By “BUZZ” KING, guest columnist
What corner, you ask?
Why, the southeast corner of Van Buren Street and Main Street. The Nashville House corner. The point of reference for locals and visitors alike, when giving directions to anywhere. Meeting place, point of interest, and the place that everyone sees and/or passes by.
Scenic Brown County is made even more scenic by this corner, along with so many other spots in the county and in Nashville. But now, let me recount the several things that this corner has been used for in just my lifetime.
In the very early or mid ‘50s, the still very young chamber of commerce built a 5-by-8-foot booth, open on three sides, to provide info to our visitors. This booth sat first at “the corner.” Later, it sat where the Artist Colony Inn now sits. This was the site of the Nashville High School. The chamber of commerce had no office at that time, and this booth was the only physical point of contact with the throngs of folks who would visit Nashville each year, as they still do.
As the chamber had no home, the storage was at Tracy’s Office Supply on the first floor of the Village Green Building (Miller’s Ice Cream now). We, myself included, spent a lot of hours folding maps on a large table at the store.
Later, when the booth was still at “the corner,” the booth was used by the Brown County DeMolay Chapter as a tour booth. A DeMolay member would ride along with the tourists in their car and read a timed, written script, pointing out points of interest and a lot of history. Five different tours were available.
Street artists were everywhere, and among them was Arthur Kepler. He was a wonderful man from the Madison area and landed here each summer through October for several years. He would put a 5-by-7 black paper and a white paper together and freehand-cut your silhouette for a modest fee. He spent his evenings at Strahl Valley in the park. I knew him well and would visit his campsite often.
He was also an accomplished oil paint artist. He would lay six to 10 cardboards on the picnic table, and dip his brush in the paint and touch each cardboard in two or three places, and then dip in a second can of paint and repeat, and in 20 minutes, he had painted several different painting, all different scenes, and very good, too!
Minstrels would entertain from time to time; some would sing and others would just strum a little, and one man played a saxophone. It didn’t last long.
John was the best, and still lives in town near me. He played by the train usually, but he tried “the corner” too!
‘Til next time. — Buzz
