Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas

But she caught a ride most of the way. Green Goodwin, conductor of the local freight, told her to come aboard the caboose, that he would stop the train out near the farm and let...

I went down to Atchison one afternoon, when corn had dropped a half cent. I had 3,000 bushels that I had bought from Jim Smith, and 10,000 bushels of the Ham Lynn corn which I h...

After getting settled in bed that first night, I told my sister about the check in my desk, and also told her that I wanted her to see that it be paid, if, and when, it would ap...

NOTE — The railroad through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison has been abandoned, and sightseers may now view this colorful canyon from their automobiles over a highway—a “highwa...

Those Indians called me “paleface papoose.” I was, of course, beyond the normal age of a papoose, but your old Indian was no fool. They probably reasoned that whiteman would not...

I was offered the trusteeship—but I declined to accept it. I think the reason the committee offered it to me was because I had been the trustee—with no part in the promotion—of...

Then one day it happened. When the banker’s head showed above the level of the floor, every printer made a break for cover—that is, got quickly out of range of possible feudal b...

I had seen too many people trying to make a stake and raise a family at the same time. My father made more money than most—but with ten children, it was slavery for him. He work...

On the way out from Atchison, as we were nearing home, we ran into one of those fierce prairie fires that so often menaced life and property of the early settlers. I was very yo...

This, I believe, is noteworthy. Besides the single claim purchased by Frank and me from S. C. Root, operator on Bonanza Hill, one mile south of our holdings, Frank Williams loca...

Allright, Buddy. You shall have it. But I must warn you, Old Pal, that you will, like as not, have the jitters instead of a laugh. But you have asked for it. As the desired mirt...

One of the “boys” got gloriously drunk—and bragged a little. The Prohib and the Drunk met in the middle of the main town square. There were a lot of people on the street. Ed Caw...

Evidently Mr. Reckeway had a threefold purpose in bidding up the price of corn. He wanted to build up a reputation, wanted to crush competition, and at the same time discourage...

The storm grew in intensity. It had filled the woods with voices. If you turned your imagination loose you could hear a cry, a laugh—anything you chose. Then suddenly, astonishi...

Repercussions hit hard back here. The one great wrong done our converts was, as you might expect, heaped upon them by the unbelievers who had been consigned to the everlasting f...

It was quite the thing for local men who had a little cash, or backing, to take a hand in the cattle game. My Uncle Nick Bristow and Roland Van Amburg contracted for a large her...

I could keep on writing about this kid until the “cows come home”—but I won’t. This paragraph shall suffice. We were coming up from town, hand in hand, when Cloy, fairly bubblin...

But the phantom of the bally old thing, elusive though as a half-formed thought awakened by a stray wisp of forgotten fragrance, still hovers over section twenty-five. And if me...

These facts were gleaned while spending the day with my mother in Lou Hazeltine’s home. Lou had said to my mother, as was customary at the time, “Bring the children and stay all...

My father made good leather—and he knew how to get the most out of it. Being a shoemaker, he made it up into good boots and shoes and gave his boys a good leather dressing whene...

My father had hot noticed the holes in the limb, nor the squirrel which the Indian saw flattened out on a branch high up in the tree. To my father, that tree presented far more...

Myrtle’s father, John W. Mercer, section foreman, aged 39, had died suddenly of a heart attack while milking his cow one morning in February, 1888. And naturally, the family—the...

Also, she had enjoyed, particularly when with the children, watching a reddish-brown dog resembling a cocker spaniel, ride a horse, standing up behind a man. A prospector workin...

It would, perhaps, be too much to say that in this unusual show of attention Mr. Henry had hopes of bringing about a change in his mother’s estimation of his girl. But never dou...

Green Campbell would, of course, want to do something to perpetuate the school that bore his name. But in his will he made the fatal mistake—fatal for the school—of first taking...

I had recently been in Texas—and because of that trip to the Lone Star state, I had a message from a relative to a relative to be delivered in Nashville. Here again I should exp...

I want to thank you for the copies of the Wetmore Spectator which you sent to me, which carry the life of father. Frank Williams had already given me one issue, which I have loa...

The show went over so well in Wetmore that the management decided to repeat it at Capioma—and maybe go on the road with it. But, in the nick of time, it was recalled that Henry...

A few days ago J. T. Bristow received a letter from Albert T. Reid, national vice-chairman of The American Artists Professional League, Incorporated, complimenting him on his ar...

Just what evidence the vigilantes had against Charley Manley, and how authentic or damaging it was, never was made public. Nor will it ever be. Had the vigilantes permitted the...

The Russell firm, with other interests, established the Pony Express in 1860. The route from St. Joseph to Sacramento, 1920 miles, was covered in ten days—semi-weekly, at first....

“The SPECTATOR FORCE”— In “GAY NINETIES” This book does not carry the actual work of these pictured Associates—but it does bring them into the writings. The Author owes much to...

Our Wetmore group, with “investors” at Goff and Bancroft, contributed a sum said to be $14,350 toward the completion of a well in a producing field east of Enid, Oklahoma, on la...