Timothy Brian McKee, Columnist

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2015. Had you gone to this address on Lexington Avenue 60-plus years ago you would have found a hardware store. It was a franchise called Gambles, and sometimes went by the name Dillon’s because he was the owner. Though the hardware store didn’t last […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2015. This is a decoration to the memory of a Richland County veteran — a simple wreath trimmed in carnations and roses. Memorial Day was known for a century as Decoration Day, a time to decorate the graves of America’s soldiers, and this will […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2015. On the western end of Bellville, on a high bluff overlooking the Clear Fork valley, is the town graveyard resting close to the sky on a charming uplift in the landscape known for nearly 10 generations as Snake Hill. For many of these generations […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2016. When the news became public in the late 1980s that a merry-go-round was in the works for downtown Mansfield, it ignited a firestorm of scathing abuse. The project was five years in the making, and even after it was open and doing business […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2015. It’s not always easy to picture what Mansfield may have looked like when people lived downtown; when shady lawns and high-end residences filled up the streetscapes where today we see brick businesses and parking lots: but occasionally photos turn up that capture those days. […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2015. If you go to the State of Connecticut, and travel as far south as it is possible to go within the state — to where you’re standing with your toes in the Long Island Sound — and then face due west and start walking […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2015. Back in the 1930s, if you wanted a Dodge the place to go was Main Street in the first block south of Sixth. Go there today and you will simply dodge traffic racing to get through the light.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2015. Local history always has much to say about those occasions when famous people come to town — national leaders, celebrities and presidents. But what happens when the most famous animal in the world comes to town? The answer is: all the businesses and […]

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was originally published on Richland Source in 2016. Back in the 1980s I interviewed an old woman in Mansfield because I wanted to learn more about the 1930s, when she operated an Auto Park of tourist cabins on Route 430 east of town. She told me, almost casually, that she had […]