Now that we are on the radar as “local historians”, we have gotten some other research opportunities to keep us busy (as if we needed help keeping busy). One current project involves a Mount Vernon park. We have a few key dates that we wanted to research; one was a town meeting in 1924 where the citizens voted to even HAVE parks. Can you imagine having a raging debate about whether to have parks or not? In the Argus the week before the meeting, we found notice of the meeting. But that wasn’t the main part of the article, the main article was talking about the town voting on an official flower. We found this particularly hilarious: “Come vote for an official flower! And while you’re there, we’ll talk about parks…” Don’t worry; those quotes are our paraphrasing, not anything actually written in the Arugs.
The next week (1/17/24) there was a front page article about, “A Big Vote for City Park Site”. The story stated: “A popular straw vote Saturday afternoon, selected the park site offered to the City of Mount Vernon by J.C. MacGinnitie and as the city council took this means of making a selection of a site, it is believed the proper steps will be taken to acquire this site.” Six hundred thirty votes were cast on the matter making it “one of the largest ever cast in the city.”
But what of the important flower issue? Well, if we asked you, we bet you might say “tulip!”. But remember, this was years before the tulip was cultivated heavily in the valley. No, the vote went to the calendula—167 of the 318 votes cast on the matter.
So congratulations calendula! Hold your head high while thousands of people come to town next month to visit the tulips instead.
I am in the process of digging a 1946 issue of the MV Daily Herald out from a crack in my basement wall, will keep you posted. This house was built in 1930, 501 E. Highland MV.
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