Another look at Linton. Last week I used, by mistake, the placeholder copy from the start of the year, when we look at depressing Detroit streets. This is not that! This is a world away from the bleak blasted avenues of the battered big city.

Ah, the old Opry.

Where never an opera was ever performed.

Perhaps someone can explain this: the postcard at the historical society appears to show an entirely different building.

I guess they had two.

Different brick. Or something happened that made them look different. One side has the original windows; the other is dead and rotted.

Suddenly, the FUTURE!

Looks like an old Embers restaurant.

Well, at least they have a nice antique store to bring the folks downtown -

Oh

A stolid bank. This town, by the way, was one of those difficult examples; it was hard to orient the view correctly, or get a full picture. It felt like turning around a tanker truck in an alley.

This is 2008, and you know what that means.

The demolition revealed the marks of the previous structure.

I’m always haunted by the remainders of staircases - if that’s what those are. They seem a bit vague, and there doesn’t seem to have been a second floor for that building.

I know the architect and the building itself wouldn’t like to hear this, but, well, it’s just sorta cute.

But wait! There’s more!

Looks as if they made space for name blocks, but never carved anything.

Let’s take another look at this beast, which we saw last week.

It’s the old dry-goods store. Quite the accomplishment, and now utterly dishonored. There was something at the end:

Turns out there’s more than we discussed last week. Yes, it was built as the J. W. Wolford building, but it became the G. C. Murphy.

News:

. . . some of the older Lintonians may recall, G.C. Murphy was an almost magical place of retail in downtown Linton many years ago — offering candy, toys, vinyl records, and more. It was part of a much larger chain of “five and dime” or variety stores in the United States from the time period spanning 1906 to 2002. Later, the same building would become known as the Linton Variety Store, a local remake of sorts of the past G.C. Murphy “five and dime” store era. 

Never heard of the Murphy chain.

Finally, a look from a few years ago . .

Now there's one, waiting for its master to come home and take him away.

But hey: planters.

That'll do. One pathetic postcard to end out the restaurant section. I mean, I suppose I could start motels today, because it's May! But we'll wait for the first solid week of the month.