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As Published - May 1941

May 1941 (Vol. 10, No. 2), pages 212 to 215
Transcribed by lhn;
digitized with permission of the Kansas Historical Society.

Articles of historical significance in recent issues of the Wichita Sunday Eagle include: "Landmark of Old West Wichita And Friends U. Is Being Razed," November 24, I940; "Early-Day Aerial Successes of Wrights Are Recorded in Pages of Wichita Eagle," February 2, 1941; "Development of Wichita Is Traced by 17 Historical Markers," and "Two Plucky Girls Started First Rural Route," March 2; "Garfield University Started on Borrowed $75 (began in 1887; remaining building now houses Friends University), April 27.

Reminiscences of pioneer days in Graham county by Mrs. Amanda Brown Gustafson, Mrs. Jim (Bessie) Baird and Mrs. Matt Findley were printed in the Hill City Times, November 28, 1940. Mrs. Gustafson was born in the county in 1881, Mrs. Baird emigrated with her family from Maryland in the late 1870's and Mrs. Findley came to Graham county with her parents from Osage county in 1878. On -January 16, 1941, the Hill City Times published the pioneer reminiscences of F. D. De Shon (arranged by Mildred Cass Beason), who came to Graham county in I872. The experiences of J. D. (Josh) Wheatcroft have been featured in a series of articles entitled "A True Story of How Life in the West Began for Me in 1880," which appeared in the Utica Star-Courier beginning with the issue of December 12, 1940. Mr. Wheatcroft came to Kansas from Iowa in a covered wagon with his family when he was thirteen years old. The final installment was printed February 6, 1941.

A series of articles concerning the history of the Independent Holiness Movement by the late A. M. Kiergan published in the old Banner, are being reprinted in The Church Advocate and Good Way, Fort Scott, beginning with the issue of December 12, 1940. This movement, of which Kiergan was one of the founders, started in the 1860's as an offshoot of Methodism in Missouri and Kansas.

Charles Arnold, 87 years old, reporter for 62 years on the Iola Register, resigned in December, 1940. The Register of December 23, in reviewing his work, believed that he was perhaps the oldest newspaper reporter in point of service for one paper in the United States.

An account of an Indian battle which took place behind "Indian Rock" on Glenifer hill east of Salina in 1857 was published in the

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213 KANSAS HISTORY IN THE PRESS

Salina Journal, December 26, 1940. In this battle the savage Cheyennes, Arapahoes and Sioux were driven back by the Kaws, Delawares and Pottawatomies, and as an indirect result of this war the white settlement on the site of Salina was made possible. A marker commemorating the event was erected by the Saline County Historical Society in 1922.

The history of Grand Center Baptist Church was discussed by H. L. Tripp in the Waldo Advocate, December 30, 1940.

An autobiography of the Rev. Father Bononcini is being printed in installments in the St. Paul Journal, beginning January 2, 1941. Father Bononcini was a prominent pioneer priest in Kansas. He was a teacher in the Seminary in Topeka during its brief career, and built churches in Fort Scott, Scammon, Pittsburg, Girard, Weir City, Arcadia and other places.

Mrs. Julia Mills, one of the seven passengers on the first "passenger train" that pulled into Hutchinson on the night of June 30. 1872, related her experiences in a feature article in the Hutchinson News, January 5, 1941.

The Lyons Daily News of January 15, 1941, carried the story of the death of Mrs. Mickey (Frenchy) McCormick, 88, at Charming, Tex. Mrs. McCormick, once a Creole dance hall girl, was called by the cowboys of the West the "Belle of Old Tascosa." Native of Baton Rouge, La., she went to Dodge City, end of the railroad, in its hell-roaring days and then traveled by ox-cart to Old Tascosa about 1880.

Judge Houston Whiteside, co-founder and editor of the Hutchinson News in 1872, died at the age of 93 in Hutchinson, January 23, 1941, according to the News of January 24. Judge Whiteside went to Hutchinson when the city was a year old and lived there all his life.

On January 26, 1941, the Joplin (Mo.) Globe issued a "1941 Progress Edition" of 112 pages featuring the industrial development of the tri-state area. A Santa Fe edition of the Arkansas City Daily Traveler was issued January 28, 1941, in observance of the beginning of the sixty-second year of Santa Fe railroad service to Arkansas City.

Biographical information on C. N. James as compiled by Stella B. Haines, president of the Augusta Historical Society, was printed

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in the Augusta Daily Gazette, January 28, 1941. Mr. James was one of the founders of Augusta and named the town for his wife, Augusta James. The reminiscences of Mrs. W. H. Sears were recorded in the Lawrence Daily Journal-World, February 15, 1941. Mrs. Sears came to Kansas with her parents in 1857 and was living in Lawrence during Quantrill's raid.

An account of the annual exodus of the River Brethren to the conference of this sect in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, published in the Philadelphia (Pa.) Press, April 26, 1903, was found in a family Bible by Sam D. Zook, of Abilene. The article was reprinted in the Abilene Daily Chronicle, February 18, 1941.

The old Chisholm trail from Wichita south to the Kansas-Oklahoma line was discussed by Dick Long in the Wichita (Evening) Eagle, February 25, I941, after an interview with Warren L. Matthews, of Wichita. Mr. Matthews spent years tracing the route, mile by mile, through Kansas. A map showing the trail and presentday towns was printed with the article.

The annual farm edition of the Atchison Daily Globe was issued February 25, 1941. Articles by Sen. Arthur Capper, Claude R. Wickard, U. S. Secretary of Agriculture, and J. C. Mohler, secretary of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, were printed.

During the spring of 1941 many of the state's daily and weekly newspapers featured the special supplement, "Coronado Rides Again in Kansas," prepared as part of the advance publicity for Kansas' celebration of Coronado's Visit four hundred years ago.

A special seventieth anniversary edition of the Chase County Leader, of Cottonwood Falls, was issued March 5, 1941. The first number was published March 4, 1871. A facsimile of the front page of the first issue was part of the anniversary number.

The following articles of special historical interest by Victor Murdock appeared in recent issues of the Wichita (Evening) Eagle: "Glimpse of This County at First Settlement Given in an Old Diary," March 5, 194I; "Last Big Buffalo Hunt as Recorded in Detail by A. S. Hendry of McPherson," March 6; "Wounded Buffalo Charges Added Real Excitement to the Last Big Hunt," March 7; "Veteran Buffalo Hunter Who Put Up Ten Dollars for the Chance of a Shot," March 8; "Romance Is Hidden Away in Many a Community in Rural Regions Here," concerning the River Brethren,

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March 10; "Graveyard on Prairies That Survived Community Carrying Name of Ivanhoe," March 11; "As Wichita Has Grown Traces of Topography Once Familiar Vanish," March 12; "Keeping Up the Cupboard Was a Point With Pioneers on Prairies and Beyond," March 21; "Exodus of an Old Chieftain May Have Added Something to Wichita's Population," March 22; "Prices Which Obtained When Kansas Was Young Back Seventy Years Ago," March 26; "Today Ever Memorable in Wichita History Through Oklahoma Opening," April 22; "How Napoleon the Third Happens to Show Up Here in the Early Day Records," April 23; "Kindness of Chisholm, First Wichita Settler, Toward Indians' Captives," April 24.

Included among the articles of historical interest in the "Clark County Historical Society Notes" in recent issues of The Clark County Clipper, of Ashland, were: "History of the Van Laningham Family," March 6, 1941; "The Shattucks in Massachusetts" (contributed by Ethel Luther Shattuck), March 27 and April 3; "Coronado," April 10 and 17; "Lexington, Church, Town and Community" (contributed by Gertie Hughs and Lizzie Moore), April 24; "History of Lexington Cemetery" and "Coronado in Clark County 400 Years Ago," May 1; "The Passing of the Apple Brand and the Half Circle P. Brand," by Lon Ford, May 8.

On March 7, I941, "Your Scrapbook of Kansas Catholic History" began in the Eastern Kansas Register, printed at Denver, Colo. This historical sketch, in weekly installments, traces the beginning and development of Catholicism in Kansas.

An article by Edith M. Burt in the Alma Enterprise, March 14 and 21, 1941; tells of the old stone Congregational church located on Highway K-29 at Wabaunsee. In 1856, under the leadership of Col. C. B. Lines, the Beecher Bible and Rifle Company started to Kansas and settled in Wabaunsee in April. The stone church which now stands was completed in 1862.

Kansas-born Raymond Clapper, Washington columnist, was the subject of a feature article in the Kansas City (Mo.) Star, March 18, 194I, headed "Serious Raymond Clapper Cares for Little Except His Column."

A letter from W. J. Baker of Yellow Springs, Ohio, whose father was at one time a resident of Pratt county, appeared in the Pratt Union, March 20, 1941, under the title "Early Kansas History." It related experiences of George Baker, the father, who went to Emporia in the late 1850's.

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school, which started in the 1880's. Classes were first held in a dugout until the present frame building was erected in 1886.

The story of the ghost town of Ravanna is told in a feature article by Wayne Campbell in the Hutchinson Herald, April 23, 1941.

A history of the Yates Center News was included in an article announcing a change of management printed April 24, 194I. R. H. Trueblood, Jr., publisher of the paper since 1936, sold it to W. C. Coates, of Blue Rapids, former publisher of the Blue Rapids Times. The Yates Center News was established in 1877 and passed into the hands of R. H. Trueblood in 1885.

The first installment of the "Pioneer Reminiscences of Mrs. J. F. Blickenstaff," by Mildred Cass Beason, appeared in the Gove County Republican-Gazette, of Gove City, April 24, 1941. Mrs. Blickenstaff came to Quinter with her family as a young girl in 1886.

On April 27, 1941, the Leavenworth Times carried a feature story of the famous overland transportation company, Russell, Majors and Waddell. In 1855 the firm established headquarters in Leavenworth, and until I862, when it was sold to Ben Holladay, the company operated thousands of oxen-pulled wagons over the Oregon trail, the California trail, the Salt Lake trail and one of the main branches of the Santa Fe trail.

The story of how Wellington became the county seat of Sumner county was told in the Wellington Daily News, April 29, 1941. The article related that Wellington changed the course of the Chisholm trail and detoured settlers and tradesmen to the town. The local boosters went south with their plows to where the trail crossed the state line and plowed a curving furrow over the prairie, swinging away from the rival town of Sumner City. When the furrow had passed through Wellington it curved back to the original trail at Clearwater. Guides at the state line told the herdsmen and teamsters to follow the furrow. Wellington became the county seat in 1872.