Messages

Nines seem to have a lot of magic in mathematics. My seventh grade school teacher in the early 1950s taught us how to prove a multiplication problem answer as correct by casting out nines.

While it seems like a lot of extra hard work to prove an answer, once I got the gist, it came fast and I never had another wrong multiplication problem. I still use it today whenever I dont have a calculator handy.

Multiplying 375 x 725 gives an answer of 271,875.

In the above problem, add the digits of the first number to get 15, then subtract 9 leaving 6.

Add the digits of the second number to get 14, then subtract out 9 leaving 5.

Then multiply the two answers of 6 and 5 to get 30. Subtract out all 9's, in this case 27, to get 3.

Then add the digits in the answer to get 30. Subtract out all 9's, in this case 27, to get 3. Since 3 equals 3, the multiplication is correct. Works every time.

I was looking for something else, but I found a January 9, 1903, advertisement in the Howard Courant for the Star Livery Stable owned by someone other than a Peery.

The Star Livery Barn across from the bank may have came earlier or later.

It advertises "First Class Livery" with "Omnibus to All Trains" and "Stylish Turnouts."

"Rigs With or Without Drivers. Horses Boarded by Day or Week. Your Patronage Solicited."

Located northwest of court house and owned by Johnson & Parsons, Howard, Kansas.

Not to mention that Kansans are the only people in the Union who pronounce the name of the Arkansas River correctely.

Has anyone tried putting the web site information in the Flint Hills Express?

I was in Howard a couple weeks ago and mentioned the site to a couple people and they did not know what I was talking about.

Thanks, I had never heard of the place until yesterday. There appears to be a lot of rugged country in the nortwest area. Maybe the former Elk County sheriff chased a lot of rustlers into that area?

I have heard Union Center, the town, was so named because at the time it was formed in 1871 it was in the georgraphic center of the then United States.

Has anyone in this forum ever heard of, know where it is at, or have seen Dead Man's Gulch in Elk County?

According to one source, it is in southwest Elk and according to another is in northwest Elk County.

Some hunters found a man hanged there in 1869 thus giving the area the name. According to an Oklahoma judge in 1931, the gulch is in the bottom of a deep canyon, surrounded by rugged walls of stone with much tree growth and underbrush almost devoid of trails for ingress or egress.

Pending anyone from Howard, responding I am going to jump in from Colorado. Maybe someone from Howard can add some more and provide a contact for the museum.

The Howard National Bank was originally located on the northeast corner of Washington and Wabash where the old bank building is now. That bank now operates a block south on the southwest corner of Wabash and Randolph across from the First National Bank.

If the livery's location was directly opposite from Howard National Bank as the card says, it would have been right next to the former first courthouse, which by the 1900s seems to be a hardware store rebuilt from a disastrous fire.

A Phoenix Livery, Feed and Sale Stable was located northwest of the courthouse in 1881.

The Elk County history book shows two livery stables as advertising in one of the Howard newspapers in 1903 but does not name them. The book also says that at one time there was a livery stable with the name Hotel de Horse.

According to the book, the first telephone service started around 1905 so the time must have been between 1905 and 1910 since W. Peery's livery had a telephone.

If the Wabash Street museum does not have anything on the livery stable, I am sure they would appreciate a photocopy of what you have.

•   Does anyone know anything about the Elk River Alligator he/she could share with us?

•   The only thing I am aware of is a six-foot alligator was captured from the Elk River maybe in the mid to late 1920s. The critter was stuffed and placed on display in Hottinger's drug store.

•   I can only remember back to the late forties and Hottinger's was closed by that time. I only recall a bunch of German World War I or II helmets and rifles on display in the closed store's window. I think it was on the northeast corner of Wabash and Randolph.

•   There is a mention of the alligator in the Elk County history book. There used to be a web site discussing the alligator put there by the family of a young girl who lived in Howard at the time. She has since passed away and the family has removed the web site. The web site mentioned Hot's drug store.

•   Putting coins on the track to flatten them from tons of locomotive pressure seems to be a universal experience. It is done here in Colorado all the time.

•   I have seen an old map, which shows double tracks going across Washington Street, but I do not recall if that was still the case prior to the tracks being torn up.

•   One of the station agents at Howard just recently died in Moline—Dick Hisle, I think.

•   It is a long story but the tracks from Emporia to Howard were first intended to be narrow gauge, similar to the mountain railroads in Colorado. Narrow gauge tracks were laid from Emporia to Eureka before someone wised up and then widened the rails to standard gauge.

•   Howard once had a roundhouse and turntable to turn locomotives around to point them back to Emporia. When Moline became the terminus, the roundhouse was moved there.

•   Originally, the extension from Howard was supposed to go to Elk Falls but Moline won out.

•   Howard at one time had six stock pens with a 14-car storage capacity. There was also a multi-ton truck scale, which is still over in the old rail area.

•   Officially, known as the Howard Branch, Southern Kansas Division, Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, the eighty-four mile branch line began in Emporia. The line extended from Emporia south through Olpe, Root, Madison, Bisbee, Hamilton, Utopia, Eureka, Small, Climax, Severy, Fiat, Howard, and terminating at Moline.

•   A spur at Madison Junction went southeast to Hilltop and Virgil.

•   The line went by the name of the Howard Branch because the original 1879 terminus was Howard. Moline became the terminus in 1886.

•   The line served Howard for 96 years before abandonment in 1975.

•   Originally, Howard had two passenger trains and two freight trains per day. The train speed limit was 30 miles per hour—this was a branch and not a mainline.

•   In the later years, there was one train each day in each direction. At this point passenger service consisted of mixed service, which meant the rail company added a passenger car to the end of a freight train. Sometimes the car added was a combine, which meant one-half the car contained seats for passengers, and one-half the car was for freight. Sometimes the combine was the only car behind the locomotive. Passenger service to and from Howard was available until the late 1940's or so.

•   After passenger service ended, freight trains to Howard, one in each direction each day, ran until abandonment of the branch line in 1975.

•   The tracks came southwest into Howard from Fiat crossing K-99 just before the Paw Paw bridge, which until the 60s was a large iron truss bridge similar to the old Elk Falls bridge. A concrete bridge replaced the iron truss in the sixties. A new bridge replacing that span occurred just recently. The train curved southwesterly across the north part of town and then crossed Washington Street at Plum.

•   When the rail company tore up the rails, I cannot say. However, if one goes down to the corner of Plum and Washington Street and looks southwest one can still plainly see the old raised roadbed curving around from Washington Street going to the long gone station. A lone tree is growing in the middle of the old right of way.

•   After leaving Howard station, the tracks headed southeast. One can still see that portion of the roadbed curving around the fairgrounds. Last time I was in Howard, someone was cutting the brush and trees away from the old roadbed. The track curved on across the county road south of the fairgrounds, then crossed the Elk River, and then split for Moline.

•   Several track sidings ran straight south from the Howard station. One lone siding went across the county road and then along the front of the cemetery rock wall. The siding ended just before the first cemetery entrance. It was common to see empty boxcars or stock cars parked in front of the cemetery.

•   The rock wall facing east along the paved road sets back several feet because the siding took up that open area. The road in front of the cemetery, incidentally, used to go down to the Elk, cross a low water bridge and then go straight up the steep hill to connect with June bug road to the right of where the cable tower is. A flood, probably '61, washed out the bridge and the county closed the road. Another low water bridge lies to the west.

•   I have heard from time to time the wall might be moved the short distance out to the road to give the cemetery a little bit more room. However, the cost of moving the wall is probably more than the benefit received.

•   The Howard Branch went north from Howard to Fiat through Severy to Climax, Small, and Eureka. The stop at Small was not a town but was a railroad name for a stop at an alfalfa mill. The mill was located on the corner where the paved "shortcut" from K-99 goes into Eureka. The mill disappeared in the sixties.

•   About three years ago, I drove to the location of Fiat. There is nothing there to signify a town but there was still an "RR" sign hanging on a fence where the rails used to come through. The Elk County history book has a story about a student in Fiat catching a train each morning to attend high school in Severy coming back by rail each evening. Old maps of the 1870s also show stops at Cresco and Paw Paw.

•   At Severy, the rails from Fiat crossed the east-west St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad (The Frisco) and then crossed K-96 (US 400).

•   In 1946 a freight train pulled by a steam engine, just coming from Fiat and Howard had passed through Severy and was approaching K-96. A driver barreling down K-96 was traveling at a high rate of speed and apparently did not hear or see the steam engine. The fast moving automobile slammed into a boxcar behind the tender. The impact derailed the boxcar and the momentum of the boxcar took the rest of the train's twelve cars off the track. Only the engine and tender stayed put. The crash killed all three people in the car.

•   The Frisco rails headed east out of Severy went to Fredonia and passed through northeast Elk County on the way.

•   The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad also ran east to west from Winfield to Grenola, Moline, Elk Falls, and Longton and Independence. That line is now the South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad. The Santa Fe no longer exists as an independent railroad. It is now part of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.

•   Howard also had interstate bus service by either Greyhound or Trailways and I recall the buses stopped at the southeast corner of Wabash and Washington near the old bank to pick up and drop off passengers.