To the editor:
Although my direct family is mostly gone from Greene County today, we first began to populate the area in the late 1800’s. Graves of my descendants can be found in area cemeteries throughout the county.
“Spelunking” old newspapers published in Greene County has become a casual pastime. The old publications have provided fascinating glances into the day-to-day activities of my ancestors and the way things were in Greene County during their lifetimes.
Years ago, Greene County was a really busy place. Almost every town in the county hosted a local school and a thriving base of providers of goods and services to the immediate population. It seems those were the glory days that would be great to have again.
But there is a telling feature of early Greene County that simply cannot be overlooked. In the early 1940s Greene County population was measured at 16,599 and the city of Jefferson was tallied at 4,088. In 2020, total county population was measured at 8,717 and the city of Jefferson added up to 4,136. I find those numbers fascinating and probably the source of many conclusions.
Mike Coyne, Des Moines
