194 UNION COUNTY PAST AND PRESENT
s and other public activities. Another teacher of some years’
` service was a daughter of Dr. M. P. Cox. .
A union church, built some years before the turn of the cen-
_ tury, is still (1941) used by the congregations of the Baptist,
Methodist, and Christian churches.
In 1886 a second room was added to the schoolhouse. The vil-
lage and surrounding community continued to grow, and by 1898
it was necessary to add two more rooms to the school. A rural
high school was established in 1916 and lasted until 1937 when
it was merged with the Morganfield High School. A modern
grade school was dedicated in October, 1938.
The Boxville postoffice was established in 1884 with John
Munchaster in charge. Today, with Nola Oglesby as postmis-
tress, there are two rural carriers going out from Boxville daily.
Ben Waller carried the mail on the first route, inaugurated in
1904. After thirty years he retired, and died two years later. ·
Clayton Below is the present carrier. On the other route George
Graves carried the mail until 1914; since that time it has been
carried by James M. Springer.
Commercial Point (Buiiulo City)
Commercial Point, near the outskirts of Sturgis, was orig-
inally a sixty—acre open space in the forest, where the road from
Morganfield to Marion crossed the road from Caseyville to Provi-
dence, providing the name of Crossroads as a rival to the name _
Buffalo City, suggested by the numbers of buffalo which came
here to lick the salt deposits. These names are still interchange-
able with the official name of Commercial Point, which was
proposed in 1870 by Augusta Talbott and agreed to by H. J.
Wallace, L. L. Talbott, John Alloway, and John Smallwood.
Situated on the Tradewater River (once rivaling Green River
in navigability but now rapidly filling up), it was an important
trading point before the War between the States. Three or four
boats tied up daily and trade was carried on as far south as New
Orleans. The banks here would be covered with hogsheads of
sugar, boxes of crockery, coffee, salt, and other merchandise. _
L. L. Talbott took orders for the entire community.
Still standing on the 500-acre farm near by is the old log
house of L. L. Talbott, behind which there used to be a row of
cabins for his slaves. Walter Talbott relates that, before the
war, L. L. Talbott’s four sons each had a bed in a one-room log