Historical Bluffton

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The location: Harmon Field. The event: Bluffton College homecoming. The year: 1956 or 1957. Barbara Diller Garriott (center), a Bluffton High School grad, now of San Diego Calif., was homecoming queen. Her father, Paul Diller, took this color slide photo. Can Icon viewers name the two attendants?

Check the photo below for a graduation photo of Barbara, also taken by her father.

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Here's another photo from the 1955-56 Bluffton Business Men's Association dinner and program that welcomed Ex-Cell-O to town. We see Gerald "Tuffy" Swank on the far left, facing the camera. Paul Basinger is looking up at the speaker. Is that Mayor David Risser on the far end of the table.

We encourage Icon viewers to provide more identifications in this photo. The dinner was on the second floor of the town hall. Neu-Art Photo.

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The year was 1933 - but actually 1961. A re-enactment of the John Dillinger bank robbery in Bluffton was portrayed in this scene from the Bluffton cenntennial historic pageant.

The pageant at Founders Hall was presented on two evenings during the week. Leland Gerber took this photo during the dress rehearsal. Rudi Steiner, who had just graduated from Bluffton High School that spring, is in the center collecting the loot. George Burkholder, a 1960 (?) BHS grad is on the right.

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Just when you think you know everything there is to know about Bluffton, a photograph like this shows up.

Can you identify what's going on here?

This is a photograph of the "floating" pool that once served swimmers in Bluffton. It was constructed on the east bank of the Buckeye and then was moved to the quarry where it floated and allowed swimming.

Older Icon viewers with splinters in their behinds may be able to put a date on this photo. It's probably the mid-1940s.

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In an effort to make life interesting The Icon provides viewers with this photo of the Bluffton High School class of 1976 as first graders.Vera Basinger is the teacher. We see several familiar faces, but we will rely on viewers for proper IDs.

If any questions come up, ask Denny Edinger at the post office.

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Lynn Carmack, Jim Szabo and Warren Eastman. What did these three men have in common? They were members of the First Methodist Church. In this 1961 centennial photo, they participated in a centennial pageant in Founders Hall. The pageant includes the story of early Bluffton. 

The three were part of a scene depicting the Methodist Church movement arriving in Bluffton. Leland Gerber took the photo. (From the collection of Fred Steiner.)

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Here's an interesting photo set taken in either 1955 or 1956. The location: town hall second floor (Legion Hall). The event: Bluffton Business Men's Association welcome dinner meeting for the Ex-Cell-O Corporation. That building today is owned by Colonial Surface Solutions.

Who do you recognize in the photo?

Is that Clarence or Hiram Diller looking at the camera? Two seats down is Paul Steiner, then Harold Klinger, and Charles Hankish, Sr.

SECOND PHOTO

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Here's an ink blotter advertisement from Andrew Hauenstein and Son drug store, Bluffton. The wording reads: "The Old Bookkkeeper's verdict after all, no ink like Carter's. The card is copyrighted 1903.

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Christmas in downtown Bluffton in 1950. There's Santa with a Santa Halloween mask. Our guess is that Bob Crow and Paul Steiner on working the PA system. 

We don't know the identity of Santa, but we are going to make a stab on the ID of the kids on the platform. On the far left, it looks like Dan Lehman, then Francis Harkness, Judy Harness and Donna McClure. That's as far as we can go. 

This scene must have been from a Bluffton Business Men's holiday promotion.

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Here is a beautiful photo of Bluffton's Main Street sometime after 1906. We know that because the Western Ohio Railway tracks are in the center of Main Street.

There are several things to examine closely in this photo, which we would guess was taken by Will Triplett. The original photo measures 8 by 6 inches and was probably a contact print from the negative.