Aircraft Warning Service Lookout Tower

Oct. 23, 2019

Here's a view looking south on 4th with Maple as the cross street. During World War II McCleary had at least one, maybe more, lookout towers designed for the Aircraft Warning Service. This was a program where civilians, armed with little charts showing the shapes of Japanese military planes through the use of silhouettes, would voluntarily give their time to scan the skies for enemy aircraft.

In McCleary the location of one lookout tower I am pretty sure about was on the SW corner of 4th and Maple, on the right hand side of the photo where the brown duplex sits.

1940s architecture

Oct. 27, 2017

The building we know as Gordon's Select Market was built, I think, during or shortly after WWII. The decorative tower-like structure on the storefront has a trace of Art Deco that has always appealed to me. When I was a child the main entrance to the grocery store faced Simpson Avenue. I'm glad the current owners have maintained that tower feature as a McCleary icon.

McCleary Theater

Oct. 10, 2010

This empty lot in 3rd St. is where the McCleary Theater once stood. It burned around 2003.

Too many stories to fit in here. It stopped running movies in the late 1960s, I think, and became an auction hall in the early 1970s. A professional auctioneer named Virgil if I remember was quite a draw. Eventually he moved on and others ran the auction, but none of them had the skill of the first guy in terms of entertainment. By 2003 the old swayback building had become an eyesore.

Built in the 1920s, the building's most historic role was serving as a convention center in 1942 after Henry McCleary sold his company town to Simpson, who in turn insisted the people here incorporate into a municipality. It was here the people divided themselves into two local parties and nominated their first candidates for public office.

So while the young men of McCleary were serving in the military to protect democracy, the folks back home were trying to form one.