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Kansas Historical Notes - August 1935

(Vol. 4, No. 3), pages 333 to 336.

Transcribed by lhn; additional HTML by Susan Stafford;
digitized with permission of the Kansas Historical Society.


Early explorers traveling through present Barton county and their probable routes were discussed by H. K. Shideler, county engineer, in an address at the reorganization meeting of the Barton County Historical Society held in Great Bend May 7, 1935. Officers selected at this meeting include: Dr. E. E. Morrison, president; Ferd Isern, first vice-president; Mrs. C. P. Munns, second vice- president; Eleanor Vollmer, secretary; Mrs. Robert Peugh, treasurer; Mrs. Flora Stedman, custodian; Mrs. Grace Bowman, historian; Grace Gunn, Charles Mayo, Bob Hamilton, Fred Wolf, Sr., Mrs. Jennie Southwick, Judge Elrick Cole and Arthur Taylor, members of the executive board. A museum, housed in the county courthouse, is being sponsored by the society.

An address by Gov. Alf M. Landon was a feature of the dedication ceremonies for the recently completed Fort Zarah park held in Great Bend on May 28, 1935. A British artillery field gun, a recent acquisition to the park, was also dedicated. The gun was secured through the efforts of Sen. R. C. Russell.

Beecher Island Memorial Park in northeastern Colorado was seriously damaged by recent flood waters, according to press reports. A monument, erected jointly by Kansas and Colorado, honoring the men, mostly Kansans, who participated in the Battle of the Arickaree, was toppled over. The graves of soldiers buried at its foot were badly washed. The bridge near the entrance was washed out, while the Arickaree itself cut a new channel, now running south of the park, instead of to the north. In the early days the stream divided, running on each side and forming an island.

An Oregon trail marker, two and one half miles southwest of Bremen, was unveiled at special ceremonies memorializing the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the town and the seventy-fifth year since the abandonment of the trail, held at the site on June 9, 1935. Speakers for the day included Fred A. Prell, of Bremen; R. V. Tye, of Hanover; Judge Edgar C. Bennett, John G. Ellenbecker, C. K. Rodkey and Paul W. Kirkpatrick, of Marysville. The marker bears the inscription "Lest We Forget, Oregon Trail,

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1827-1875." Speeches delivered on the occasion were recorded in Marysville newspapers contemporaneous with the event.

A granite marker, locating the intersection of the old Fort Leavenworth-Fort Scott-Fort Gibson military road with Kansas highway No. 57 at Kniveton was dedicated June 19, 1935. The bronze tablet on the shaft bears the inscription: "This Tablet Marks the Intersection of the Old Military Road of 1837 With the New State Highway No. 57. Erected by Oceanic Hopkins Chapter of the D. A. R., Pittsburg, Kan., 1935." Mrs. Loren E. Rex, of Wichita, state regent of the Daughters of the American Revolution, delivered the dedicatory address. Mrs. 0. P. Dellinger, of Pittsburg, made the presentation to the state and F. W. Brinkerhoff, of Pittsburg, chairman of the committee on marking and mapping historic sites in Kansas, created by the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, gave the acceptance talk. Mrs. D. L. Dunn, of Pittsburg, supervised the unveiling. The highway department was represented by Earle C. Todd, of Independence, commissioner for the fourth district. The marker is on the north side of the road, a short distance east of the railroad tracks at Kniveton.

Thomas F. Doran, president of the Kansas Historical Society, addressed the members of the Riley County Historical Society at a meeting held in Manhattan on June 21, 1935. Kirke Mechem accompanied Mr. Doran to Manhattan and spoke briefly at the same meeting.

A banquet honoring Frank H. Roberts and the Independent, Oskaloosa's oldest business institution, was sponsored by Oskaloosa citizens on June 21, 1935. The Independent, which was founded by John Wesley Roberts, has been published in Oskaloosa by members of the Roberts family continuously for seventy-five years. Speakers at the dinner included Frank Roberts, Dr. M. S. MeCreight, Will T. Beck, publisher of the Holton Recorder, and Homer Hoch, former publisher of the Marion Record. Judge Lloyde Morris was toastmaster.

Thirty new buses, carrying the names of thirty of Wichita's pioneers, were placed in service in Wichita the last week in June, 1935, supplanting the old electric trolley system. David D. Fishback, public relations director of the Wichita Transportation Co., in a letter to the Kansas Historical Society related Wichita's part in the development of the electric trolley which was established

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in the city forty-eight years ago. Names of pioneers honored were selected through the cooperation of the Sedgwick County Pioneer Society and include: Murdock, Davidson, Griffenstein, Mathewson, Mead, English, Jewett, Waterman, Fabrique, Allen, Woodman, Hyde, Ross, Harris, Lewis, Munger, Carey, Schweiter, Gribl, Black, Smith, Lawrence, McCoy, Aley, Sluss, Stanley, Smythe, Sowers, Steele and Getto.

More than forty persons interested in collecting and preserving Indian arrowheads and other relics of the early inhabitants of the Southwest recently organized themselves into an "Arratolist" society at a meeting held in Elkhart July 4, 1935. William Baker, of Boise City, Okla., was elected president of the new society and Neal Van Hosen, of Elkhart, was chosen secretary-treasurer.

A Jewell County Historical Society was organized at a meeting held in Mankato July 8, 1935. The following persons were elected to serve as officers one year or until another election: Forrest Fair, Mankato, president; Mrs. Joe Beeler, Ionia, vice-president; Frank Kissinger, Mankato, secretary; Mrs. Bert Cluster, Jewell, treasurer; Mrs. Sarah Vance, Mankato, historian. Directors elected include: Everett Palmer, Jewell; Dr. C. S. Hershner, Esbon; Mrs. A. W. Mann, Burr Oak; Don Balch, Formoso; E. C. Whitley, Mankato; Geo. Warne, Webber; Mrs. J. W. Waite, Esbon.

The first annual Chase county old settlers' all-day picnic sponsored by the newly organized Chase County Historical Society was held in Swope park, Cottonwood Falls, July 24, 1935. Kirke Mechem, secretary of the Kansas Historical Society, was the speaker. Mr. Mechem also addressed the Herington Rotary Club July 22.

Roadside signs marking points of historic interest in Riley county were recently erected through a, joint Manhattan Chamber of Commerce-county KERC' project.

A valuable addition to the literature of Kansas is Bliss Isely's recent book, Sunbonnet Days. Mr. Isely, a Kansas newspaperman, has told the story of his mother, Elise Dubach Isely, who came to America from Switzerland in 1855. She was a Civil War bride, her husband, Christian Isely, serving with the Second Kansas cavalry. After the war they took up their residence in western Brown county and later in Wichita. Christian Isely died in 1919. Mrs. Isely,

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who celebrated her ninety-third birthday June 21 of this year, still resides in Wichita.

Three generations of Sternbergs are fossil hunters, the Hays Daily News related in its issue of April 20, 1935. George F. Sternberg is curator of the museum at the Fort Hays Kansas State College; his father, Charles H., is employed at the Natural History Museum in San Diego, Cal., and the son, and grandson, Charles W., is a student at Kansas University, in Lawrence.