POTPOURRI from the Howard paper

[Janet Harrington]

  November 16, 1876, thirty-three years ago last Tuesday, I arrived in Howard, to stay.  I rode up from Elk Falls with the type, press and other furniture of Ade Reynolds' Elk County Ledger printing, and Dan Ealley and Harrison Wright hauled the load of us on a dilapidated old wagon.  It was a cold, dark day and the ground was covered with the first snow of the season.  i hadn't very many clothes and I was nearly frozen when we rolled in, at about 7 p.m.
  I was taken to McBee's hotel and Aunt Hannah McBee served me with a hot supper.  The regular boarders had all been to supper and she prepared my meal herself and we became acquainted while I was eating it.  I was 16 years old and she treated me in the kindest, most motherly way imaginable, and to the day of her death she was a loyal friend to me.  She never forgot that she cooked the first meal I ever ate when I came to Howard, and that her house was my first home in this town.
  After supper I met Lark Vinson and he had a fiddle under his arm.  Somebody told him I could "play second" on an organ, and he took me around to Mr. Momma's house, (where Dr. Hays now lives,) and we fiddled, played and sang till midnight.  Mr. Momma sent Val, then a boy of 9 or 10, over to Tommy Farrell's saloon for a pitcher of beer and we had a dutch lunch of the regulation kind.
  Mrs. Momma sang "When the Swallows Homeward Fly" with the German words, and it was an evening never to be forgotten.
  The town was then not yet incorporated, and was on the map as Howard City.  There were perhaps 300 people here, and it had been the county seat of Elk county only a few months.
  There are but a few living here now who were here on November 16, 1876.  I have tried to look them up, and the following are the names of all I can find who were then and are now living in the town of Howard:  Mrs. Thos. Bruce, Henry Bruce, and Nellie Bruce, (now Mrs. Nellie Rush,) Mr. and Mrs. Milt. Vinson; Mrs. Eliza Wilson and Minnie Wilson, (now Mrs. Schoffen,) Mr. and Mrs. A. F. Eby and Whit Eby; Mrs. and Mrs. H. E. Hubbell, and George, Allie and Etta Hubbell; Charley Brintzinghoffer, Mark McBee, Mrs. Nicholas Momma and Val Momma, U.D. Burchfield, Mrs. Luther Scott and Myrtle Scott, and Mrs. E. J. Kirby, then Ella Dodd.
  Several who then lived in town now live near by, and severl now living in town then lived nearby; but the above list is all we can study up now.  Thirty-three years is a long time and there have been many changes.

(If I can figure out who the editor was, I will add his name.  I believe that he is the one who wrote this)

[W. Gray]

Thomas E. Thompson editor of the Howard Courant

[W. Gray]

I should have added: Also known as Polk Daniels.

[Wilma]

And this is the person the lake is named after?  Tell us more.

[W. Gray]

That he is.

Polk Daniels was Thomas E. Thompson's pen name. His main effort under his pen name was the "Potpourri" writings but he also contributed other articles with the Polk Daniels name. It was not a secret. Everyone knew who Polk Daniels was. He was quite famous in Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma newspaper circles and he put Howard, Kansas, on the map. He is in the Kansas Newspaper Hall of Fame along with Arthur Capper and William Allen White. He is one of very few newspapermen to be admitted at the three year minium after passing away.

Although he says in Janet's posting that he arrived in Howard in 1876 to stay, he did go back to Elk Falls and became the editor of the Elk Falls Signal in 1880 at age 20 and then became editor of the Elk County Herald in Howard in 1881. Later that same year, he became the editor of the Howard Courant and was until his death. Sometime after he accompanied the Elk County Ledger printing press to Howard, the Ledger combined with the Courant operating for a while as the Courant-Ledger and then just as the Courant. At one time, the Courant was a daily newspaper. The Kansas Press Association says that Polk Daniels made the Howard Courant one of the most frequently read newspapers in Kansas.

Not sure when the lake was named after him but it could have been around his death in 1935--but it might have been earlier.

His son Clad was born in 1888 and after school went to work for the Kansas City Star. He became informally known at the Star as Pip Daniels. Clad also started the "Starbeams" column in the Star which was a collection of witty sayings apparently modeled after the Polk Daniels sayings. Clad retired in 1946 and Bill Vaughn took the column over. I read the "Starbeams" all the time in the 50s and 60s when I was living in the KC area and never realized at the time that someone from Howard started the column!

The Kansas City Star claimed Tom E. Thompson knew every single individual in Elk County and not a one did not like him. His wife Maude was also a newspaper editor and ran the Courant after his death. There were only three people in his family and all three were renowned newspaper people.

The Howard Courant-Citizen , that most of us older folks are probably familiar with, came into being in 1942 when Maude's health failed. The Howard Citizen lasted from 1891 until merging with the Courant. Fred C. Flory was the editor of the Citizen and he was somewhat a celebrity himself as he had a hand in killling the last buffalo in southeast Kansas on Wabash Street in 1874.

Tom Thompson was also the mayor of Howard, led the town band for many years, and wrote a number of muscial compositions. He was the first president of a new Kansas Editorial Association in 1925. His home still stands on south Chestnut and appears to be in very good shape.

The inscription on his tombstone in Grace Lawn cemetery reads, "He was a man. Take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again."

[Janet Harrington]

Waldo,

That was a great article that you wrote about Tom E. Thompson.  When I read his name, I knew instantly who you were talking about.  He was quite the newspaper writer.  I have some things I have taken from the microfilm that the Howard Library has and when Mr. Thompson wrote about a jury trial it was often word for word.  That makes me think that he was quite the shorthand writer.  Thank you for that information.

[Wilma]

Thank you for the information on someone who must have been a great man.  I rather miss the Howard Courant-Citizen.  It carried local Howard news, something we don't get a lot of anymore.

[W. Gray]

What is disturbing to me is that the Kansas Press Association identifies the Flint Hills Express as a Howard, Kansas, newspaper.

There is no newspaper office in either Howard or Elk County. Worse yet, there are no Flint Hills in Elk County exept for a tiny dot in the northwest corner.

A couple years ago, someone who had apparently worked for one of the newspapers combining into the Express wrote a history of the publication. There was, glaringly, no mention of Tom E. Thompson or any Elk County newspaper. The author stated the roots of the Express went back to the birth of her newspaper in 1894. Actually, the deepest root goes back to the Longton Howard County Ledger in February 1871 and the second deepest root goes back to the Elk City Courant in June 1874.

[Jo McDonald]

Thank you, Waldo, for this wonderful posting of Elk County newspaper history.  I also notice that at this time, Rex Vinette is viewing this page.....Hi Rex, you in Kansas and I in Minnesota, such a small world.  Rex just happens to be one of my favorite " Howard boys"
  I enjoy all the Home town items that are posted on here and we have to give thanks to Teresa and Kjell for this.  Fred and I still subscribe to the "local" newspaper and enjoy it every week.  What saddens me is the fact that all the surrounding towns in the covered area have news items, EXCEPT HOWARD - the county seat of Elk County. How sad is that?  I know it is a huge effort to gather news and have to edit and then submit it, but I truly wish that someone would make that effort, for those of us who are away and want to read of our friends and neighbors.  Again  THANK YOU KJELL AND TERESA for having the Howard Forum for us.

[Wilma]

Besides missing the local news that we are not getting any longer, I miss the "10 Years Ago, Twenty-five Years Ago, etc.",  that used to be a regular column in the Courant-Citizen.  Maybe our problem is that no one thinks they can live up to the standard that Rose Leo set.  I would bet that there are a number of people in Howard that could do as good or better than she did.  She was dedicated, so she did a wonderful job.