BOONEVILLE - Buildings were opened up and people were dressed up Saturday to celebrate Booneville's 150 years of history.

People gathered at the Depot on Saturday, 150 years after the original depot burned. Also on the history lesson Saturday for Heritage Day were the opened Rails and Trails Museum, historic buildings and a cemetery tour.

The Southerland building, the only four-story building in Booneville, housed a medical clinic on the fourth floor more than half of a century ago.

Marshall Dickerson, the building's current owner, let anyone brave enough ride the old open-air elevator to the top.

The building was built in 1925 and had the first elevator in Prentiss County.

Betty Williams of Booneville remembered the building from when she was a child.

"I had my tonsils removed in Dr. Southerland's office in 1947 and the worst part of the experience was the elevator," she said as she walked toward the stairs to continue on the tour. "It was very scary."

Marietta Alderwoman Sarah Greene said she learned a lot on the tour.

"At the Chancery Clerk's Office, there were stairs that people could climb and look over everyone without anyone seeing them when it was the post office," Greene said. "It was like a secret hideout."

The tour also took participants to the Von Theatre where Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash each played some of their earliest concerts.

Trudy Featherston, of the Booneville and Prentiss County Main Street Association, said event organizers had a cemetery tour during the fall festival last year and it was such a hit they wanted to expand it.

Diane Garvin, president of the Prentiss County Genealogical and Historical Society, said organizers wanted to teach the community about historical events.

"Since it's the anniversary of the burning of the depot, we wanted to do a downtown tour," Garvin said. "We want to teach people about the history of Booneville."

jb.clark@journalinc.com