Picture of Thomas E. Thompson

[Janet Harrington]

Here is a picture of Thomas E. Thompson the editor of the Howard Courant-Citizen.

[Teresa]

He kinda looks like Howard Unruh in the eyes..
Nothing meant by that .. but I thiink that everyone looks lke someone else.. so I have a tendancy to always see stuff like that. It drives me crazy when I meet someone and I know that they look familiar to me but for the life of me I can't think of who they remind me of, so I just try to look at them a lot without staring..but you know that they know you are staring so you try to .................oh well never mind...

Am I babbling... yep..
see ya... Bye

[Wilma]

Isn't that a good picture?  I cut and tweaked that one after Janet took the photo of the photo that is in my old atlas.

[W. Gray]

Um, just a minor nitpicking technical note.

Tom was editor of the Howard Courant.

Floyd Flory was the first editor of the Howard Courant-Citizen after the two newspapers combined in 1942, seven years after Tom's death.

I understand he might have been somewhat of a ladies man. Maybe, they liked the mustache. There is an older photo at the Kansas Newspaper Hall of Fame web site at http://www.kspress.com/img/hof/members/thompson.html

[Wilma]

That explains why there isn't a picture of Mr. Flory in my 1903 Atlas of Elk County, or any mention of him in the list of prominent citizens.

[W. Gray]

There was a Fred C. Flory who returned to Howard in the 1890s. He eventually became editor of the Elk County Citizen, which started in 1891 but became the Howard Citizen around 1919.

It might be that in 1903 he had not yet became the Citizen editor. By 1942, his son Floyd had taken over.

Fred C. Flory was a democrat and ran a democrat newspaper. Tom Thompson was a Republican, and ran a Republican Newspaper. They appeared to be around the same age.

In their later years, they shared the same printing press and each had a separate office in the same building publishing their separate newspapers. Each printed some of the local news appearing in the other newspaper. My understanding is the newspaper building was in the flea market that is close to Lanning's Garage.

As a teenager, Fred C. Flory helped run down and kill the last buffalo in southeast Kansas on Wabash Street in 1874. At one point, he worked side by side with Tom Thompson as a printer devil in Elk Falls.

[Wilma]

That is very interesting.  Every day I learn something new about Elk County.  In my atlas, in the Patron's Reference Directory, there is an F. C. Flory, Publisher, Howard, as well as a Thomas E. Thompson, Publisher, Howard.  I wish there were a picture of Mr. Flory.  I have a picture of the E. R. Perkins family and a lot of other names that are ancient Elk County.  It must have been interesting to have opposing newspapers printed in the same building.

[Janet Harrington]

Waldo,

Thank you for the correction.  I appreciate that.