(1) The eclipse from start to finish was 3 hours long, the Moon slowly moving across the face of the Sun.

(2) for Adair County, there was no "two minutes" of anything, as the county was only in partial eclipse. The Sun was never completely covered by the Moon. It just got slowly dimmer, noticeable only shortly before dimmest, and then brightening slowly....the "two minutes" figure was how long the Sun would be dark in the path of totality, and had nothing to do with the partial eclipse in Adair County.
You would never have been able to take off any solar viewers or glasses, whereas in totality you could look directly toward the Sun during the brief time it was completely covered.

(3) The difference between a partial eclipse: relatively common, often unremarked (do you remember October 23, 2014?), and a total eclipse is HUGE. In this case, 98 or even 99% is not at all the same thing. 1% of the Sun is still about 10,000 times as much light as in totality! A total solar eclipse is for most people a once in a lifetime experience. To stand in the shadow of the Moon and look with the unshielded eye at the corona shining out from behind the Moon is something pictures do not do any justice to.