many more historical facts about the town, and Mrs. Harmon closed the meeting by thanking Judge Love for his hard work and research into his presentation.
