Newspaper Tidbit

[W. Gray]

From the Elk County Ledger (Howard City), May 5, 1877:

     "There are entirely too many hogs running at large in town, for the comfort of the people who don't own them. We don't believe any citizen has a right, either legal or moral, to raise hogs at the expense, inconvenience and discomfort of his neighbor."



     "All necessary blanks have been received and the Elk County Bank is now prepared to do any and all kinds of banking business. The members of the firm, Messrs. Momma & Eby, are well known to our community as gentlemen of enterprise and good business talent. They will succeed."

     The Elk County Bank was located on the first floor below the second story Opera House where Cookson's Hardware is now. The bank eventually became the Elk County State Bank and then the Howard National Bank locating in a new stone building on the southeast corner of Washington and Wabash streets in 1886.

[W. Gray]

From the Kansas Telephone (a newspaper), September 3, 1887, speaking of its Elk Falls location:

"We have two hardware stores, three general merchandise, two drug stores, one bank, one grocery, one lumber yard, three hotels, two restaurants, one shaving parlor, one shoe shop, one tin shop, one furniture store, one livery and feed stable, one millinery store, two blacksmith shops, two medical physicians, one attorney-at-law, one real-estate man, one feed store and a meat market."

Elk Falls had a lot more businesses than it now has but when the first federal census of all cities was released in 1910, the population was only 271.

This was apparently the first edition of Kansas Telephone and it apparently did not last very long going out of business in the same month of September 1887.

Elk Falls would not get another newspaper until 1903.

[W. Gray]

From the Elk County Ledger (Howard City), April 28, 1877:

"The LEDGER office boasts a new 'devil.' Johnny Thompson proposes to learn the printer's trade. 'Tommy' [Thomas E. Thompson of Polk Daniels fame] has been promoted, and now has somebody to 'boss' over."

A printer devil was an apprentice who mixed containers of ink and gathered type for the typesetter.

Three years later, "Tommy," who had quit school at age thirteen, was now twenty years old and editor of the Elk Falls Signal.

[W. Gray]

From
Pettengill's Newspaper Directory and Advertiser's Hand-Book For 1877.


Howard City Courant; Wednesdays; republican; A.B. Steinbarger, publisher; circulation 800.

The Courant published at Howard City on Wednesday morning of each week; 4 pages; size, 22 x 31 inches. Established in 1874 [at Elk City]. Circulation, 800 copies. Official newspaper of the county, and leading republican paper in senatorial district. Advertising rates reasonable. A. B. Steinbarger, editor and proprietor. Sample copies mailed on application. S. M. Pengengill & Co., advertising agents.

Howard City, Elk Co. Ledger; Saturdays; republican; Adrian Reynolds, publisher, circulation, 600.


These were the only two newspapers publishing in Elk County at that time.

[W. Gray]

From an unknown date (but sometime in 1881) of the Lee's Summit, Mo., News-Letter:

The "Elk Co. HERALD" a very neat and spicy paper, hailing from Howard, Kansas has reached our table. Its style make-up and appearance will compare with any paper in the west. We recognize the fact that Tom E. Thompson, formerly of the Elk Falls Signal is the local editor."


Lee's Summit is near Kansas City.

The Thompson men started the Elk County Herald in Howard in early 1881 and then bought the Courant that fall.

Presumably the word "spicy" in relation to print had a different meaning in 1881.

[W. Gray]

From the Elk County Ledger (Howard City), April 21, 1877:

"A mammoth railroad meeting was held at Elk Falls on Tuesday. It was in the interest of the L. L. & G. extension and was largely attended by people from Independence. The people of Elk Falls and the county generally have been urging the L. L. & G. to build a railroad into this county for several years; but have never received any encouragement. Now, however, when there is a prospect for roads from other points, the L. L. & G., together with the Independence people, begin to "hump themselves." The Elk Falls meeting was adjourned –so we are informed—for two weeks to give the L. L. & G. people time to get up a proposition which they will submit to this county."

[W. Gray]

From the Longton Weekly Ledger, January 17, 1874:

"On New Year's Eve, a gentleman living near Peru had a wagon and pair of horses stolen from him. The thief made good his escape into the Territory, and has not since been heard from. If the vigilantes would only swing one or two of them the thieving would cease. It is a little rough, but very effectual. A vigilance committee comes nearer meting out justice to the offender than does either Judge or jury. Judge and jury may be bought, but a committee, never."

[Jo McDonald]

Maybe for a few years anyway, we need to bring back this form of judgment.    It would help solve the overflow in the prison system.

   I'll bet that I get a flood of replies to this way of thinking.  oh welllllll~~~~~~~

[Ms Bear]

I am sure most comments will be in agreement.  I know I agree.

[W. Gray]

From the December 5, 1873, Emporia News quoting from the Wichita City Eagle:

"Four Delaware Indians, old friends of J. R. Mead's have been trapping below town, along the Arkansas and Chisholm creek, for the past thirty days. They have secured 30 beavers, fifty coon and several otter, in all between four and five hundred [animals]."

At this time in history, the Delaware tribe had been moved from their Kansas reservation, which became Wyandotte, Leavenworth, and Jefferson counties, to the reduced Indian Territory that became Oklahoma.

In their entire history of contact with the federal government, they had been moved from the Delaware River area in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, from which they took their name, to Ohio. As civilization pressed westward, the federal government moved them again to Indiana, then to Missouri, then to Kansas, and then to Oklahoma.

There are currently two bands in Oklahoma, one headquartered in Anadarko, and the largest headquartered in Bartlesville. Some bands left the tribe early on and went to the grandmother country where they have two reservations in Ontario. There are also some communities left in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but they do not have a reservation status.