140 years ago

november 11, 1881

Farewell Old Centre

In answer to the petition of a large number of our citizens, the Postmaster General has changed the name of this post office from Marion Centre to Marion, to take effect January first, and has so officially notified his subordinates in the mail service. In furtherance of the same project—change of name—a large number of our citizens have petitioned the District Court to change the corporate name of the place to correspond with the postal name, and this will also, without doubt, be done.

Personally, while we could wish the town had originally been called simply Marion, we have not been enthusiastically in favor of the change. We part with old friends reluctantly. We always regret to see old landmarks obliterated. The “Woodman, spare that tree” spirit has a tight grip on us. We have fired a great many Centre shots, and dislike, somewhat, to change targets, but the rest of the boys called us an old fogy, and said that this was the age of brevity, that life was too short to fritter time away writing such a long name, and so we joined in with the crowd and petitioned away the old, familiar “Centre.” Good bye, old “Centre.” You have had a tough time of it, but you always came out on top. It seems cruel that just when they had failed to take the county seat away from you, you should be taken away from the county seats, but we reckon you must go, so farewell, old Centre.

As for this new fangled name, this Marion—it’s short, it’s pretty, it’s awful nice, and we reckon it’s best, but, botheration, we hate to give up the old Centre.

Parties making and receiving deeds for realty in Marion Centre should be careful to see that the papers are made in the correct corporate name. For such purposes this is still Marion Centre.