Upola

[Diane Amberg]

    croquet

[flintauqua]

Could that slow growing tree possibly be a Post Oak rather than a Black Jack.  Reason I ask, university extension foresters from Arkansas and Oklahoma have been identifying what they have started calling Ancient Post Oak stands throughout the Cross Timbers physiographical region, of which the Chautauqua Hills is the northernmost extension.  Through corings and dating from the rings, they have determined some of these trees are over 400 years old, even though they may be only 12-14 inches in diameter.  They are usually in stands, but they have identified some single remaining trees also, where for some reason just the one tree was spared by nature and man.

KS Map:  http://www.uark.edu/misc/xtimber/map/seks.html

Homepage:  http://www.uark.edu/misc/xtimber/index.html

Just curious.

Also, my grandmother Octa Hainlin tried to teach Roberta and I how croquet was supposed to be played.  We didn't seem to care about the rules, we just liked whacking the balls all over the place.

Charles

[W. Gray]

There are items in the Longton Weekly Ledger in 1872 or 73, talking about croquet being a favorite sport in Elk Falls.

In 1875, a team sport, organized baseball, was being played with the Longton Grasshoppers, the Boston Clinchbugs, the Elk Falls Resolutes, and the Fredonia something or others.

Somewhere in a local newspaper, I saw that around that time, Wichita had an all female baseball team.

[jarhead]

Croquet---Yep that's the game but I was not about to try and spell it cause it would look like "crock of something or other "
Flint, you sure might be right about the tree. I've never been real close to it and from a distance it looks like a black-jack but I sure aint a tree expert. It would be intereseting to see how close the growth rings must be. I think higher up the hill there is another lone tree of the same kind and about the same size. Now I'm going to be forced to take a drive and check it out.
A half mile or so east of the RR crossing in Uola the used to be a lone grave out in a pasture. This was back in the 50's. The head stone could be seen from the road and the grave had a fence around it. I don't see any sign of it anymore. greatguns---ask your Mom if she knows who was buried there.

[jarhead]

Flint, now that web page about post oak is gonna make me do some walking. Near Oak valley I know where there is --what I thought was a black jack tree---grows straight up, then bent a 45 degree angle , then up again. An old timer told me the Indians made it grow that way and it's pointing to where a spring is coming out of the rocks. Maybe it's a post oak

[flintauqua]

My experience with these post oaks involves a chain saw.  Twenty or more years ago, my father (Stub) and I were cutting some trees out of the fence line on the Womacks pasture (that Horst Hiller owns now).  Just cuttin along through the Black Jacks like butter, then came to the next tree and it was if the chain dulled as we were walking.  Thought maybe we'd got into some rock, so switched chains.  Well we had got into some "rock", it was the tree.  Sparks were flying as we tried to force that saw through that tree.

Of course didn't know anything about Ancient Post Oaks at the time, but that had to have been one.

Can you imagine how hard it would have been to chop one down with an axe?  Probably why there's still some around.

[greatguns]

I'll ask my Mama and if she doesn't remember, I'll ask her sister.

[Rudy Taylor]

It's been fun for me to follow this thread. You folks bring such history to the table! I thought maybe Upola once had a newspaper but according to the Kansas State Historical Society, none with that name ever existed. Now, I've just got to find the place and take a 360 look-around.

[jarhead]

Rudy, When you go to Upola be sure and look at that hand dug well. I think there's a board / rock or something you can move and look down in it. It is a huge well. Years ago I was tearing an old house down and under a linoleum was a 1920's something Longton newspaper The Upola news iteam was " Monty Edwards and Carl Rice went duck hunting" That was it !!!  At least they could have said weather they got any ducks. The hay barns at Upola we were talking about---at least one of them was destoryed by a tornado but was rebuilt. They were both still standing even as late as the 1960's but  burned to the ground.

[Jo McDonald]

Glenn and Mable Shanks and their children lived at Upola.   My dad Carl and his brother Roy Workman did hay baling, with a stationary baler,the crew was my brother Jack, me, my sister Helen cousins Robert, and Gene.  We put hay in one of those Upola barns one year. 
Glen Shanks was helping barn hay that year, we also baled some for Jess Schroder.  Man, that was hot work - Daddy and Uncle Roy mowed with the tractor and a sickle blade,  my sister Helen run the sulky rake and I run the buck rake, and we each drove a team of horses.  Daddy had a John Deere tractor, that  was what run the baler.  The men and boys fed the baler, tied and stacked the bales.  I helped tie bales, and barn the hay too.  That was in the 40's.