Todd County Standard - Kentucky Press Association

ALLENSVILLE
HISTORIC TOWN WITH LOTS OF CHARM
BY CATHERINE DARNELL
TODD COUNTY STANDARD
Allensville actually has two
locations. The first is the town
on Highway 102, just southeast
of Highway 79 on one
end and kissing the Logan
County border on the other.
The second is in the heart of
Doug Penick, an 83-year-old
native who owns most of the
town’s empty storefronts and
many pieces of Allensville
memorabilia that are in his
home.
Clearly, farmer Penick
treasures Allensville and its
history. He owns bulging
scrapbooks of bits of paper —
recital programs, advertisements,
photos of everything
from buildings to baseball
teams, ration cards, postcards.
Each yellowed page is
dear to Penick, who is sort of
the unofficial historian of
Allensville.
At one point, his father,
mother, brother Bill and he,
as regular carriers and substitutes,
delivered mail out of
Allensville for a span of 92
years. (Allensville boasts the
first rural free delivery of mail
in Kentucky in 1897.) In his
house he displays an old Post
Office oak window with a
grille where one bought
stamps and such. Penick
added brass plaques honoring
those people who worked
there in 1945: Annie R.
Young was postmistress; and
his dad, Frazier Penick, was
one of the carriers.
He has hanging on the
wall of the Penick parlor —
once a log cabin — an old
bank clock and several paintings
of old downtown
Allensville, copied from photographs
he owns. He and
his wife Nona also framed
Above: Allensville was once a thriving railroad town.
Below: A piece of Allensville memorabilia, owned by Doug
Penick.
charming promotional calendars
from the early 20s.
When Penick was in grade
school, classes sold candy and
as a reward were given festive
wooden shields with American
flags and photos of historical
figures that could be interchanged,
depending on what
the class was studying at the
time. He found one in the
basement of the old school
when it was being auctioned
off and was allowed to keep it.
Naturally, he and his wife display
that too.
Originally Allensville was
built on Highway 79, but the
town was moved in the 1860s
to its present location due to
the railroad line that was built
there. Penick remembers
many of those buildings, for
example, Adams Block, the
biggest building in town constructed
shortly after the move
and eventually demolished in
1979 due to a fire. During
reconstruction after the Civil
War, many people from the
winning side moved to the
area, building homes and businesses.
One such charming
residence, Pepper Place, now
belongs to Mary and Malcolm
Rust. Across the street stands
another outstanding piece of
architecture, a large home
built in the Italianate style now
belonging to Suzanne and
Danny Dew.
Prior to WWII, the town
was “bustling,” he recalls,
with at one time two doctors,
three groceries, a hardware
store, two livery stables, a
flour mill, a clothing store, an
opera house, filling stations, a
skating rink, two banks and a
millinery shop. His wife Nona
chuckles at a story she heard
of that shop’s sales promotion.
It was called a
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