The Death of Newspapers

Dec. 10, 2019

Newspaper boxes at Cheemas turned introvert. First we saw pay phones vanish from McCleary. Newspaper boxes are next.

Ellis Food Market

Oct. 23, 2019

If you had been standing at this location in the 1960s to 1970s, the view would have been much different.

To begin, where Gordon's Grocery is today was once, ca. 1960, the Ellis Food Market or a name that was close. For some reason the store downsized and in the early 1960s they moved across the street to the present location of Cheema's. Their building, which perhaps had previously been an auto mechanic garage, was a nondescript mostly windowless block of concrete, maybe cinderblock, with a half-quonset hut roof. The store occupied the NW part of the lot while the rest was a parking lot. The entrance was in the SE corner of the building, facing the Post Office.

The present building originally opened as Mike's in the first half of the 1980s.

Skyline at dusk

Sept. 18, 2019

Smile

Jan. 28, 2019

That smiling log will be turned into lumber and in turn will create a happy home.

The red door and the shadow flag

Mar. 3, 2018.

Cheema Market

Happy New Year

Jan. 1, 2018.

The bustling live-wire central business district of downtown McCleary on New Year's morning, 2018.

Hmmm, no one seems to be up and around. Gosh, I wonder why?

New blacktop on old concrete

Aug. 6, 2017

Cheema Market

Parking berm art

Aug. 6, 2017

Behind Cheema Market.

The end of diesel gas at Cheema

Oct. 12, 2016.  Two big clues: the giant concrete locks, and, no pumps.

Mikes transforms into Cheemas

Dec. 29, 2012

Major Mite's home?

Dec. 15, 2012. I could be wrong, but I think where the diesel tanks at Cheema's are now located was once the site of the childhood home of Clarence Chesterfield Howerton, otherwise known as "Major Mite" one of the smallest men in the world. Howerton had a career in the circus and even had a role in the Wizard of Oz film as a Munchkin (3rd trumpteer heralding the arrival of the Munchkin Mayor).

As late as the 1960s there was still a home sitting at the spot where the diesel tanks now reside.

Major Mite lived here at the same time as Cecil "Primo" Boling, one of the tallest persons in the USA. As a result McCleary was the subject of a lot of press at the time wondering what was in our water supply.

Rebar alley

Sept. 29, 2010. I believe I took this shot in the alley between the time Mike's became Cheema's.

Retired phone booths

Cheemas, Sept. 3, 2011

Accidental art

Next to Cheema Market, June 18, 2012

What is it?

June 18, 2012, next to Cheema Market.

Mike's Phone Booths

Telephone booths at the deserted Mike's Market (now Cheema Market), Jan. 29, 2011