The Greene County Historical Society is hosting its November program.

Board member Chuck Offenburger says this Friday, the program will feature guest speaker and rural Rippey resident Mary Weaver on the historical background of a former business in the Rippey area.

“It’s a little known fact of Greene County history that there was the Eagle Springs Mineral water company operating in the Rippey area, south of Rippey I think, for a number of years and it became very popular do to the fact that they were selling this water. They called it ‘The Greene County Fountain of Youth.’”

Offenburger points out the owner, Thomas Jefferson Orman was digging for coal in 1911 when he discovered the springs. He and his wife Helen bottled and sold thousands of gallons of water until the 1950s. He talks about how well received their in person programs have been since they restarted having them this past July.

“We’ve had tremendous turnout since then (July). We’ve had interesting programs. It seems to be: we’re getting back on our game. We’ve had a lot of programs since July, our normal Friday programs around the county, but then several Sunday programs too. It’s been a lot of fun and I think we’ve done some good stuff.”    

Friday’s free program will be at the Scranton United Methodist Church at 12:45pm. Lunch will be served prior to the program at noon for $8 for historical society members and $10 for non-members. Historical society members are to reach out to their community contacts by today to reserve a meal, while the public can contact Margaret Hamilton at 515-386-4408. To hear more from Offenburger, listen to today’s Community State Bank in Paton Let’s Talk Greene County program.