Miss Florence Drake became postmistress in 1912 and held that position until she died in 1922. About 1907 J. B. Drake purchased a general store from Fielder & Wheaton, his son Eugene Drake succeeding him in 1914. Eugene also became postmaster upon the death of his sister, and still holds that job and conducts the store. Thus, the Drake family has operated the Kappa post office for fifty-six years.
Dr. Albert Reynolds was the first doctor in Kappa and built an office there in 1854, about the same time W. R. Willis opened Kappa's first hotel.
The Kappa mill was built by Thomas Dixon below the old iron bridge over the Mackinaw River west of Kappa in 1830, and he operated it for three years. It was built of common boulders with one side slightly smoothed. A sawmill was built by Jacob Smoots in the late 1840's, and he sold it in 1850 to Hiram Havens of Hudson. Havens added one run of stones and converted it into a gristmill which burned down in 1852, when high water surrounded a barrel of limestone, igniting a partition in the building. It was rebuilt on the opposite side of the mill race in 1853 by James Jaynes; several others owned it thereafter for short periods before it was purchased by Dr. E. D. Witt.
The dam for the mill provided a small lake just southeast of Kappa, and Dr. Witt and his sons, Clint and Filmore, turned the area into a picnic center. They built a dance pavilion and other facilities, added a fleet of row boats, and at one time had a small steamboat which made regular trips between the dam and a deep spot at a bend in the river called "nigger hole" because a young Negro had accidentally drowned there while swimming.
The recreation area was named Pastime Park, and was the center for Sunday school and lodge picnics, troop encampments and community celebrations of all sorts for thirty years or more. Special trains ran from Bloomington to Kappa, and other cities brought groups for political rallies and Fourth of July celebrations, complete with brass bands and flowery oratory. For a number of years a
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