Center Grove Cemetery Church

 

Residents and businesses in ‘old Center Point’

 

Pictured is a hand-drawn map of where Center Point was located in relation to Westboro and Tarkio on what is now Route O.

 

By Beverly Clinkingbeard

A reader, Kenny Kolodzie of Bellevue, Nebraska, has family at Center Grove Cemetery. He shared a photo of the town, map and church. The church was of Baptist persuasion and closed many years before it was torn down in 1959. The merchants of Center Point adapted to the changes the new railroad brought. They simply packed up – buildings and all – and moved either to what was then the new town of Tarkio or the other new town of Westboro.

He also included an interview (no date) of a Mr. Howell written by Mrs. Sue Smith (Scott). A paragraph regarding Center Point details, “At the time Tarkio started, the citizens consisted of people from nearly every state in the Union. Many of them were from Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. It was often a source of great amusement to these folks to hear newcomers refer to them as natives. One of these older settlers was talking to another “native” one time, and asked him if he could distinguish between new arrivals and “old timers.” The native replied he could tell some of them apart; if he met a man with all the buttons on his coat, he called him an old settler, or native, but if the buttons were all, or partly off, he classified him as a new addition to the town. Then they both laughed, and at that time I wondered what the joke could be!  As an editorial note, it must have been an interesting introductory conversation subject of where they formerly lived, and as well, to compare traveling experiences and family connections.

An excerpt from a letter to the Avalanche in 1985 by J.C. Layden (an uncle to Mr. Kolodzie stated, “I grew up within a mile of ‘old Center Point’ in a farm house built 1849-1851 where they (grand-parents of Kolodzie, Raleigh and Amy Clement Layden) lived until my father’s 1968 death. For the house, logs from the farm were teamed to Watson sawmill for the lumber. The farm is now owned by George Roberts, whose ancestors and grandparents ‘settled’ the place. The house was some distance off the section line country road (later surveyed); near a ‘spring’, and alongside a crosscountry road/trail (still visible), Blanchard, Iowa, to Rock Port.”

And, that’s a bit more of the story for Center Point/Center Grove.

’Til next time.