This article, written by Todd Preston, President of the Magoffin County Historical Society, was taken from the May 13, 2010 issue of THE SALYERSVILLE INDEPENDENT newspaper.

            During the DAV fund-raising road block last Saturday, a couple of young men stopped and made a contribution.  When they pulled on out I saw in the back of their truck a couple of redbone coonhounds.  It occurred to me – this could have been me some fifty years ago, returning from a trip to the flatlands (Blue Grass area) after an all-night hunt.  I’ve spent a good many all-night coon hunts down in and around Maysville, Lexington, etc.

            We Preston boys made it hard on the wildlife in our day.  We would hunt all day, then grab our lanterns and hunt all night for ‘possums.  There were no ‘coons, I suppose the Great Depression had taken its toll on the raccoon population.

            I became Conservation Officer in 1950 and organized Junior and Senior Conservation Clubs that held activities over on the Connelley Farm. This eventually grew into one of the largest 4^th of July celebrations in eastern Kentucky.

            We built a pond, drilled a well and then built a kitchen in order to have fish fries.  We built a large shelter house in case of rain and had some of the largest firework displays in our part of the country.

            A group of us organized a Coonhunter’s Club and we restocked the area with raccoons by pooling our money and buying coons from up north, we’d get 75 or more every year.  Coon hunting became a popular sport once more and the field trials, water races and Coon-on-a-Log contests were about the biggest show of all during the July 4^th celebrations.  In 1960, a major portion of the activities conducted as part of the Magoffin County Centennial were held on the Connelley Farm.

            John Howington, Oscar Collins, Walter “Dick” Adams and I put on the dog shows.  Marcus Connelley and John Russell Connelley did the horse shows while Fred Conley and Roger Preston fried the fish.

            About all of them, except Marcus and I, have since passed on to glory.  Today, instead of climbing the hills on hunting trips, I’ve climbed more hills than most of my age group in taking a few hunts for abandoned or neglected cemeteries in our area.

            We want to advise you that stories and pictures are still needed for Magoffin County’s 150^th birthday book.  We are still looking for stories about any business, past or present, that operated in our county, any church, school or civic organization history is very welcome, as well as stories of families and individuals.  In the near future, we will try to have a summation of stories that have been submitted for printing thus far.  This printing project is under the direction of the Magoffin County Judge’s and the Salyersville’s Mayor’s offices.  We are working with them.

            Those of you who may not want to write a story down on paper could use a tape recorder or some such means to leave a record of events for your family.

            We are anticipating burying a time capsule with artifacts from the 1960 time capsule plus additional material to be opened fifty years from now (2060)!

            We here at the “home-twenty” are working steadily to keep all our projects moving forward.  Connie and Dorothy lead the way while Kay Bentley, Jimmie Allen and others, including Ole Todd try to keep up with them.

            Thankfully, we were spared the destruction that many areas suffered during the recent rainstorms.  I saw about two feet of water running through our Pioneer Village barn but so far the water has not inundated the other grounds of the village.  Most of Ramey Park is covered, partly because of the fast rushing water through our “cut-through” causes Burning Fork and State Road waters to flood the park.  The original plan for the cut-through was for it to have been several hundred feet up stream from where it is now located which would have prevented this back up of water.

            We have heard stories that in days of old when the water dried up in the Licking River, a Model T. Ford car could drive down the river bed.  Now, with all the fallen trees, tires and plain junk, a dozer could hardly get through it even if it was dry.

            Now, for some better news: Helen Wheeler Tackett stopped in and reported that the Stephen Wheeler Cemetery has been cleaned up!  No wonder, what with the help of her grandchildren, Roger and Scott Wheeler, not to mention Ted Walters, Nita Lewis, Alice Lauderback, Josh Fusco and Mrs. Caldwell and her “Gators”.  It causes us to want to get out there and do some cleaning up also when out-of-county as well as out-of-state people and even Cousin Ted takes time to clean local cemeteries! 

            We are still enjoying the pictures of the Civil War Reenactment from April 9-11^th. Sandy Allen Spurlock has brought her pictures in and they are great!

            We received a card from the family of William McKiven who is the chaplain of the Re-enactors group who visited our county in early April of this year for the reenactment of the Battle of Half Mountain/Puncheon Creek. The family wrote that they had never been so welcomed and loved by any community such as ours that weekend and were looking forward to coming back in the future.  They commended the people of our area for our kindness and also for working to preserve our heritage.  We here at the home-twenty would like to express our heart-felt thanks to all of you that fall into that category about which the McKiven family is speaking. The first time I saw this family was when they arrived at the reenactment site at the South Magoffin School. They climbed up the pasture field hill in front of their parking lot, exclaiming what an awesome site it was.  To those of you who attended the church service, we thank you for making these and other visitors welcome.  We got similar reports from other re-enactors and their officers.  Remember that Magoffin County gets many visitors throughout the year and especially this year, our Sesquicentennial year!  Let’s make them welcome.