The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-05-20

puDIIsHEU
ley F. H. Barnhart was the editor.
G ding thru, this same valley today one
will see newsy papers in Osborne, Al
ton. Woodston and Stockton In this
same issue of the Farmer the attor
neys who were doing business in Os-
borne were w T. S. May. R. G. Hays,
Z. T. Walrond, A Saxey and j. K
Mitchell. All are now dead At the
same time the Central Branch rail-
road, (noW Missouri Pacific) had its
terminus at WatervilIe, 100 miles west
| of Atchison, and about 125 miles east
of Osborne, and mail was being de-
| livered twice a week by stage. from
Russell on the main line OF the Union
Pacific. That paper also spoke of a
town named Emley starting up, but
| it must been shortlived, for no mem
ton was made of it in other issues of
the Farmer that year. 1t started about
January 1876. Among other bust
ness carried on that year was S. r.
Gibbony, H. Perdue and T. J. Gossett,
practicing physicians, Mr.. and Mrs F.
n. Hatch carried on blackSmithing and
millinery, J. W. Addison, boots and
shoes; August Vogt, grocer; Ed. Kee-
yer, hotel: j. c. Fargo, livery; G. w.
Champion, real estate; Baldwin & Will
son, drugs; Watson, Gillette & Co.,
general store; f. B. Garrigues, furni-
ture; Hays & Wilson, hardware and
| implements; A. B. Coates. contractor
and builder; Ed. Wilcox, harness. 1t
was during the building of the railroad
up the, Solomon valley when Bloom
ington, five miles west of Osborne
put in claim for county seat honors,
but Osbrne had the pull by a big ma
jority. and retained it. Your CORE
spondent didn't get to Osborne in buff
falo days. but in later years ate dinner
at a farm house adjoining the town
site. and the lady of the house said
she has stood in the door and seen the
buffaloes coming off the divide in
droves of hundreds, on their way to
CN,1rl i
they came so near the house she could
throw a stick of wood and hit them.
She said those sights were frequent,
and no notice was taken of them. Bull
City. (now Atom never aspired for
county seat) and Downs was content
with the railroad division.
It was thirty-five years ago when
Noble L. Prentis, then associate edi-
tor of the Atchison Champion, and
the writer of these notes who was
employed on the same paper gathering
up subscribers, visited Graham county.
Prentis was writing up the country
as he saw it for the paper. He al
ways had a story to tell. nor would he
tell one without chuckling over it, no
matter how funny or serious it was.
He was known from one end of the
state to the other as the best and
wittiest all round story teller in Kan
sas. Our driver was hauling US from
Stockton to Millbrook, the county seat
town ION the hill'' in Graham coun-
ty. In all the towns Prentis visited
he soon drew a crowd, and he often
forgot to eat a square meal so long
as they staid to hear him. Some
where on the road between Nicodemus
and Hill City our vehicle passed
small grove of timber. Prentis saw
ahead of him what he thought was
squirrel near one of the trees. The
driver hurried on to where the animal
was, and it took only a few
moments for us to discover there was
a whole family of them. 1t was a
lively bunch of skunks, and if he was
alive those horrible animals and odor
would be haunting Prentis yet. While
they didn't commit any misd emeanor
on us. the scent We inhaled, which also
penetrated our clothing, remained
with us until our journeys end at
Millbrook, when a refreshing bath and
a change of clothing was made. Prem
tbs was the most badly scared man
of all, and it looked if a year or more
growth had been taken away from
him. 1t resulted in no more story
telling that day, nor could he crack
a smile the three days We remained
in Graham county. On our return he
refused to pass that place. He told
his travelling companion with the same
paper that SO long as he remained on
top of earth he would never get so
close again to any of that kind of
animals.
1t was the same old story of pio-
neer county seat fights in many coun-
ties in northwestern Kansas. Only
last week there was printed in Sixth
District notes, the amusing comments
of the struggle in Rawlins county be-
tween Atwood and Brakeman. as pub
lished at the time in the New York
Tribune In another place in the
same issue this paragraph appeared:
Every few months some Peace So
ciety lumbers to the front with long
resolutions denouncing war as an in
stitution, and calling on the impulsive
and irritable nations of Europe to
settle their difficulties by arbitrations
but. while these societies have been
giving good advice to the powers
across the ocean, war seems to have
been done away with \ a quarter
where it has ragged with greater vio-
lence of late years than 1t has in
Europe. We refer to western Kansas,
where the county treasurer Is some
times jolted off his revolving stool in
the court house, as that building rat
ties along over the rough prairie road.
drawn by ten mules driven by the
probate judge who sjks on the Chin
ney. The wheels are about to De
taken off the Kansas county court
house forever, and it will have been
accomplished without bloodshed. In
closing, we cannot help remarking on
the great superiority of this new plan
over the old one. with its shotguns
and rifles. sheriffs posses and state
militia. The whole country will con-
graduate Kansas on the new depar-
ture- There were struggles for county
seat honors IN several OF the counties
in northwestern Kansas witnessed by
the Sixth District correspondent, nota-
bly, in Cove, Sheridan, Sherman Ora
ham, Thomas. RaWlins and others,
and not q gun was fired. Every coun-
ty of the twenty-five in the Big Sixth
has stone and brick court houses ex-
cept Cheyenne and Sherman and it is
generally believed that in the next
two years these frame buildings will
be torn down and modern ones take
their place
There were many rumors a few