The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-12-27
ADVANTAGES OF GRAINFIELD.
Has a Good Dipping Vat and the Main
Line of the Union Pacific.


Grainfield. Kan, Dec. 27.=Colonel
S. S. Reynolds and George Dryer, two
pronounced Democrats, have made
Grainfield famous. The former, be-
cause he is the pioneer whose hobby
has been to punish one and all who is
caught setting out prairie fires, and
he firmly believes that prairie fires
have done more damage in northwest
ern Kansas than hot winds. George
Dryer is the noted hotel man, and like
Harvey of railroad eating house fame.
He IS now serving his tWenty-f1fth
year as landlord in the Occidental
hotel, one of the few hotels in western
Kansas which has fed and slept nearly
every Kansas politician for a quarter of
a century. Mr. Dryer was in an early
day treasurer of Cove county, but got
all the politics he wanted out of it, and
from that day to the present he has
never been an aspirant for political
office. He could have most anything
but he wouldn't take an Office even if
it was handed him on a gold plate.
Every Sunday his Occidental hotel
is filed with travelling men, because
the knights of the grip know where
they can get the worth of their money.
There are other reasons why Grain
field is a good place: 1t has a dipping
vat, where thousands of cattle go
through the mill" every year; it has
a country tributary unsurpassed for
wheat raising and general farming. 1t
had its boom days along with other
western Kansas towns years ago, and
it fell by the wayside as did the others.
In others words, it resulted in no good
whatever. In the last few years it has
been doing better. This year there
have been built no less than fifteen
buildings, mostly residences, and there
isn't an empty building in the place.
With the death of the boom days her
newspaper went with it, buried to-
getber, and Grainfeld hasn't had a
paper since until this year, and now
her people can foot their own horn"
through its columns.
H. F. Stimits, dealer in hardware
and implements, and T. F. Poole of the
big general store, and the State bank,
and the Chicago lumber yard, are
business enterprises towns much larger
than Grainfield would be satisfied with.
And there is Colonel S. s. Reynolds,
who knows every foot of land in Cove
county and can satisfy most every
body with a good quarter or half Sec
ton of as prolific land as the sun
shines upon; and Tom F'ike, the drug
gist, and J. ". Hopkins, and others,
who have lived in Grainfield ever since
il was a town. To these gentlemen,
and others, the town owes much of its
present prosperity.
The farming community tributary to
Grainf1eld never get tired talking of
the enormous yields of grain raised in
this and former years. With good
prospects for the new year, they are
as jubilant as the young kid IS who
attends his first circus.
Grainheld has the main line of the
Union Pacific. It is so important that
all the trains on this line stop for
orders. And while this railroad COM
pany has never favored the town, it
has never worked against it, unless il
does so when they are slow in moving
freight.
In the recent investigation in regard
to freight rates held in Topeka Colonel
Reynolds was a witness against the
railroad. and when he was on the
stand telling his story, NJ A. Low.
general attorney of the Rock Island,
Invited him to move over on his road.
He replied: ''If you will build the
Rock island into Grainfield, and give
our people better service, they Will all
patronize your road"
Grainheld will grow as the country
develops. There is plenty of room
for both 1t is situated in Cove cOun-
ty, and her people are glad they are
in its confines.