Photo on ColumbiaMagazine.com

2016-05-09 - Top of Jamestown Hill, Columbia, KY - Photo by Jason Mardis, Aerial Concepts, Columbia, KY (c) Phone 270-250-1867.

This aerial shot by Jason Mardis gives a different perspective on one of the most important intersections in Columbia - Russell Road/KY 80, the vertical highway at the bottom center, connecting to Jamestown Street. In the foreground, right, Franklin Nissan dominates the corner. On the left is the CVS Pharmacy corner. It also shows the extent of CJE Mike Stephens' Office Park, upper left blue roofs. It's importance is magnified by its proximity - in walking distance - to Lindsey Wilson College, a population center which now dwarfs the population of Columbia seven decades ago, when the city limits sign stood at the point where the tall Franklin Nissan sign is now. Jason Mardis oriented his camera to take in the Adair County Historic Courthouse, upper right and to sweep from the Bomar Heights/Summit Manor water tower to the Downtown. Very little in the scene has not dramatically changed. Some of us can still remember tobacco patches, orchards, pastures with the family cow or horses the envy of the Bluegrass. On the far right, center, a barn can be seen. It is behind what was once the town home of Lowe Family. Mr. Lowe's farm was in the county, on Loy Cemetery Road. In those days, many of Adair County's farmers had large holdings in the county, but chose to live in Columbia, and commute. The row of trees to the right mark what was the Rollin Cundiff home and the home of Miss Mary Lucy Lowe, longtime educator in Columbia schools. It bordered what is today one of Columbia's best addresses, Lowe's Lane. Ah, but you should see as it was then! In the 40s & 50s. It was rural. On one side, there was the Miller family horse pasture. The lane was graveled and not fully so to what is now Miller Avenue & Young Street. It was mostly a clay path there. Along the way, there was Mary Lucy's huge barn, where one could always spot a few pigeons whose commute to the public square was less than a half a mile. The lane was properly bordered with what seemed like every species of trees populated with birds and squirrels. Wild cottontail rabbits usually scurried from one's path. Along the roadside, growing voluntarily, were wild roses, violets, several Asparagus plants, small blackberry thickets and mulberry trees - and, unlike today it was virtually devoid of vehicular traffic except for an occasional child on a bicycle. It was indeed, withing walking distance of Lindsey Wilson College. Then, however, it was a safe walk, and some from Jamestown Hill remember walking to classes, often more than one time a day, on the Hill. Those from the day, will see so much more to recall - and maybe share, from Jason Mardis' photo. And a final thought from me - I remember it being said in those days when Columbia was a one-front end load, one bulldozer town, that at the rate hills were being flattened, one day Columbia would be as flat as Waco. Most strikingly, the CVS location, where, back in the 1940's, back before Adair Builders Supply, before the Dairy Chick, there was the Wilkerson family's hill, with climbable oak trees which allowed daring kids to get an aerial view of Columbia almost as grand as Jason's. - EW