By By MARCIA STEFFENS / Cassopolis Vigilant
CASSOPOLIS -- Mayor's Exchange with the Village of Concord began appropriately Monday just down the street from the Cassopolis Village Hall at the Local History Library, with Jon Wuepper, library assistant offering photos and trivia about the community.
Shown were numerous history books written about the village and new photographs Wuepper copied from post cards provided by the son of Clare Mallow, village council member.
Wuepper offered that Abraham Lincoln, before becoming president came to Cass, the first president or presidential candidate to do so. Another anecdote was about Dowagiac and the time General Ambrose Burns' train derailed near the downtown. Immediately a committee of Dowagiac residents were formed to ask the General if he would speak, which he did at the Methodist Church.
Wuepper is available Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the library to help those doing research in it death and marriage records, newspapers dating back to the Civil War and its lists of Cass County cemeteries and those buried in them. The library is also open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Judy Hartman, secretary for the VIllage of Cassopolis and Paula Beauchamp, Cassopolis Village Clerk provided coffee and bagels for the first part of the journey through the community.
Next a Cass County Public Transportation bus would take the group to the Prospect Hill Cemetery, Don Horne Memorial Park and Clisbee park. They would also see the Dan Bates' Department of Public Works' equipment on review, the Cassopolis Area Ambulance Service and the Fire Department.
After lunch at the new Village Hall, they took a stroll downtown, stopping at Village Council member Lois Hart's Fiala &Smith printing company and the Stone Lake park with its beach and boardwalk.
At Stone Lakes Woods apartments, the delegates had a chicken dinner before heading back to Concord. Cassopolis was hosted at Concord on Wednesday, May 21.
Concord, which is straight east on M-60 is 18 miles west of Jackson. Its population of 1,101 is within one mile, as compared with Cassopolis, which has a population of 1,740 in 2.2 miles. Concord employees nine to Cassopolis' 15.