Sunday, January 20, 2019

Local historian,blogger to address Settlers Society(Mining Review Aug11 2017)

Local historian,blogger to address Settlers Society

{Rich Hill Mining Review Aug 11, 2017}
If you were to ask a much younger Bart McClaughry if he enjoyed public speaking, chances are the answer would have been a resounding."No!"

As a student in Greg Brock's Science class, McClaughry was in strong disagreement with his teacher's explanation when requiring students to give presentations to the class. "Someday you may have to get up in front of a group and speak." McClaughry says,

 "At first I didn't agree with him and I didn't like it one bit. Then I developed a strong fondness for speaking to groups and I have had it ever since."

  Local historian and blogger McClaughry will be speaking at the 120th Reunion of the Bates County Old Settlers Society on Wednesday, Aug 23 at 1:00 P.M. where he will discuss pre and post-Civil War Bates County and how the railroad helped the area prosper. He has recently discussed area  history at the 2017 Rich Hill Alumni Banquet and gave a brief presentation during the Fourth of July celebration.

McClaughry finds the stories of Rich Hill fascinating and says the history of the town is often stranger than fiction."In my years working for the City of Rich Hill." I have often wondered when working on different projects, how things got this way? You can still look at Rich Hill's City Hall building on the east side and see a faint image where the door used to be,which they used to take the horses and the fire pump in and out of the building.

"You can look at the old power plant building on Maple Street and on the west side,"he continues,"and still see the doors where they used to shovel the coal in to run the steam powered generators. Another example is when you read about the baseball field, you find how excited everyone was to have an actual ball field built so they would no longer have to play ball in a cow pasture."
  
McClaughry keeps an online record of area history through his blog, "Rich Hill Missouri History." There he shares interesting articles and photos from old newspapers clippings and books. He says,"It is very rewarding to have people contact me and state how much they appreciate the blog, the interesting stories and historical information posted on it."
  
McClaughry invites interested readers to share his passion at the 120th Reunion of the Bates County Old Settlers Society on Wednesday, August 23, at 1:00 PM. in the old Butler gym, which is air-conditioned.