How was Keene named?

 

According to a poem by Vance Reed in the Spring 1981 edition of Spotlight, the alumni magazine of Southwestern Adventist University, Keene was almost named College Hill, Oak Grove, or Greenville. 

 

Reed, who served as Keene’s first mayor from 1955-58, writes that Joe Stokes, the longtime conductor of Old Betsy, the train whose tracks used to run on what is now called Old Betsy Road through Keene, used to call out, “All off for the Holy City,” as the steam engine pulled into the station.

 

Realizing that the town didn’t have a name, Reed said one local leader suggested College Hill.  Reed’s poem says. . .

“But a sister opined that a name she’d find, far better than College Hill. So she worked away day after day, to have the town named Greenville.

 

“But the deacon, said he, “It is plain to see that a name which all would love, should include the name of our favorite tree; why not call the place Oak Grove?”

 

According to Reed’s poem, there letters containing the nominated names were sent to the Postmaster General.

 

“And the Postmaster General finally said, ‘One thing can be clearly seen. They’re so keen on having a name for that town, let’s give it the name of Keene.”

 

According to Mary Ann Hadley, former historian for the Hopps Museum and compiler of The Chronicle of Southwestern Adventist College, the “Postmaster General” was the person who held that position at the state level in Austin, not the federal level in Washington, D.C. She said her research revealed that he had a friend named Keene.

 

And so, as Reed rhymes, "a town there was at the top of a hill, with a campus broad and green, where the Mizpah gate at the end of the street, welcomes us all to Keene."

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