As Published - February 1942
February 1942 (Vol. 11, No. 1), pages 103 to 108.
Transcribed by lhn;
digitized with permission of the Kansas Historical Society.
Ralph Richards, Fort Scott lawyer, is the author of "The Forts of Fort Scott and the Fateful Borderland," a history which has been printed serially in the Fort Scott Tribune since January 13, 1941. Mr. Richards has been engaged for many years in compiling information from newspapers, documents and other sources which are here assembled in one of the most detailed histories of the city and vicinity yet produced.
A double celebration was held at Andale May 6, 1941, commemorating the founding of the town in 1885 and the establishment of St. Joseph's parish in 1890. A brief history of the community and church was published in the Kansas City (Mo.) Times, May 7, 1941. Andale received its name from two of its early families, the Andersons and the Dales.
On August 7, 1941, the Masonic lodge at Xenia celebrated the seventy-fifth anniversary of its founding. The Fort Scott Tribune, August 6, 1941, featured a brief history of the organization. The first meeting was held June 8, 1866, and a charter was granted October 17, 1866. The Masonic hall, still used as a meeting place by the lodge as well as by other local organizations, is a frame building erected in 1865-1866. The article lists the masters of the lodge from 1866 to the present.
Articles of historical interest to Kansans in recent issues of the Kansas City (Mo.) Times were: "Leavenworth and Riley Are Links in a Broken Chain of Kansas Forts," September 3, 1941; "The Story of Quantrill's Last Ride Told at Reunion in Wallace's Grove," September 30; "Oklahoma `Historical Day' Brings Memories of Kansas City Pioneers [the Chouteau family]," October 10; "A Fatal Incident of Border War Recalled on Ride to a Picnic" (story of a long-range shot by one of Quantrill's guerrillas), October 16. "Early Day Buyers of Graham County Grain," was the title of an article in the Hill City Times, September 4, 1941. The information was furnished by the "Pioneer Days" historical committee.
Kansas historical articles in the Kansas City (Mo.) Star in recent months include: "Henry Allen Meets `Mr. Punch,' Sees Crisis in London Shelters," by Marcel Wallenstein, September 6,1941; "Medicine Lodge Peace Parley To Be Re-enacted in Pageant," by Paul I. Wellman, October 5; under "Kansas Notes" Cecil Howes listed
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some odd and humorous names of Kansas newspapers October 8, and discussed ghost towns October 18; "Thompsons of the Courant Mark Sixty Years in Kansas Journalism," October 24.
The first Fourth of July celebration in Phillips county was recalled in the Kirwin Kansan, September 11, 1941, in the "Pioneer Memories" column. The event took place in the John Lord grove in 1874.
Bellevue Evangelical Church, three miles north of Leona, celebrated its fifty-seventh anniversary September 14, 1941. A brief history of the church appeared in the Highland Vidette, September 11.
Victor Murdock's column in the Wichita (Evening) Eagle included the following items of historical interest: "Wichita Has a Place in Military Records of Winter Campaigns" (Indian campaign of 1868), September 12, 1941; "Location in Wichita of Last County Fair Here and Its Predecessors," September 15; "Diligence of Kansans To Uncover Treasures To Be Found Underfoot," September 17; "Marvelous the Results [in agricultural development] Shown by This County in Less Than Seventy Years," September 24; "One Early Factory Here Made a Washing Machine [Benbow] Invented by a Wichitan," September 29; "Pioneer of Prairies [Gene Pardee, now past ninety years of age] Who Visited Wichita When It Was a Village," September 30; "Genius With Electricity, Late William Leroy Emmet, Once Lived in Wichita" (installed first trolley-cars), October 2; "When in Kansas Affairs City of Odessa and Kharkov Played an Important Part" (their names were given to some of the earliest shipments of hard winter wheat from Russia), October 8; "Buffalo Guide On a Mule, Grand Duke From Russia and a Cable From a Czar," October 14; "Men Had Prophetic Eye on the Site of Wichita Long Before Settlement," October 16; "When Couch the Boomer, Capt. Payne's Successor, Ran Livery Stable Here," October 22; "Store of the Ketchums Once a Familiar Spot Along Douglas Avenue," October 24; "Origin of Photograph of David Payne's Colony of Historical Interest," October 27.
Historical sketches and reminiscences by Royse Aldrich, entitled "Local Landmarks of Old Wichita Are Recalled," were published serially in The Democrat, Wichita, beginning September 13, 1941.
The forty-third anniversary edition of the Perry Mirror, September 18, 1941, contained several articles of hiStorical interest, including a brief history of Perry and the surrounding territory, an account of the battle of Hickory Point, a description of The Grass-
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hopper, the first newspaper in Jefferson county, and verses by A. C. Wilson on the cyclone of June, 1893.
A marker on the Oketo cutoff of Ben Holladay's Overland Stage Line, two miles southwest of Oketo, was dedicated September 14, 1941. There are remnants of the old stage station near the marker. Charles T. Guise presided at the ceremony. Principal speakers were C. E. Hedrix and John G. Ellenbecker. A picture of the marker and a report of Ellenbecker's talk on the life of Holladay, appeared in the Marshall County News, Marysville, September 18, 1941.
Articles describing Arkansas City in the year 1871 were printed in the Arkansas City Tribune, September 18 and October 23, 1941. Two copies of the Weekly Traveler, May 3 and July 19, 1871, found recently in Arkansas City by Rodney Myer, furnished the material for the articles. The earliest number of the Traveler in the Historical Society's file is dated January 26, 1876.
The Vittoria Societa Italians di Mutuo Soccorso celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its founding September 21, 1941, at Frontenac. This mutual benefit society, the first of its kind in Kansas, had its beginning in 1891 when a group of Italian immigrants met at the home of Chiaro Mingori in Frontenac. At one time the society had four hundred members, but now the membership is around fifty. The Frontenac Press, September 19, 1941, published an account of the celebration.
A column "Early Days in Kirwin," by Maine A. (Mrs. Frank) Boyd, appeared in the Kirwin Kansan, September 25, October 2 and 30, 1941. Mrs. Boyd featured items of interest printed in early Kirwin newspapers.
The fourth quinquennial celebration commemorating the seventy-fourth anniversary of the signing of the peace treaty between the United States and the Five Tribes of Plains Indians in October, 1867, was held at Medicine Lodge, October 8-10, 1941. A pageant written and directed by F. L. Gilson reenacting this historical event was produced by the townspeople and several hundred Indians from Oklahoma in the natural amphitheater near Medicine Lodge. The pageant, usually produced every five years, was moved up a year to climax the state-wide Coronado celebration. A fifty-eight page "Indian Peace Treaty" edition of The Barber County Index, Medicine Lodge, issued October 2, contained many articles of historical interest, including sketches of the five tribes who signed the treaty, a reprint of an article by a special correspondent which appeared in
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the New York Daily Tribune, October 23, 1867, the text of the treaty and names of those who signed. The celebration is regularly sponsored by the Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty Association. Sen. Riley W. MacGregor is the association's president.
Reminiscences of Plainville, Rooks county, by Clinton L. Johnson, appeared in the Plainville Times, October 2, 1941. Mr. Johnson's parents came to Kansas in a covered wagon in 1879, and his memories of Plainville extend from the 1880's to 1902 when he left the town for railroad work. He is now retired and lives in Alliance, Neb.
The First Christian Church of Emporia, organized in 1856 by Solomon G. Brown, celebrated its eighty-fifth anniversary commencing October 5, 1941. A brief history of the church, the oldest in Emporia, and articles on the celebration were printed in the Emporia Gazette, October 4, 6 and 7, 1941.
An address delivered by Fred W. Brinkerhoff October 5, 1941, at the dedication of the Kansas Historical Marker for the Marais des Cygnes massacre was published in the Fort Scott Tribune, October 6. The marker was erected on U. S. highway 69, near the Trading Post cemetery where massacre victims are buried.
The experiences of D. P. Sims, who established the telephone exchange in Hill City in 1903, were related in the Hill City Times, October 9, 1941.
Religious services, a parade and reception marked the observance in Atchison on October 12, 1941, of the diamond jubilee of St. Benediet's abbey and parish. In 1857 the first mass was said at Atchison and the first baptism administered. The first mass in the church of Saints Peter and Paul was said on Christmas day, I858, the same year in which the first Catholic marriage ceremony was performed. The cornerstone of the present church was laid August 26, 1866. Articles on the jubilee appeared in the Atchison Daily Globe, October 10, 11 and 13. A list of former pastors, beginning with the Rev. Augustine Wirth, OSB, who served from 1857 to 1868, was published in the Globe, October 10.
Early-day football at Friends University, Wichita, was reviewed in a feature article in the Wichita Sunday Eagle, October 12, 1941. The game began at Friends in 1898, the year the school opened, when the Quakers defeated Winfield, Fairmount and Wichita High School, but lost to the Newton "Giants." Football continued to be a major sport at Friends until it was dropped in 1936.
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Phillips county observed its seventh annual old settlers' day at Kirwin October 7, 1941. Historical Verses by Mrs. Jess McMindes which were read at the meeting were printed in the Kirwin Kansan, October 16. The following "old-timers" gave talks on early-day happenings: Fred Albright, Logan; Mrs. E. H. Boughton, Mrs. Frank Hite and I. C. McDowell, Phillipsburg; Marion Scott, Agra; Sam Hough, Gaylord, and Mrs. Mary Rogers, Kirwin.
The early history of the town of Sedgwick was reviewed by Muriel Schaefer in the third annual homecoming edition of the Sedgwick Pantagraph, October 16, 1941.
A biographical sketch of Glenn L. Martin by Rex M. Harlow appeared in the Wichita Sunday Eagle, October 19, 1941. Martin spent his childhood in Kansas where he experimented with kites on the windy prairies around Liberal and Salina. He attended grade school, high school and the Kansas Wesleyan business college in Salina. When the Martin family moved to California he engaged in the motor car business and experimented with airplanes. His first plane was flown in 1909. In recent years Martin has become a world-famous airplane manufacturer. He recently visited Kansas to attend the dedication of the new Glenn L. Martin athletic field and stadium at Kansas Wesleyan University.
The Wichita Sunday Eagle, of October 19, 1941, also featured an article by David D. Leahy concerning the establishment of counties in Kansas. Particular note was made of Sedgwick county, organized in I870.
Ashland was host to the third annual "Pioneer Mixer" of the Clark County Historical Society October 25, 1941, which was attended by a hundred early settlers of the county. Willis H. Shattuck, president of the society, and others related experiences of early days. The weekly column of "Clark County Historical Society Notes" was resumed in The Clark County Clipper, Ashland, beginning with the issue of October 23. On November 20 the column printed an account of the flight in 1878 of several hundred Northern Cheyenne Indians from their agency in Indian territory to the Black Hills of North Dakota. This was the occasion of the last Indian raid in Kansas, the subject of a Kansas Historical Marker at Oberlin. The Clipper's story was taken from accounts in the Wichita Beacon of October 2, 1878, and October 12, 1941. On November 27 the column included two articles by John Walden, on a shelter belt planted in 1885 believed to have been the first in the county, and the
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route of the Sun City trail. Reminiscences of Fred Hinkle appeared in the issue of December 4, and the following week the column published a biographical sketch of Chris Hinkle, a Clark county pioneer.
The fiftieth anniversary of the Mount Zion Church of the United Brethren in Christ, northwest of St. George, was celebrated October 26, 1941. A history of the church read at the celebration by William Soupene was printed in the St. George News, October 30.
"Chief Little Bear-His Life .and Works" was the title of a paper by Mrs. Edith S. Demoss-Caughron read at a meeting of the Wilson County Historical Society at Fredonia, September 6, 1941, and published in the Neodesha Register, November 6.
A history of the Mary Somerville Library of Mound City by Theodore W. Morse appeared in the Topeka Daily Capital, November 23, 1941. In November, 1876, thirteen young women of Mound City organized a literary society with the founding of a library as its chief object. One of the founders, Mrs. Anna Vertrees Kincaid, eighty-one years of age, is still an active member.
Various types of pioneer dwellings, from the crude "half-faced camp" which was no more than a lean-to thrown up against the side of a hill to the substantially-built log cabin and stone house, were described by Edward Bumgardner in the Lawrence Daily Journal-World, November 28, 1941. The article included sketches of events at John Brown's cabin near Osawatomie, the "Hermit's Cave" at Council Grove, the site of Lawrence, and several other well-known points in Kansas, and was illustrated with drawings and photographs.
