Ringgold Record
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
1898

Maloy, a village of 250 souls, is situated on the east bank of the picturesque Platte river, which wends its way southward with now and then an occasional bayou to lend beauty to its charm and furnish the festive sportsman a pleasant place of resort with rod and gun. Looking to the northwest we see the dense natural groves whose beauty can better be imagined than described, with extended protecting arms to guard our little village from the raging elements and angry storms. To the east and south lies a clear expanse, fruitful with its bounteous eruption of vigorous vegetation, patiently awaiting nature's time for maturity, that it may be garnered by the thrifty husbandman to advance his already prosperous condition.

Westward and to the north we have unquestionably the garden spot of Iowa, whose deep, rich, black loamy soil shows its gladiator strength and richness by the emissions of its prize-winning products, and the prosperous tillers furnish the best evidence of its meritorious worthy by the magnificent buildings and expensive improvements which stand as monuments of past prosperity.

Lying in the lap of a country of which the above description is no exaggeration, and located on the great Chicago Great Western Railroad midway between Des Moines, Ia., and St. Joseph, Mo., with the great Chicago to the east, Minneapolis and St. Paul to the north, Leavenworth and Kasas City to the south, furnishing unsurpassed facilities for the transportation of surplus products and placing them inthe hands of an anxious people whose heretofore liberal purchases at remunerative prices have made them noted.

[illegible] M. D. Benjamin Bissell WARING, who by the way is a relative of the portly ex-postmaster general, whose democracy the doctor personifies. He has an extensive practice, has been here since the first nail was driven in the first board, and knows his business from a to z.

Our two-story frame school building, with its commodious play ground which the patrons take pride in beautifying with shade trees, in time will make a pleasant recreation play for our youths to wear away the fatigue incident to hard study.

We have three hotels with gentlemanly landlords whose better halves take no second place inthe anagement but with their husbands take especial delight in treating their guests with home-like hospitality and in placing before them the best the market affords with nice, neat, clean rooms, good beds and all conveniences.

Our business men are all wide-awake, pushing, progressive and energetic, each firm owning the building in which its business is conducted besides commodious dwellings in which they with their happy families reside.

Those at present engaged in the merchantile business are P. J. WISDOM & Son, general stock; Jno. HARTLEY, hardware, furniture, undertaker, goods and implements; M. N. HART, hardware, stoves and tinware, buggies, bicycles and dealer in grain; M. J. CREWS, confectioner; S. C. KELLER, harness; Julia HART, millinery, goods; Z. ROBERTS & Co., lumber; W. R. HART, general merchandise and post office. John MASON is our blacksmith, Will DeWESE, tonsorial artist [barber], Gib DeBOLT, miller and Lillie WORTHINGTON, dressmaker. Jerry and T. S. SHAY are stock dealers and D. J. BONHAM, depot agent. Telephone connection with the world. Office at P. J. WISDOM & Sons.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, May of 2010