A May 5, 1923, picture of the unpaved downtown square taken by local photographer Roy R. Loving was commemorated Friday, May 5, 2023, with another photo shoot in the same location. Center photographer Lawrence Davis snapped the photos for 2023.
A May 9, 1923, story in The Center Champion describing the photo setting stated, “This picture will be printed in this paper at a later date.” The same can be said in 2023 of Davis’ photo. His picture will appear in the Light and Champion at a later date.
The 1923 story continued, “A four-up ox team appeared on the streets here Saturday and it created more attention than anything else in town. Horses were hard to get to pass the team as it stood on the street and the general citizenship inspected them. It was noticeable that the horses were afraid of the oxen and cared nothing for the many automobiles around them.
This is a reverse of conditions of only a few years ago. “While the ox team was parked’ on the square, photographer Loving took a street scene picture with the ox team, a Cadillac touring car and Federal Truck parked with the team. “The ox team here referred to belongs to Mr. McDaniel, north of town, and he has two of the four-up teams. There only a few teams in the county at this time and the only thing that they are used for is logging and that only in sections where it is hard to get mule teams in the woods.”
