History of Cleghorn
Cherokee County Historical Society Newsletter - Special Issue -
Volume 13, Number 1, January 1978 |  |
| Another
year has passed. After a three-year tenure as Vice-president of
the Cherokee County Historical Society, that job has now devolved upon
other shoulders, Anne Wilberding of Meriden is now in charge of Vice
for the Society.
This year I have been assigned the task of
editing the Newsletter, and heading up the membership committee.
The easier you make the membership job, the more time I will have
to devote to the Newsletter,so please send in your cards and letters,
folks, along with your dues for 1978.
This month's issue of the
Newsletter is devoted primarily to Cleghorn. That town is the
newest town in the county, being founded in 1890 and incorporated in
1902. McCulla's 1914 History of Cherokee County almost totally
ignores Cleghorn, the information about the town in that history is
minimal.
The dirth of information is partially rectified by a
publication called "Ten Score the American Way", a Meriden Cleghorn
Bicentennial Commemorative Book published by the Bicentennial Committee
of Meriden and Cleghorn in 1976. That publication is the most
comprehensive history of the Cleghorn Community available.
In
1896 the town of Cleghorn had a newspaper, the Cleghorn Recorder.
The first issue hit the streets May 28, 1896, but its subsequent
history appears to be unknown.
One thing that strikes me about
the Cleghorn community is the number of building that have been moved.
Our forefathers were great ones to jack a building up and move it
to another site. None of this, tear it down so we can build new, for
them. When a building had outlived its usefulness in one place it
was moved to another, and if necessary renovated for a new use.
The first church building in Cleghorn was a church moved in from the country, , and that tradition has been maintained.
I
was reminded forcefully of this when around Christmas the old Steele
house in Cherokee succumbed to the wreckers big machinery. Our
forefathers would probably have chopped that huge old home into
sections and moved them to new locations, there to serve as housing for
another fifty years.
Somehow I cannot help but compare modern
construction with the building of the boom towns of a hundred years
ago. Then too the primary goal was to get a layer of something
between the occupant and the weather. Today's structures may be a
little more cosmetically pleasing that the clapboard siding over two by
fours of yesteryear, but for me, a two inch layer of chopped paper
insulation does not satisfactorily replace solid construction.
Repeatedly
the cost of new construction is cited as the reasoning behind the new
construction techniques. Perhaps the difference is in our perspective.
The home builder once viewed the construction of a new house as
an investment for the future, a home to be used by generations of
people, preferably family. Now we seem to be building for the present
generation only, and probably that's about as long as it will last.
I
contrast this with the building constructed by the Cleghorn Christian
Church in 1894. When a new church was built in 1912, this
structure was moved and remodeled into a home, which purpose it still
serves.
The new home of the Cherokee County Historical Society
was built in 1891 and moved to Cleghorn in 1922. For 55 years it
has served as a meeting place and lodge hall. Fifty-five years of
service after its original purpose was outlived and how many years of
service yet remains, no one yet knows.
I suspect it will never
be said of our generation that "They built better than they knew," a
rather sad epitaph to pass to our descendants. | HISTORICAL SOCIETY'S NEW HOME
In
January of 1978, the Cherokee County Historical Society acquired a new
home. The Adrian Olson Legion Post of Cleghorn deeded the
American Legion Hall in that town to the Society for their use and
preservation.
The building was built in 1891 in Larrabee as a
school house. It is a two story structure with hard wood floors
and a magnificent staircase. The building served as the Larrabee
school until the construction of the present brick structure there.
In
1922 this building was moved to Cleghorn and put on a foundation for
use as the I.O.O.F. Hall. In 1970, the American Legion Post in
Cleghorn acquired the building as their meeting place.
Now the building with all of its historical significance is the property of the Historical Society.
Most
of the original schools in the towns in the county were constructed in
a manner similar to this structure. The old school in Cleghorn was
constructed from nearly identical plans.
The youngest town in the county thus becomes the home base of the county's Historical Society.
The building is in essentially good repair and requires more cosmetic restoration than structural renewal.
We
thank the members of the Adrian Olson Legion Post and people of the
town of Cleghorn for this tremendous boost to the Cherokee County
Historical Society. |
|
