This is a digital painting of the second County Court House for Randolph County Missouri (the first court was held in a home), in the town of Huntsville. We were unlucky in we had a series of three fires and court houses burned down or were partially burnt, so this is one of them but we bounced back and built another, and another, and another... (This is my rendition of it). The banner photo is of a map that was kept in the City Hall of the town of Huntsville, Missouri, circa 1960s. The town is laid out on the diagonal, which proved a great problem for my directional compass growing up, once I got into the downtown area. The reason it is laid out that way is because, as the story goes, four families gave a section of there land so the town could be built; Hunt, Wright (one of my lines), Goggin, and Winburn each family gave 12 and 1/2 acres to form an exact square on the diagonal.

Sketch of the Court House before dome caught fire.

This is how it appeared in 1954, the year my Grand Aunt visited. Later the second story would burn, and now we have a new building.

In this photo you can see my great grandfather, Gray Lowry, and in the windows behind him you can see the reflection of the court house building, circa 1890s.

Dr. Dryer is the doctor who attended to my mother as she gave birth to me, on June 30th, 1953, at 8 AM at our house. The witnesses were my Aunt Alta Wescott, who was a nurse, my dad, and my two older brothers. My aunt Alta wrote me a few years back that since she was a nurse the Doc just handed me off to her to clean me up and shape my head, She wrote, "I guess he thought I was there to work." And so my life in the city of Huntsville, Missouri began.

Huntsville in the 1820s was an unincorporated western town, on the frontier. The Missouri Territory stretched up into Canada, and in 1831 it would vote to become incorporated. The model of western towns is sort of based on this type of town in western movies.

A card showing Depot Street, Huntsville Missouri, some time after 1880.

Huntsville, Missouri in 1911, Main Street.

Postcard of downtown Huntsville, Missouri, date unknown.

The above is a photograph I have in my possession, from the Hammett side of the family. I have the fob (an elk tooth fob, for the Elk's Club) from the man standing on the right side of the door in a dark suit. The man in back of him with the handlebar mustache is the Marshal. I'm not sure of the year, but my second great grandfather owned a bank so assuming this is it.