The Falls City tribune., 1910-11-04
The Old Farmer Meddling
In Town Affairs

An old farmer stood out by his pas
ture lot, looking down into the valley
where two or three miles away was
located the county seat town. And
the old man was talking about pub
lie affairs.
Il came here before the town did, y
he said. And a good lot of the farr
ers came as soon as ! did. We had
to go a good ways to trade. There
was maybe a mill or two on that
stream, where we could go with a
grist to mill, but it was a good ways
in every direction to anything.
We'll sir, these towns started up
because there were a lot of us fellers
to sell things to. Just trading places,
with two or three stores that kept
Goldfish and calico ON the same shelf.
INOiIC I'll llieIl SIOIG hGtDtI6 hllGW
sure where the real town was going
to be, but they all hoped they would
strike it. Anyway, they had no inter
est here except to sell things to
farmers, and make money. We was
all fast to the land, and expect to
stay, no matter where the towns
squatted.
Il watched that town grown up. At
first it was the store men, and then
a blacksmith, and then another store
and a shoemaker, and a stock buyer
and some more stores. All of them
wanted to sell things to us, or make
some profit out of our stock and
grain. None of them built good
houses at first. They didn't seem to
be sure they would stay. Mostly they
lived over their stores. The other
towns up and down the valley was
just the same.
so they kept on growing as the
farms got better, and there was
more money for us to spend. The
railroad came to handle our stuff,
and the store men found sure they
had the town anchored in the right
place, and they built houses. We
helped build the first school house
there. And we paid most of the
taxes that built the first court house.
And a lot more people came in to
help each other wait on the farmers
when they come in TO trade.
Purity soon they commenced to
call it a city. And purity 500 a few
farmers moved to town to live. They
had made a good deal of money by
hard work, and they had young folks
coming on who were ready to take
I'D the farming. That made more ne
houses, and more people down there
for the rest of us to feed. But they
were all just a lot of farm folks af-
ter all, and a lot of people making
their living out of farm folks. The
sidewalks and the county jail, and the
new high school building couldn't
change that.
II remember when they commenc-
ed to talk about a new court house.
Wanted to spend $4,000 for a new
building. A store man came out to
see me about it one day. Dragged
about my hogs awhile and then
talked court house. He said the old
court house wasn't a credit to the
county any more. | knew he meant
it wasn't stylish enough for the
town, but | had to own up that it was.
a pretty cheap looking old shack.
What he wanted was for some of
us farmers to circulate a petition
asking for a court houes election.
He said it took a petition with about
so many signers before the commits
sioners could call the election, and
they thought it would be better to
have some farmers carry the petition.
Made it look a lettle better, he
said, and easier to get names.
"Well, the upshot of it was | helped
get them signers, and we took hold
and furnished the votes for the
court house bonds, and in the end we
furnished most of the tax money. The