As one leaves the small town of Rumsey, his or her eyes might stare in wonder at the magnificant house that is on the left of KY 81 heading towards Sacramento.

This is the house of Jeanie and Harry Gatton Jr. Their home is one of the oldest and most historical in McLean County.

It's history starts in 1833 when an engineer named Alonzo Livermore came and constructed the house just a few hundred yards away from where he was building the first lock and dam in Calhoun.

Gatton's father, Harry acquired the property in 1941 and in 1944, the Gattons moved in.

Island postmaster "Little Billy" Everly poses in his office in 1923. Everly, who was 4 feet 4 inches tall, was billed as the smallest postmaster in the United States.

Photo came from the Kentucky Portrait - Messenger-Inquirer, 1992.

The Lytle House is located off the Leachman Schoolhouse Road. The brick portion of the house was built in the 1870's or 1880'5. 'There were two previous wooden frame sections that were built some- time earlier, but they were torn away. My sisters and I are descend- ants of Robert Moseley' , said Wilma Ayer of Owensboro. According to Cox. Julius Franklin Lytle married Minerva Jane Moseley in 1858. Her father, Robert Cart- wright Moseley, gave her 100 acres of land upon which the house was later built.

Presently the house is abandoned. Aaron Lytle was the laSt family member to live in the house and his business of selling horses, carriages, bridles and saddles was located on the property . Ayer and her sisters, Ava Bivins of Owensboro. and Elizabeth Ganoway, of Akron, OH, presently on the house. The architectural style of tlie house has a federalist influence.

Mystery Mansion completed in McLean County; New Yorker to use if Revolution Occurs. By W.E. Daniel Owensboro Messinger