Prairie Lawn Cemetery board of directors recently accepted a gift of more than $3,500 from a local industrial development corporation established in the 1960s to try to attract industry to the Eyestone building at the northeast corner of Second and Vine streets.

Thirty-one local business owners and interested individuals purchased 100 shares of stock in the Peabody Industrial Development Corporation when it was established in April of 1966. After several failed attempts to recruit a small manufacturing firm, the corporation dissolved in the early 1970s.

The remaining funds sat dormant until this past year when former Peabody resident and officer of the corporation, Randy Robinson, offered the funds to the cemetery board for their “Fence by the Foot” project and future landscaping endeavors.

“We were very pleased to receive the funds,” said Carmen South, PLC board member. “We were able to complete the fence project and begin planning for landscaping and tree replacement.

“We are grateful to Mr. Robinson for thinking of us. He said most of the original investors are probably buried at Prairie Lawn and would approve of the donation,” she added.

A letter from Robinson explaining the development and demise of the Peabody Industrial Development Corporation is printed this week on page 2.