Upola

[greatguns]

My grandparents lived at Upola.  That is U-pola.  My mother and her siblings were born there.  I still visit the cemetery every year.  I'll have to ask my Mother if she knows how it got its name.  Maybe Jarhead knows as he is far more worldly than I.

[jarhead]

Guns, I aint got a clue to how Upola got it's name. I do know our grand-father had a grocery store there but all that's left is a cement slab with a big cottonwood tree growing out of it. On the south side of the road from that is a HUGE hand dug well. in looking at the Kansas Bottle book I see that Upola never had a drug store. I thought it was a booming town, and would have , seeing as how Oak Valley had 7 differant drug stores from 1879 until 1908. Speaking of 'bottles', does anyone have any info on when Longton had 2 differant "bottlers" The H.G Bailey and The Longton Bottling Works ?

[Marcia Moore]

     I just looked in John Rydjord's book entitled, Kansas Place-Names, to see if it mentioned how Upola got its name.  Here is what it says. 
     The story of the naming of a town in Elk County concerns a girl who owned a pony named Polo.  She was riding Polo when the pony stopped at a railroad crossing.  The railway workers heard the girl's exclamation or appeal: "You - Polo!"  From this, it was said, the town of Upola was named. 

[W. Gray]

Interesting.

[flintauqua]

Thanks, Marcia.

From my experience Dr. Rydjord is usually dead-on correct on his name origins as they are very extensively researched.  But that one does sound a little "hoakie".

Charles

[W. Gray]

First thing that came to my mind was whether the railroad was there at the time Upola was founded.

The Longton to Independence track was laid in 1879, I don't know when the Longton to Fredonia track was built but it would have to have been after 1879. There is nothing else in Elk County on that line, so it would seem the railroad was attracted to Upola?

That rail line, though, was built by a different railroad, the Chicago, Kansas, and Western, and they may have just needed a connection from Fredonia to Longton and Upola subsequently located on those tracks? An 1886 map shows Upola as a stop.

The Elk County history book mentions only that there were a lot of towns, including Upola. for which the editors had no information.

For some towns, the railroad came to the town because it was already there.

Other towns located on known projected rights of way before the rails came through.

Others located on the tracks after they came through. Our famous Elk County example of that was the railroad laying its tracks between and missing the towns of Canola and Greenfield. Both towns packed up with one moving north and the other moving south and meeting at the tracks becoming Grenola—a consolidation of the names.

There was a Upola Town company with capital stock supposedly valued at $50,000 and that company's incorporation papers would hopefully be on file at the Kansas State Historical Society showing when the town came into being.

[jarhead]

Waldo,
My dad was born and raised in Upola and I think if he was still alive he would be in his 90's, so it was along time ago. His grand father homesteaded the place where Randy Cannon lives today . It was just a dug-out in the side of a hill.. Later a house was built on top of it and it became a root cellar.He talked alot about growning up in Upola. The railroad used to set a box car of ice on a siding every 4th of July. The ice was packed in saw dust and I think was just ice chopped the previous winter from a river or lake somewhere. My Dad said they would chip off big chunks of ice and suck on it like it was the best thing they had ever tasted. Beside the RR tracks there were two huge pole hay barns. Hay was stored there , then later loaded onto RR cars and shipped.

[W. Gray]

Thank you, I find information like that to be very interesting.

I have seen some reports of hay being shipped out of Upola.

There was only freight service available at Upola but anyone could stand on that platform and the caboose would roll up to the platform and pick him or her up.  I suppose they paid the standard ticket price to Longton, or maybe Fredonia, where they could connect with a passenger train. 

I have also seen a petition to the railroad to put a station and a freight agent there. The railroad said they would consider it if business picked up. I don't know if they ever did erect a depot.

There is a story of a dug out home in a hillside in another county.

A buffalo walking on the hill came crashing down into their home while they were eating.

[greatguns]

Jarhead your Dad would have been 98 this year if he was still with us.  He was 10 years older than Mother.  Did he ever talk about the 4th of July celebrations they had at Upola?  That is where Mom took her first plane ride.  Grandma used to feed the hobos.  I've heard Mom tell about picking blackberries and selling them to the train men to buy her fireworks.  Enough rambling from me.

[jarhead]

Yes Guns, my dad did talk about their 4th of July whing -dings. People from all over would meet and they played ball and alot of that game where they whack wooden balls with little wooden sledge hammers. I know the name of the game but not sure how to spell it. Next time you go to Upola cemetary take note of a Black Jack tree that is straight south of that rural water tower, near the foot of the hill. Our grand father farmed a 9 acre field by that tree and it was the only shade around. It must of been around 1960 when my dad told me they would rest under that tree and it was still the same size it had been when he was a kid. That tree is still there and I think it's still about the same size. Ask your Mother if she ever heard the story of what her dad lost out of his bib overalls in that 9 acre field. i won't tell you what it was because you might have a medal detector and go find it, but I'll give you a hint. It was "yeller" in color and had a "20" on it.