PHOTO 4 NARRATIVE.

Harter Brothers.

J. N. Harter had brothers: Louis C., Virgil, Charles L., and David M. All of them became known as the “Harter Brothers.” At times they worked together in various mercantile projects in Winfield and at times each carried on separate projects by themselves or with others. In time even the father of the Harter brothers, Elam Harter, became involved in one of their activities: the Tunnel Mills.

As individuals, the Harter brothers engaged in separate business entities, which usually involved another partner.

The best way to handle “Harter Brothers,” is to show the different entities that sprung up.

A. Charles L. Harter—Involvement with Charles C. Black in Mercantile Store.

B. Harter Brothers—Merchants.

C. Harter Brothers—Involvement with Tunnel Mills.

D. Harter-Horning. Tunnel Mills.

E. Horning: Hardware Co. Partners; Individual Projects.

F. Charles L. Harter—Involvement with Winfield Livery Stable.

G. Charles L. Harter—Sheriff of Cowley County.

H. Charles L. Harter and Charles C. Black—Brettun Hotel.

A. Charles L. Harter—Involvement with Charles C. Black in Mercantile Store.

In 1874 Charles L. Harter was the first of the “Harter Brothers” to arrive in Winfield. He was twenty-eight years of age when he clerked for J. J. Ellis, 28, and C. C. Black, 19, at their dry goods store on the southeast corner of Main Street and Ninth Avenue. Ellis and Black had taken over the store from Thomas H. Benning in January 1873. Black purchased the interest of J. J. Ellis on September 14, 1874, who stayed on as a clerk until the Ellis family moved to Kentucky in February 1875. Charles C. Black, a graduate at Hampton College, Rock Island County, Illinois, came to Cowley County during the fall of 1872. He later said that he herded “forty cattle on a thousand hills” during the fall of 1872 before engaging in the mercantile business with Ellis. Black was a grandson of Soranus L. Brettun of Moline, Illinois, who invested heavily in many Winfield projects. Black’s cousin, Brettun Crapster, lived with Black for a number of years and became involved in a Winfield newspaper for a short time. Another cousin, Miss Louise Crapster, married Arthur C. Bangs, manager of the Southwestern Stage and Omnibus Line for Henry Tisdale, in October 1882.

On November 26, 1874, the Winfield Courier printed an item about Black’s store.

“A small conflagration, which might have been more serious but for the energetic efforts of those present, occurred last Saturday evening at the store of C. C. Black. Shortly after the lamps were lighted in the evening, Charley Harter bethought him that the chandelier needed filling, and being at the time in the oil business, having just drawn some for a customer, he took a quart measure and proceeded to replenish the illuminator. While thus engaged the oil in the measure unexpectedly ignited from one of the burners, and Charley, with the blazing can grasped firmly in his fist, glided swiftly toward the door. The air from without upon coming in contact with the flames carried them back into the face of the torch-bearer, and compelled him to deposit his burden upon the floor. His somewhat excited tones brought J. J. Ellis to the rescue with a couple of blankets, which he spread over the blaze, overturning the can, and giving the flames a new impetus. The excitement now became intense, as the window curtain went up like a flash and the fire started along the counter. Jack Cruden pushed the calico from the counter, and grasped a blanket with which to whip the fire into submission. Tom Braidwood pulled down and dragged out the line upon which was suspended shawls, scarfs, etc., while Ellis leaped the counter and rescued the mosquito bar which hung in front of the shelves. Just at this juncture a new actor appeared upon the scene in the shape of Burt Crapster staggering under the weight of a pail of water in each hand, a skillful application of which put a dampener upon the ardor of the flames, and quiet was soon restored. The total loss amounted to about twenty-five dollars. This experience goes to show that while blankets may be just the thing for extinguishing blazing coal oil, water is what is needed for gasoline. It is a well known fact, also, that as a fire extinguisher, water has but few superiors, and one pail-full at the commencement of a fire is worth a cistern-full when the flames are well underway, and as no precaution has as yet been taken by our citizens, we would suggest that each businessman follow the example of Charley Black by keeping a full barrel of water standing at their doors ready for use in case of an emergency. We hope our citizens will attend to this matter without further delay. Remember the adage, ‘An ounce of preventative is worth a pound of cure.’”

By January 1876 Charles L. Harter was Charles C. Black’s chief salesman.

B. Harter Brothers—Merchants.

In March 1876 the Harter Brothers started a store at Black’s old stand and in June became partners with a newcomer, A. E. Baird. They started the “New York Store” in Winfield. About forty feet of shelving was added in their store, located on the southeast corner of Main Street and Ninth Avenue, and they started providing a delivery wagon. On September 28, 1876, the Winfield Courier reported that the New York Store had a cash sale of $460 on the previous Saturday. Louis S. Harter, the oldest Harter brother, was the buyer for the New York Store. He was almost killed on a buying trip to New York City in September 1876 when a railroad passenger car was wrecked. He escaped without severe injury, losing his hat and having his clothing partially torn off. Four passengers died and a number were wounded.

Manning’s Brick Building. Realizing that the Old Log Store building needed to be replaced, Manning and Fuller put in the stone work for a new building in June 1875 and a stone sidewalk in front of the contemplated new building in February 1876. Brick work began in August 1876. On August 24, 1876, the Winfield Courier announced that twenty-three hands and five teams were at work on the new brick building. One of the bricklayers, Mr. Todd, was laid up for some time after a fall from the building. A tin roof was put on the building in November 1876. Messrs. Harter Brothers and A. E. Baird, partners in the New York Store, moved into Manning’s new brick building in December 1876 before it was completed. In January 1877 the New York Store put in an illuminated show window curtain; J. P. Short assisted them by tying up goods. The February 15, 1877, issue of the Winfield Courier announced completion of Manning’s brick business house at a cost of $5,000. The roof, installed by Mr. J. F. Hyskell, was made of tin with a standing seam, and was the only tin roof in Winfield that did not leak. John Swain was the principal carpenter; Phenix & Dewey did the plastering upstairs, Simpson & Steward handled the main floor. John Reed did the painting. A dozen different brick layers were used. Fred Kropp built the cellar. A new awning was erected in front of Manning’s corner brick building in May 1877.

The Harter Brothers sold their interest in the New York Store in April 1877 to A E. Baird’s brother, W. F. Baird. Baird Brothers, who continued business as the “New York Store,” had an ad in the April 12, 1877, issue of the Winfield Courier stating that they were dealers in everything. In October 1877 their ad reflected that they had the largest stock of dry goods, clothing, boots, shoes, hats, caps, etc., in Cowley County, where everything was sold at “Grasshopper Prices.” In order to get more room, Baird Brothers moved into a room in Manning’s block one door north of their present location in September 1878.

In December 1879 Baird Brothers purchased from C. A. Bliss the lot on which Dr. Graham’s office stood, and began to erect a 25 by 100 ft., two-story building with a basement. The first floor became their retail department; the second floor their wholesale department; and the basement gave them storage space. In 1881 W. Baird retired and A. E. Baird continued the “New York Store” in Winfield for many years.

[The 1880 Winfield Directory gave the address for the New York Store: Main Street, northwest corner 10^th Avenue. The 1885 Winfield Directory gave the following address for the New York Store: 921 Main. It is interesting to note that in the 1994 Winfield Directory Kyger Furniture Co. was located at 921 Main.]

Harter Brothers & Co. opened a mercantile store in Wellington in August 1877. Within a week they determined that they could sell more goods in Winfield. They purchased the McMillen & Shields stock in Winfield and transported the remainder of their dry goods, groceries, boots and shoes, etc., from Wellington to Winfield, where they opened a store in September 1877 at McMillen’s old stand, one door north of S. H. Myton’s Hardware store. They sold out their stock of goods on Main Street to O. E. Kimball, of Oxford in May 1878, who maintained his business at McMillen’s old stand. His business soon failed.

[Editor D. A. Millington, in the May 5, 1881, issue of the Winfield Courier, stated that S. H. Myton first occupied the lot on which Brown & Son built their new drug store. In 1880 Brown & Son were located on Main Street, west side, between 8^th and 9^th avenues. In 1885 their address was given as 805 Main Street.]

C. Harter Brothers—Involvement with Tunnel Mills.

Harter Brothers in April 1877 joined with C. C. Harris and purchased the Tunnel Mills, taking possession in May 1877. Having run out of more brothers, the father of the Harter Brothers took up residency in Winfield in April 1877 to assist Harter Brothers with their work on the flour mill known as “Tunnel Mills.” In August 1877 Harter, Harris & Co. took a contract to supply flour to the Cheyenne, Comanche, and Wichita Indians, making a home market for a large quantity of wheat and saving a large amount of hauling to Wichita.

L. C. Harter. L. C. Harter & Co. became sole agent of the Pearl Gang and Sulky Plows in June 1877 and started selling threshing machines in July. G. H. Crippen, an employee, found himself in Kansas City in August 1877 during the strike and threatened riot. He said nothing but the greatest prudence and nerve on the part of law abiding citizens prevented a violent outbreak and that during the last few days the ring leaders of the mob were quietly picked up by the police and lodged in jail.

In September 1877 L. C. Harter purchased a new burr, wheat duster, and flour packer for the Tunnel Mills at Kansas City; improvements were made at the Tunnel Mills located one-half south of Winfield, where stone masons worked at building solid foundations. By October 1877 the flour mill was well fitted up with new machinery and four run of burrs. L. C. Harter of the Tunnel Mills returned in February 1878 from a trip out west on the Santa Fe railroad, where he took a lot of cattle. In March 1878 Harter, Harris & Co. shipped 21 yoke of cattle to Pawnee Rock and Larned by rail.

In May 1878 while driving his two-horse buggy from Wellington to Winfield, L. C. Harter of the Tunnel Mills was accosted by two men about three miles west of Oxford, Kansas, who stopped his team suddenly in the road. Harter hit one of the horses with his whip and the team sprang forward, knocking down one of the footpads, and commenced running away from them, leaving them defeated in the road.

L. C. Harter was interviewed by a member of the Winfield Courier newspaper, who wrote an account relative Harter’s recent trip down the Arkansas river on August 1, 1878.

“L. C. Harter returned from Little Rock last Saturday evening. We have since interviewed him and now give his account of the trip. He went from Arkansas City to Little Rock down the Arkansas River on the ‘Aunt Sally’ in twelve days. Some three or four days of this time was spent in laying up and delays which were not necessary had the boat desired to make the trip in as short a time as possible. The boat went down without any load because the captain had doubts about being able to get through with any loading. The channel was very erratic and difficult to trace. Many times in following what appeared to be the main channel, the boat traced the windings until it ran onto the sand in water not more than six or eight inches deep. They then had to work off and return upstream until they found a better ‘shute.’ In each case, however, they succeeded in finding a passage with at least 20 inches of water. The mode of hunting for the best channel was by getting off the boat and wading. Mr. Harter relates some of his exploits in that line. He thinks the main difficulties of taking down a load at this stage of the water are the snags, which are somewhat dangerous. The sand is not very troublesome, for when they run on a bar they usually work off by the use of the cable and wheel in 15 or 20 minutes. He thinks that if the stage of water was still lower, the channel would be better, more distinctly marked, and much more easily traced than it was when he went down. The ‘Aunt Sally’ did not come up early enough. Had she come up two weeks earlier, she might have returned with a good load. She is far from being the kind of a boat that should come up here. She draws too much water and is in other ways unsuitable.

“Mr. Harter thinks that a boat constructed like one he saw on the river named the ‘Big Rock’ would be much better. It is about 120 feet long and wide in proportion, with engine and machinery on the bottom. He believes such a boat could run up to Arkansas City and take good loads both ways for three or four months in the year. It will draw 10½ inches light and 18 inches loaded. At present it would be difficult to get boats of that class to come up to Arkansas City, were the stage of water ever so good, because they are engaged in the cotton trade on the river below. After awhile the large boats will be up and take this trade from them; and then if the stage of water is right, they will doubtless be glad to come up. Mr. Harter is of the opinion that a steamer of the class he speaks of as the best for this trade could tow six or seven barges, each loaded with about 30 tons, and at the same time carry 50 tons itself. He says that the Little Rock millers and some steamboat men estimated that a stock company with $14,000 capital could get up and run such a fleet and make it pay. To insure business and interest in the project, they would require that one-third of the stock should be taken in this vicinity; and if that was done, they would venture the other two-thirds. The Little Rock millers will agree to take all the wheat that such a fleet can bring down at ten cents a bushel higher prices than is paid at St. Louis at the same time. If the fleet could make six trips a year, it could take off half a million bushels. Should it only take 300,000 bushels, it would be wonderful help to the farmers of Cowley. The present price of wheat at Little Rock is 95 cents; corn, 65 cents. There is a market for flour at various places all the way down. The flour could be readily removed from the boat at almost any place and sold, while wheat would be a loss. Mr. Harter returned by railroad via St. Louis. He is enthusiastic for river navigation and thinks it will be made a success.”

L. C. Harter of Harter, Harris & Co., went to Leavenworth, Kansas, in September 1878 and purchased more machinery for Tunnel Mills from the Great Western Foundry Company.

In November 1878 Mr. George Bailey, a young man who had just recently moved to Winfield from Illinois, took a contract with Harter, Harris & Co. to excavate the earth at the mouth of the tunnel at the Tunnel Mills. While engaged at this work, the perpendicular bank of earth above him slid off and fell on him, crushing him down and burying him five feet deep. Before the earth could be removed from him, life was extinct. He had noticed the first symptom of the slide and started to run from under but did not succeed. Another man at work with him was more fortunate. He was pushed over and buried up to his waist but not injured.

In January 1879 C. C. Harris leased his interest in the Tunnel Mills to the Harter Bros. The Winfield Courier commented: “Mr. Harris is now a ‘gentleman of leisure’ and will spend his time doctoring his ears, which he had the misfortune to freeze one day last week.”

Virgil Harter traded his interest in the Tunnel Mills to Elam Harter, father of the Harter brothers, for town property in Burlington, Kansas, moving there in February 1879.

D. Harter-Horning. Tunnel Mills.

J. L. Horning, from Muskegon, Michigan, bought out the stock of groceries of Messrs. Walker Brothers in August 1878. He soon realized that he had heavy competition and a poor location and people slyly wagged their heads and prophesied “a bust” in the grocery line. But “76” Horning didn’t come to bust, and he didn’t bust. Six months from that time Horning’s delivery wagon made daily visits to the houses of these same gentlemen who prophesied the “bust,” and Horning was doing the grocery business of the town. In May 1879 J. L. Horning leased a half interest in the Tunnel Mills, which was then run under the firm name of Harter & Horning. It was felt by many that Mr. Horning’s twenty years of experience in the milling business and his characteristic “get up and get” mode of running things would be good for the mill. J. L. Horning returned in late July 1879 from an extended tour in Indian Territory, in the interest of the Tunnel Mills, during which he visited the Kaw, Ponca, and Osage Agencies. He came back with some interesting stories about the home life of various Indians. During his trip he was able to secure contracts for two hundred barrels of flour from Tunnel Mills to be delivered to the various Indian agencies.

Soon after J. L. Horning’s return to Winfield in July 1879, the firm of Horning & Harter purchased the Hitchcock building next to McGuire’s store in Winfield for $600 and fitted it up for a flour and feed store. In August 1879 Horning leased his store to R. M. Snyder, of St. Louis. Horning & Harter moved the Hitchcock building off their lot and began erecting a new building on the west side of Main Street, between 10^th and 11^th Avenues. The brick and stone building, 25 by 60 ft., two stories high with a basement, was nearly completed by November 1, 1879. The lower story was taken up by R. M. Snyder’s grocery store and the upper story was made into offices for Tunnel Mills.

Soon thereafter it was learned that Mr. J. L. Horning’s wife had been on board the steamer, “Amazon,” which was wrecked on a sand bar off Grand Haven, Michigan, on October 28, 1879. Mrs. Horning was rescued without injury except from fright.

In late November 1879 Mr. Ex. Saint started for New Mexico in the interest of Harter & Horning to place Winfield flour and feed on the western market. He returned about one month later and reported that he had sold over eighteen car loads of flour and had to refuse orders for twenty car loads inasmuch as Tunnel Mills was unable to furnish them.

Harter & Horning put in a first-class elevator in their store room for the benefit of R. M. Snyder, the “south end” grocer, in the latter part of January 1880.

A big change took place in March 1880 when Mr. G. W. Ellsberry, of Mason City, Iowa, purchased the building occupied by Snyder’s grocery from Harter & Horning for $2,725 and the lot next to it for $1,000.

Frank Manny, a local brewer in Winfield, created a stir when the prohibitory amendment passed in Winfield in November 1880. He wrote a letter on April 1, 1881, that was widely disseminated in eastern newspapers. “Herewith I send you a car load of barley, which please sell for me and remit proceeds after deducting all expenses. I have tried my best to dispose of it in our neighboring towns, but have not succeeded. I have invested $20,000 in my brewery, and I do not believe I could get $500 for it now on account of the prohibition law. I have over $1,000 worth of beer in my vaults and am not allowed to sell a drop. My barley and malt cost me 95 cents a bushel, but I cannot get 50 cents for it now. You have no idea how our people are upset by the new law. A year ago our town was prospering, not a house or store to be had, and now you will find from 100 to 150 houses vacated. Stores that brought $50 a month rent are empty. The state of affairs is such that even our prohibition people are getting scared and regret what they have done. If you should find anything for me there, please let me know. FRANK MANNY.”

To fight this attack D. A. Millington, editor of the Winfield Courier, printed statements of local citizens and businessmen on May 5, 1881. Harter & Horning, of Tunnel Water Mills, responded: “We are making 20,000 pounds of flour per day, which is about the same amount we were making a year ago. There are six flouring mills running in the county while only five were running a year ago. There is plenty of wheat in the county to keep the mills running until the next crop. There is much less wheat being shipped from this county than a year ago. I suppose about 1,200 bushels has been shipped within the last thirty days. I don’t think prohibition effects this business in any way as yet. I do not think the wheat crop of this county the past year was over 300,000 bushels. An average crop would have been over 1,000,000 bushels. The present promise is a very good crop for this year. The acreage is greater than last year and we may reasonably expect a crop of 1,200,000 bushels. Prices are about the same as a year ago and have been very steady for a year. We have formerly shipped much of our flour to Colorado and New Mexico.”

J. L. Horning Involved with Riverside Park. In the first part of 1881 Horning joined with Captains John Lowry and S. C. Smith and Messrs. M. L. Robinson, A. T. Spotswood, and M. L. Read in purchasing forty acres, situated a quarter of a mile from the Winfield depot of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, and gave this land, known as Riverside Park, to the city of Winfield free for the purpose of holding public gatherings of all kinds, Sunday and public school picnics, camp-meetings, etc. A flagstaff was planted in the middle of the park and plans were made to erect a fountain and to provide a steam pleasure boat on the Walnut in addition to several small boats. In June 1881 J. L. Horning was appointed as one of the members of a committee to obtain funds to defray the expenses of the upcoming July 4^th celebration and have control of the fire works. Harter & Horning gave $10 and Horning, Robinson & Co. $5 the day after a devastating cyclone hit nearby citizens at Floral, Kansas, on Sunday, June 12, 1881.

Change at Tunnel Mills. Arbitrators in the Harter and Harris mill case put in two months reaching a decision in March 1882 concerning Louis Harter and C. C. Harris of the Tunnel Mills. They found that Louis C. Harter was indebted to C. C. Harris in the sum of $1,835.62, due for rent of mill property. The arbitration passed off smoothly, and the decision was satisfactory. The costs amounted to $176. The editor of the Cowley County Courant commented: “This is a good deal cheaper, more expeditious, and leaves a better feeling than a case in the courts. Arbitration is the best thing in the world for those persons who desire only exact justice.”

Ira N. Holmes and Elam Harter: Tunnel Mills. In August 1884 Mr. Ira N. Holmes, who ran a packing house in Winfield with his son, Charles F. Holmes, purchased the interest that C. C. Harris had in the Tunnel Mills and Elam Harter, father of the Harter brothers, purchased L. C. Harter’s interest in the mill. Tunnel Mills was run by “Holmes & Harter,” who re-fitted machinery and fixed up the mill to do first-class work. In October 1885 Lou Harter shot a beaver in the Tunnel Mills that weighed over fifty pounds.

E. Horning. Hardware Co. Partners. Individual Projects.

In March 1876, Mr. Herman Jochems, a citizen of Atchison, Kansas, purchased the hardware stock of M. Miller, who was forced to sell his personal property in front of his store on Main Street, Winfield, in April 1874 after judgment was rendered against him in favor of John B. Fairbank, Elisha S. Torrance, and Adolphus H. Green by the Cowley County District Court in a civil suit in March 1874, consisting of four Parlor heating stoves; three No. 8 cooking stoves; two No. 7 cooking stoves; sixty kegs of nails; two cross-cut saws; three kegs horse shoes; two No. 7 cooking stoves; one No. 8 cooking stove; one box heating stove No. 88; one No. 25 parlor heating stove; and one No. 22 parlor heating stove.

Miller was able to continue in business. In September 1874 he was paid $14.62 for material he provided to repair the Cowley County Courthouse. In December 1874 the Winfield Courier noted that Miller, a Winfield hardware merchant, was involved with a grind-stone manufactory in Howard County, which delivered half a ton of grindstones to Miller of different sizes equal in quality to imported stones. Miller was selling them for $30 per ton in Winfield. In 1875 M. Miller took on Mr. N. M. Powers as a partner in his hardware store, located on the east side of Main Street, Winfield, one door north of the store of John Easton & Co., Gunsmiths and General Mechanics. It appears that Powers dissolved his partnership with Miller inasmuch as Miller was named as sole owner of the hardware store when he sold it to Herman Jochems from Atchison, Kansas, in March 1876. Mr. Jochems advertised his new hardware establishment in the Winfield Courier on March 23, 1876. “The undersigned, having purchased the hardware stock of M. Miller, Winfield, will continue the business at the same stand and will replenish the stock to supply the wants of the county. I shall endeavor to keep the largest and best selected stock ever brought to southwestern Kansas, embracing Shelf Hardware, Hoes, Rakes, Spades, Shovels, and all kinds of Steel Goods, Pocket and Table cutlery, Tin Ware, Wagon Wood Work, Wood and Iron pumps, Iron and Steel; also the celebrated Charter Oak cooking stoves and other varieties of stoves which will be sold as cheap as the cheapest. HERMAN JOCHEMS.” In June 1876 the Democrat newspaper office moved to the room over Jochems’s hardware store inasmuch as the health of its employees demanded a removal to a better ventilated room. Herman Jochems was well liked and was successful as a hardware dealer. In April 1877 he was elected as a councilman by the City of Winfield.

F. M. Friend, a jeweler from Carthage, Missouri, opened a store in Winfield in January 1876. He became ill in December and lost business until he was fully recovered in February 1877. He sold an extensive amount of his jewelry stock at auction in March 1877 and moved into a building one door north of J. W. Johnston’s Furniture Store where the rent was cheaper in May 1877. By January 1879 Friend had one of the neatest stocks of silverware and cutlery in Winfield as well as a fine stock of sewing machines. Mr. and Mrs. Friend moved many times as their business increased. They handled organs, pianos, and millinery items.

Herman Jochems moved into the store vacated by Friend in May 1877. A larger building, it afforded him a place to display his immense stock of hardware on the new shelving and counters that he placed therein. His ad in the May 17, 1877, Winfield Courier, outlined his stock. “H. JOCHEMS, Dealer in hardware, stoves, and tinware, pumps, road scrapers, iron, steel, pocket and table cutlery, and lightning rods.” Jochems’ store was located on the east side of Main Street opposite Read’s Bank. Jochems’ business grew. In September 1877 he advertised that he had just received a carload of cooking and heating stoves; later he played up the parlor heaters he had for sale. Herman Jochems was active in supporting Catholic Church activities in Winfield and acted as treasurer and collector of the building committee when the erection of a local church started on October 29, 1877. By March 1878 Mr. Jochems was busy putting on tin roofing and guttering in a number of Winfield residences and making available Charter Oak stoves to his customers.

In April 1878 Jochems ran in the city election on the “Workingmen’s Ticket,” for the office of city councilman against opponents on the “City Ticket.” Jochems received more votes than anyone else on the two tickets for the position. Jochems was soon bragging about his “Paragon Stove,” convinced it was superior to most stoves being produced.

Mr. Jochems was a member of the “Committee on Saloon License,” appointed by the City Council. On June 17, 1878, the committee wrote to the editor of the Courier: “Allow us the use of your columns to answer the libelous charge made by the Rev. Rushbridge in his pulpit last Sunday evening. He said: ‘that the committee appointed to examine petitions for saloon license were only twenty minutes examining 1,000 names,’ when this little man was well aware that we spent one whole afternoon in Colonel Alexander’s office examining these petitions. He also knew that Henry E. Asp, one of their chosen number, was with us, and that he expressed himself entirely satisfied with the manner in which the examination was made. The committee not being entirely satisfied referred the petitions back for additional names. The twenty minutes spoken of was the time spent in examining the additional names to the petition. And this is his basis for false and malicious representation. Respectfully, “C. M. Wood, H. Jochems, G. W. Gully, Committee on Saloon License.”

In August 1878 Herman Jochems hired John Hoenscheidt, architect, to build a $3,000 brick residence for him in the east part of Winfield. It was completed in January 1879.

In May 1879 Mr. Jochems, who had become acquainted with a new plumber in Winfield, Mr. Frank Barclay, installed a fine street lamp in front of his business house. He also received a large lot of ice cream freezer and water coolers of the latest patterns. In June 1879 Jochems began the process of moving his present building to a vacant lot owned by Mr. James Kirk on the corner of Main Street and 8^th Avenue in order to build a new brick building at his current location. The process began when Jochems gave F. M. Freeland the contract for the excavation of the new building and hired Robert Hudson to move his present building together with its contents to Kirk’s lot. Mr. Hudson took Jochems’ building with all the shelf hardware intact and never disturbed a thing. Jochems hired John Hoenscheidt to erect the new brick business house on the site of his present building, fully expecting that the work would be completed sixty days after commencement.

Remarks made by councilman Jochems were printed in the Winfield Courier on June 19, 1879. “Mr. Jochems, at the council meeting Monday evening, made a very good suggestion, that of reducing the fare of prisoners and of providing a rock pile for them to exercise on between meals. The city has been entirely too easy on her prisoners heretofore, and the ‘Hotel de Finch’ is so excellently managed that most of the professional bummers don’t care to stop anywhere else. The mortal terror of the above named gentlemen to anything like work, especially on a bread and water stomach, will have a wholesome effect, and the city will not be called upon to foot so many bills of ‘board for prisoners’ at 75 cents a day.”

Rain delayed completion of the new Jochems building while Mr. Jochems maintained the old business house on the Kirk lot in order to satisfy his many customers. Mr. Jochems was confined to his house in July by illness. The paper stated that he was suffering from an attack of “bilious fever.” Mr. Ivan Robinson began to clerk in the Jochems’ store during the absence of its owner. Special inducements were offered in the latter part of July 1879 as Mr. Jochems tried to close out his old stock before going into his new building. In July 1879 the excavation work on the new building was completed and the stonework had commenced. Stewart & Simpson were contractors on the new business house.

An item appeared in the Winfield Courier on September 4, 1879. “Mr. Jochems’ building on Main Street is a brick 25 x 100, with a basement, and is built from the ground in the most substantial manner. The front of the building is all door, having three entrances, one at the end of each counter, and one in the center. Half of each wall is owned by the parties holding the lots on either side, which insures the erection of two more substantial buildings in the near future. Mr. Jochems will occupy this building, with his hardware stock, next week.” There were more delays before “moving day” came in late September to the new store building, which was fitted throughout with gas fixtures, and heated by hot-air furnaces.

Ivan Robinson relinquished his position in a hardware store at Trinidad, Colorado, in September 1879, and became a permanent clerk in the Jochems’ hardware store. Herman Jochems’ health did not improve. He decided as a last resort to retire from active business life and test the curative powers of rest and travel.

(Four years later Mr. Herman Jochems, a leading merchant in Atchison, Kansas, paid a visit to old Winfield friends. His friend, John Hoenscheidt, also resided in Atchison.)

Messrs. J. L. Horning and Ivan A. Robinson purchased the hardware stock of H. Jochems and rented the building for a term of years in November 1879. Ivan Robinson, a brother of Mart L., Will, and George Robinson, of Winfield, began working fourteen-hour days while his partner, Horning, was largely engaged in other activities. It was soon apparent that more help was needed and Will Whitney, 20, was hired to work behind the counter. In early May 1880 Horning & Robinson, wholesale and retail dealers in shelf and heavy hardware, featured mocking bird cages and revolvers for sale; later that month they presented their specialty, “Monitor,” a new coal oil stove, requiring only 5 cents per day for cooking.

J. L. Horning, like other wealthy individuals in Winfield, made the acquaintance of Frank Barclay, the plumber who assisted Mr. Jochems in different projects. Horning decided to heat his house by steam and by December 1880 at a very trifling expense compared to the amount of heat received and the fuel expense attached was heating his house and his private Turkish bath room. He accomplished this with a low pressure engine at the expense of half a gallon of water and three hods full of coal per day.

At about three o’clock on Wednesday morning, January 25, 1881, the night watchman discovered the building owned by G. A. Rhodes on Main street was on fire. The alarm was quickly given, but owing to the cracking of the fire bell, it was of short duration, and only a small crowd came to fight the fire. Three frame buildings on the west side of Main Street between 10^th and 11^th Avenues in Winfield were destroyed. George A. Rhodes, son-in-law of J. M. Alexander, had gone through two partners in handling wood, coal, lime, cement, hair, etc., in Winfield: J. A. Cooper and A. Hughes. He was sole owner at the time of the fire. He lost his building, office furniture, and fixtures. A valuation of $2,000 was put on his loss. He had no insurance. Rhodes secured office room from Quincy A. Glass, druggist, and filled orders for coal. By July 18, 1881, a $2,000 brick building with a stone front was being built by Rhodes to replace the one that had burned down.

Daniel Sheel, local undertaker, had a furniture store next to A. T. Spotswood at 923 Main, on the northwest corner of 10^th Avenue. Sheel lost his building and stock, estimated at $3,000. In January he took out $1,000 insurance on his stock with the Home insurance company, Gilbert, Jarvis & Co. of Winfield, agents, which paid him $1,000 on February 1, 1881. The brick houses on either side of those burned were hardly scorched. Mr. Sheel made arrangements to open a new store and cabinet shop. In July 1881 he fell or was pushed from an omnibus in motion near Hutchinson, Kansas, fracturing his leg in two places, and was cared for by Hutchinson Odd Fellows, who brought him to Winfield. His leg was amputated twice by Dr. Mendenhall. Sheel took out a $1,500 life insurance policy with the Odd Fellows. His widow received this benefit. Daniel Sheel left five children, the oldest being thirteen, when he died. Dr. Mendenhall sued Sheel’s widow for $344 for medical services while attending Mr. Sheel and was awarded a judgment of $344 in November 1881.

The other frame buildings that were destroyed by the January 25, 1881, fire were not replaced. Some inept people appeared to assist at this fire. The February 2, 1881, issue of the Winfield Courier made the following comments. “Lou Zenor and Lawyer Knight were early on hand at the fire. Lou succeeded in saving a coon-skin and carrying it across the street, while Knight struggled with a baby’s rocking chair. Ivan Robinson is just boss when it comes to working at a fire. He saw the danger to Glass’ awning and he grabbed a small club and went to work trying to beat it down. There were three fellows on top if it at the same time, and fortunately for their necks, Ivan failed in his desperate effort. Scene of the fire Wednesday morning: Two emotional young ladies standing near the burning buildings as the Winfield fire department came clattering up with the chemical engine. ‘Oh!’ says one, ‘they’ve saved the sausage stuffer!’ ‘Why, no, my dear:’ said the other, ‘that is Quincy Glass’ soda-water machine.’” It was later reported that the “engine” was not in working order, and did nothing.

D. S. Rose, who had a wholesale and retail hardware at Douglass, Kansas, rented E. C. Seward’s building, second door north of Lynn & Loose, on the west side of Main Street between 7^th and 8^th Avenues, Winfield, Kansas, in April 1880. On February 17, 1881, the Winfield Courier announced that D. S. Rose was offering for sale his entire stock of hardware, stoves, tinware, and agricultural implements at cost prior to moving back to Douglass. His hardware stock was sold to Horning, Robinson & Co. soon after for $2,350.

One of the first jewelry stores in Winfield was established by the ex-Mayor of Wichita, James G. Hope, who purchased 450 head of cattle in the Winfield vicinity and at the same time leased a lot on Main Street between A. A. Jackson’s and Jim Hill’s buildings. A jewelry store was built for Hope’s two sons at this location: Main Street, east side, between 8^th and 9^th Avenues. L. H. Hope, the oldest son, took charge of the store in December 1877 after it was built and put in the largest stock of jewelry, watches, clock, and silverware this side of Kansas City or Leavenworth. L. H. Hope closed the business in January 1880 and James G. Hope, his father, took charge of the balance of the stock.

In May 1880 a new jewelry firm was located in the former Hope building: J. P. M. Butler & Co., with George Schroeter acting as manager. In April 1881 the “Winfield Jewelry House” of J. P. M. Butler & Co. moved to a new building next to Horning, Robinson & Co.’s store on the east side of Main Street, between 9^th and 10^th Avenues. George Schroeter, manager, erected a stone column and pedestal on the sidewalk in front of the jewelry store on which he set two clocks: one registering Santa Fe time; the other K. C. L. & S. time.

Both Schroeter and Horning, Robinson & Co. became involved with the “McDougall” building erected in 1881. Curns & Manser, local real estate men, handled the sale in May 1880 for $3,000 cash of two lots on the corner of 10^th Avenue and Main Streets between an attorney from Cincinnati, Ohio, Mr. Thomas McDougall, and an old time former Winfield citizen, O. F. (“Tony”) Boyle, who struck it rich in the Leadville, Colorado, mines. By September 22, 1881, a clock tower was built to set off the two-story McDougall brick building. A galvanized iron cornice was put on the tower by Messrs. Horning, Robinson & Co. J. P. Baden rented the McDougall building in March 1882 and made the McDougall building his “headquarters” and jobbing house. He sold goods in job lots at St. Louis prices, thus giving smaller merchants the advantage of goods at wholesale prices, without freight.

George Schroeter took charge of putting in a town clock. Work started in April 1882 and was completed by June 1882 after the architect, Mr. Cook, put the dials in place.

In April 1883 J. P. Baden and Thomas McDougall began the planning work involved in erecting two two-story brick buildings next to the one Mr. Baden occupied on Main and 10^th Avenue: the first “McDougall building.” Baden’s fame as a produce dealer had reached New York City and other localities. Baden had rented other buildings in Winfield, including the old foundry on North Main Street. He wanted to put his immense building under one roof as soon as the additions to the McDougall Building were finished. In March 1884 Curns and Manser received final instructions from Mr. Thomas McDougall to begin at once the erection of two two-story brick buildings for him: one to be a storeroom adjoining his present building, and the other fronting on Tenth Avenue. He wanted a hall 40 by 50 ft. with stage and dressing rooms to be situated on the second floor that could be used for small entertainments, balls, etc. It was estimated that the buildings would cost upwards of $12,000. In April 1884 the oldest landmark in Winfield, the old “Tony Boyle” building, was moved off Main Street to make room for the new McDougall brick buildings. Boyle’s building was the second or third building that went up in Winfield, and was considered a very fine structure when it was built.

Ivan A. Robinson. Robinson was busy almost eighteen hours a day at Horning, Robinson & Co.’s hardware store. In November 1881 two or three drays unloaded barbed wire at their store. They had jugs full of pocket knives and as much as twelve bushels of table knives, forks, butcher knives, and spoons of the most approved pattern. In April 1882 they got the contract to roof the Conklin building on the east side of Main Street between 10^th and 11^th Avenues, known later as 919 Main Street. This building was occupied by Messrs. Hendricks & Wilson as a retail hardware store. Ivan Robinson began to break away from the long hours involved in running the store and took time off to hunt and attend social events. In October 1882 the firm of Horning, Robinson & Co. was dissolved.

For some time Ivan Robinson traveled and socialized. In November 1884 he and Charles Holmes of Winfield bought out Pitts Ellis’ scales and office with fixtures and bins and leased two lots from Newman & McLaughlin on Central Avenue in Arkansas City, opposite Fairclo Brothers’ livery stable. They erected sheds and started a coal yard, handling soft and hard coal. Their office was on the corner of Summit Street and Central Avenue.

About 11:00 p.m., Monday, July 20, 1885, fire broke out in the kitchen of the St. Louis Restaurant, the first business block on the right going into Arkansas City from the north. The nine frame buildings joining the restaurant burned like tinder. All were consumed in a short space of time. The predominating idea by those who arrived first was to save Mowry & Sollitt’s brick drug store, and leave the old frame buildings go. The hose was turned on the Pickle building while the excited populace attempted to tear down the building occupied by A. G. Heitkam with his tailoring establishment, but the heat from the burning buildings was so excessive that the crowd turned its efforts to tearing out the Diamond Front building. By the time the fire had got a good hold on Heitkam’s Tailor Shop, the Diamond Front building of Kroenert & Austin had been torn out and Mowry & Sollitt’s brick drug store was saved.

The nine buildings were burned in about one hour and a quarter. After once getting a start, they went as if they had been saturated with coal oil. They were so dry and old that it is a wonder that the fire was not conveyed across the street by the great heat. The wind hardly stirred and by persistent efforts of everyone, the fire did not get into the brick buildings.

D. L. Means occupied the corner room with an implement stock. He carried a $3,000 stock and had only $1,000 of insurance. James Benedict owned the building and was carrying $500 insurance. His loss is probably in the neighborhood of $500. The two next buildings were owned by Dr. J. T. Shepard and were occupied by Chas. Bundrem with his meat market and Grimes & Son with their drug stock. The doctor had $800 insurance on his buildings. Chas. Bundrem had $600 on his shop fixtures and Grimes & Son $1,500 on their drug stock. Dr. Shepard’s loss above insurance was about $600, Mr. Bundrem about $300, and Grimes & Son about $1,300. The building owned by Mrs. Wm. Benedict was insured for $300. Her loss was about $500 above insurance. C. A. Burnett occupied the building with his restaurant stock valued by him at $2,500. His insurance was $1,500. John Gibson occupied the next room with his barber shop; he was insured for $350. He saved about half of his fixtures. The next building was owned by S. B. Pickle and was not insured. O. P. Lang occupied it with his New York Restaurant stock. Mr. Lang carried $500 insurance and his loss was $500 above that amount. The next was the barber shop of Frank Perryman. He saved all of his goods. The building occupied by A. G. Heitkam was owned by J. H. Sherburne and was not insured. Mr. Heitkam carried $800 insurance on his own stock. His loss was about $400. Next and last was the Diamond Front, owned by Kroenert & Austin. They carried insurance to the sum of $1,000 on the building and grocery stock. Their loss above insurance was $2,000. Ivan Robinson’s coal scales burned. Loss $200; no insurance.

Ivan Robinson of the Arkansas City Coal Company commenced business again right after the fire at the company office, located one block west of the burned out district. A week later he sold his business to Frick Bros., who handled coal and wood and purchased grain.

In August 1885 Ivan Robinson joined with other Winfield citizens in organizing a town company that owned eleven hundred acres of land in Stanton County, one section of which was laid off as the town of “Veteran.”

Sid Majors and Ivan Robinson bought out Frank L. Crampton in early September 1885 and Sid Majors once more began to run the Central Hotel with Ivan Robinson. One month later the Winfield Central Hotel again changed hands when J. A. McKibben, of Arkansas City, bought out Majors and Robinson.

Within weeks Ivan Robinson went to work as a salesman in Prather’s shoe store, Winfield, while he continued to search for other business opportunities. In January 1886 he got back into the coal business when A. H. Doane sold his coal and wood yard to Ivan A. Robinson. Ivan A. Robinson, Winfield Transfer & Coal Co., west 9^th Avenue, was still in business in 1891. He sold coal and wood during the cold weather and started his ice wagon in April when warm weather set in.

J. L. Horning and William R. Whitney. After the partnership of Horning and Robinson dissolved in October 1882, Will Whitney, who had started at the age of twenty in November 1879 working behind the counter of Horning & Robinson’s hardware store, 906 Main, became Horning’s new partner. Like Robinson before him, Whitney worked long and hard hours in maintaining the hardware store and handling customers and community members in a genial manner. He eventually did most of the advertising, featuring at first cutlery. In time he advertised the famous “New Jewel” gasoline stove; twine, sacks, and shears as the season approached for sheep shearing; guns and ammunition for sportsmen when hunting season arrived; and reminding customers that they had the largest and best stock of shelf and heavy hardware in Winfield. In 1882 Mr. Whitney built a house in Winfield for his mother, sister, and himself. His mother soon became involved with Winfield society. In October 1883 he spent a week in the East buying goods.

In February 1884 Messrs. J. S. Lyon & Co. opened out a complete stock of plumbing, steam, and gas-fitting goods at the store of Horning & Whitney. In March 1884 Horning & Whitney featured the finest assortment of bird cages ever brought to Winfield. In May 1884 J. S. Lyon & Co. announced they were ready to fit up stores and dwelling houses with gas pipes at reasonable rates. They also stated that they had a complete stock of gas chandeliers, burners, and globes as well as garden hose, lawn sprinklers, hose carts, etc. In June 1884 Horning & Whitney played up refrigerators in all sizes as well as ice cream freezers. They also featured an unusual stove that was run by air in the June 19, 1884, issue of the Winfield Courier. “For years people have been complaining of the hilarious air of Kansas, but some inventive genius, recognizing the great want of this country, has made something by which this surplus wind can be made a comfort and joy forever. It is a stove that burns air; no other fuel whatever needed. This seems incredible, but by calling on Horning & Whitney, you can see the wonder. And it is an immense success. It is made like a gasoline stove, only the tank holds air instead of gasoline. A rubber tube is attached to the tank; you put it in your mouth, blow the tank full of air, light the burner, and your stove is in running order for the day. It is a curiosity and should be seen by everyone. Horning & Whitney have its exclusive sale.”

In July 1884 Will Whitney was absent one day; consequently the usual bank deposit was not made and the store safe contained about $500. Burglars obtained entrance to Horning & Whitney’s hardware establishment by prying open a back window. They then obtained tools from the tin shop and made an effort to break open the safe, drilling almost through the door to the lock-bar when something happened which made them drop their tools and leave.

The firm of J. S. Lyon & Co., plumbers and gas fitters, dissolved on Mary 28, 1885. The business was continued by Horning & Whitney.

On March 1, 1886, Will R. Whitney married Mary E. Hamill at the home of his mother. Only immediate friends and relatives were present. Among the remembrances were a beautifully framed portrait of the bride’s deceased uncle, Rev. J. E. Platter, by Mrs. Platter. At first the young couple resided in furnished rooms in the Holmes block on South Main, intending to build a home in the near future.

J. L. Horning. While Whitney tended to the hardware store, Horning was free to pursue other interests. The Mayor and Councilmen of Winfield passed Ordinance No. 167 on December 17, 1883, granting to Frank Barclay, J. L. Horning, J. Wade McDonald, W. C. Robinson, J. B. Lynn, W. P. Hackney, and M. L. Robinson, and their assigns, the privilege of constructing, operating, and maintaining, for the period of ninety-nine years, a system of water works within the corporate limits of said city, for the purpose of supplying its inhabitants with water, and for the better protection of said city against disaster from fires. This ordinance invested the grantees named therein with full power, for the period of ninety-nine years, to lay pipes in the streets, alleys, and other public places within said city, and to extend such pipes, and to erect hydrants, fountains, conduits, or such other useful and ornamental structures as may be necessary for the successful operation of such works. The ordinance further provided that at the expiration of certain specified periods, after the completion of the works, the city shall have the right to purchase the works from the grantees named in the ordinance, or their assigns, upon terms and conditions expressed in the ordinance.

In January 1884 the Winfield City Council passed another resolution stating that the system of water-works constructed in and adjacent to the city by the Winfield Water Company, in pursuance with provisions of Ordinance No. 167 were ratified and confirmed unto the Winfield Water Company as the successor in interest and assignee of the rights of Frank Barclay, J. L. Horning, W. P. Hackney, J. B. Lynn, W. C. Robinson, J. Wade McDonald, and M. L. Robinson, the grantees named in and by said Ordinance No. 167.

In March 1885 J. L. Horning was elected as a director of the “Winfield Enterprise Association,” a group formed to look after the interests of Winfield and Cowley County.

E. Charles L. Harter—Involvement with Winfield Livery Stable.

Charles L. Harter became a partner of A. G. Wilson in the Winfield Livery, Feed, and Sale Stable, in March 1877. The stable was located south of the Lagonda House.

By September 1877 Wilson & Harter purchased new buggies at $300 each. In early October they reported that their livery stock earned them $375 in thirty days. They had 18 horses and 12 vehicles. About one week after this report, J. L. M. Hill purchased Wilson’s interest. “Harter and Hill Livery Stable” added a new addition to their livery barn of 42 feet in November 1877 and purchased a new $250 phaeton with spring back and seat in December 1877. In April 1878 A. D. Speed bought Hill’s interest. Harter & Speed continued to improve their livery stock and added more outfits. In August 1879 John Moffitt, a lumber man in Winfield, purchased C. L. Harter’s interest in the livery stable of Harter & Speed. In 1880 the address of Speed & Moffitt was Main Street, east side, between 8^th and 9^th Avenues.

F. Charles L. Harter—Sheriff of Cowley County.

In early August 1877 Leon Lippman announced in the county newspapers that he was declaring himself as a candidate for Sheriff of Cowley County, subject to the decision of the Republican County Nominating Convention. The Arkansas City Traveler commented that Mr. Lippman was an old resident of Cowley County and had many friends who would be glad of an opportunity to vote for him. Mr. Lippman came within three votes of receiving the nomination a few years prior to this announcement.

The August 30, 1877, issue of the Winfield Courier stated that Charles C. Black, Esq., had been admitted to the bar after passing a most rigid and exhaustive examination in open court, stating that “Charley may be said to be one of the pioneers of Cowley County, coming here when a mere boy, and by his upright, manly conduct, readily won his way to the hearts of our entire community. The newspaper predicted that Mr. Black would have a brilliant and honorable career in the line of his chosen profession. On September 5, 1877, the Arkansas City Traveler printed a communication from their correspondent in Winfield, “Little Dutch,” in which a reference was made to Chas. C. Black. “Court is now in fair running order. Judge, lawyers, clerks, sheriff, and reporters all had a good time on Monday night, drinking the health of C. C. Black, who was admitted to the bar that day, and at night invited others to a much more acceptable bar.

On September 6, 1877, the Winfield Courier had the following to say about candidates who had filed thus far for sheriff in the upcoming election. “George Walker (brother of the current sheriff) is announced as a candidate for Sheriff. George is a gentleman and a whole souled good fellow, well qualified by education, energy, and experience for the position he seeks. A. T. Shenneman is announced as a candidate for Sheriff. He is in every way well qualified for the position. In his long career in this county in business of the same nature as are the duties of sheriff, he has proved himself to be honorably and eminently efficient. He has hosts of friends. Leon Lippman comes forward as a candidate for sheriff with a host of friends to support him who insist that he is thoroughly well qualified for, and eminently worthy of the position in every respect. We heartily agree with them.”

In late September 1877 township delegates assembled at Winfield to nominate officers for the Republican ticket, meeting earlier than usual due to the interest and strife that had been manifested among several of the candidates. The Arkansas City Traveler commented on September 26, 1877: “Nominations being in order, Geo. Walker, Leon Lippman, A. T. Shenneman, and S. W. Chase were nominated for the office of Sheriff, and an informal ballot taken resulting in 21 for Lippman, 16 for Shenneman, 15 for Walker, and 4 for Chase. Fifty-two ballots were then taken in succession, with nearly the same result and without any delay further than remarks now and then by the friends of the several candidates and one hour for supper, lasting from one o’clock p.m. until eleven o’clock at night. By this time everyone was tired, weary, and disgusted, and expressed themselves bitterly against the men who seemed to endeavor to prevent a nomination by shunning a compromise, or listening to the advice of friends. Finally, one of the leaders of Mr. Walker’s party was overheard to say he was going to throw his votes for Lippman. Mr. Shenneman was made aware of the fact and ran in ahead and withdrew his name from the convention in favor of Mr. Lippman, who was unanimously declared the nominee. Mr. Leon Lippman is a hard working, industrious mill man, and one of the best posted countrymen that can be found in the county. He is perfectly competent to fulfill the office of Sheriff and will pride himself in doing it well. He is well known throughout the county, has been here several years, and has the confidence of the different communities he comes from.”

L. J. Webb, a prominent Winfield attorney, wrote a letter to the Winfield Courier that was printed on October 4, 1877: “I observe in the Telegram a call for an independent county convention, signed ‘C. C. Black, Secretary,’ and purporting to be by order of some committee. It is a well-known fact that Mr. Black is secretary of the Democratic committee, but this call does not come from that source, else it would be signed by the chairman of that committee, J. Wade McDonald. Mr. Black has been absent for more than two weeks, and never saw or even heard of this call to which his name appeared. I am informed by Mr. McDonald, the chairman of the Democratic central committee, that there is nothing Democratic about this independent call, but that it was gotten up in the interest of a few sore-head Republicans. The last clause of the call shows the source from which it emanates. Here it is: ‘Come Democrats; come Republicans; come all who are dissatisfied with the Republican nominees and want to see a square fight.’

“Republicans read this, look at the Republican ticket. It is worthy of your hearty support. Let us not be misled by those who are ‘dissatisfied’ with the nominees. If such men are to rule, we had better turn over the party to them and let them run it. L. J. WEBB.”

It became apparent that the Telegram was attacking Lippman, the Republican nominee for sheriff. Chas. C. Black was a brother-in-law of Wm. Allison, editor of the Telegram, and a cousin of Brettun Crapster, local editor of the Telegram. Black, Democratic committee secretary, manipulated activities of the Telegram in questioning Lippman’s citizenship.

On September 20, 1877, D. A. Millington and A. B. Lemmon, both novices relative to political campaigns, became the editors of the Winfield Courier. They were not familiar with Lippman, who operated a saw and grist mill on Grouse Creek near Dexter in 1873 and then moved to a large body of timber near Silverdale. Later, it was learned that they considered Lippman somewhat of a deadbeat, as he did not always pay for his advertisements. They were quiet about the upcoming election until October 11, 1877, when they wrote the following editorial. “On Saturday, September 22nd, the Republicans of Cowley County in a regularly called and organized convention, selected from the many good men in the party, the following gentlemen as candidates for county officers at the ensuing election. After an unusually warm contest Leon Lippman was nominated for Sheriff. Mr. Lippman is a native of France, of French parentage, and is 33 years old. He came to the United States when but eleven years of age; joined the Union army in 1862 and was honorably discharged from the same at its close in 1865, with all the rights of citizenship of the government. However, to avoid all imaginary objections, he presented his proofs at the last term of our district court, and was ‘naturalized’ under the laws of the U. S., a proceeding entirely unnecessary. He has been a resident of Cowley since 1870, and a more temperate, honorable, and upright citizen does not live within this county, all the flings and covert insinuations of his enemies to the contrary notwithstanding. Mr. Lippman is a Republican, has always supported the nominees of the party by his voice and vote, and is now deserving of the straightforward and honest support of the entire party.”

Charles L. Harter, a good friend of Charles C. Black, was nominated at the Democratic Convention in mid-October 1877 for the position of sheriff and easily won over his Democratic opponents: W. A. Freeman and John R. Smith.

The editors of the Winfield Courier printed the following editorial on October 25, 1877.

“SHERIFF. Charley Harter, the Democratic nominee, is a good fellow, has no faults except such as are common to Democrats, and would possibly make a good sheriff, therefore it is to be expected that most of the straight unterrified Democrats will support him, but there is no good reason that any Republican or any Democrat who wants the best man elected should vote for him. The Republican nominee for Sheriff, Leon Lippman, was a candidate in the contest against two other Republicans, of acknowledged ability and fitness for the office, men that would have honored the party and the county had they or either of them been nominated and elected, yet the convention, composed of men of judgment and sagacity second to none in the county, selected Lippman against the others, thus giving him such an endorsement as few candidates ever get. Mr. Lippman is not a stranger in this county. He is one of the early settlers, an honest, thoroughly educated, energetic, courageous, hard-working man. He has demonstrated his fitness for the office in his whole course of life and business in our midst, has earned his popularity by earnest hard work, fair, honest dealing, and pleasant, affable intercourse with all his acquaintances, and if any man deserves the office, that man is Leon Lippman. The only fault we have ever heard mentioned against him are the facts that he was not born in this country, and that he took out naturalization papers at the term of court last spring. He was born in France because he could not help it, and the evidence we have that he would have helped it if he could, is that he migrated to this country at the age of eleven years, entered the Union army at the age of 18, and fought for our country during the war, receiving his honorable discharge three years later at the close of the war. Under the laws of the United States such service invests a foreign born man with all the rights and privileges of citizenship, hence in 1865, at the age of 21, Mr. Lippman was as fully and legally a citizen of the United States as any other person, and had no need to take out naturalization papers, but to avoid all cavil he took the trouble to take out his papers last spring just as he would have done in 1865 when he had reached his majority, had he not been already invested with citizenship by his discharge papers. No Republican, who desires the integrity of his party, no elector who has the interests of the county at heart, can afford to neglect to vote for Leon Lippman on the 6th day of November.”

Also, on October 25, 1877, the Courier editors had another editorial about Harter.

“Charley Harter’s democratic friends have perpetrated rather a good joke on him. They intended it for a joke, but we understand he takes it in good earnest. They thought it would be a good thing to get Charley out of a store long enough to tan his face and soil his soft white hands. Had they intended to do him a favor they might have nominated him for county clerk, register of deeds, or some other office suited to his tastes. The idea of selecting a nice, ladies’ man like Charley for sheriff, is simply ludicrous. Would it not be fun to see him called out of bed at 12 o’clock of a cold winter night to chase a horse thief? How long would it take him to get up? On such occasions wouldn’t he give the boys who elected him blue blazes. Where would the horse thief be by the time Charley had put on two overcoats, drawn on his tight kid gloves, and over them a pair of buckskin gauntlets, warmed bricks, and put them in his stirrups to keep his feet from becoming cold, placed the sheepskin in his saddle to make his ride as easy as possible, tied a couple of handkerchiefs around his neck, and pulled a very broad-brimmed hat low down over his face to keep the moonshine from tanning him? Charley, take our advice and do not spend much money in this campaign. Quit rubbing your hands on the fork handle so much trying to harden them. You will only make blisters, not calloused spots. Stay in out of the sun and keep your hands and face smooth and white. The people may elect you to a nice indoor office, when they have one to spare. They would not think, for a moment, of subjecting you to the hardships incident to the sheriff’s office.

“Lippman was a poor orphan boy. He has always been exposed to hardship and toil. The hard work of the office will not hurt him. Let him have it and you take care of yourself.”

In the same issue they had an item about C. L. Harter and his partner, J. L. M. Hill. “Read Harter & Hill’s ad. They are reliable young men, wide awake and full of business. Their livery stable is in every respect first-class. Give the boys a share of your business.”

On the day before the election, when there was no time for a response by the Courier editors, the Telegram attacked both Leon Lippman and Capt. J. S. Hunt. They were successful in defeating both candidates, who were not well known to Winfield citizens. On November 8, 1877, the Winfield Courier editors made the following statement: “The result of the late election so far as the offices of sheriff and county clerk are concerned is a republican defeat. The causes of this are quite apparent. In the first place the successful candidates, M. G. Troup and Charley Harter, are well known all over the county and their well known affability and obliging dispositions have made them extremely popular everywhere. In the next place Capt. Hunt and Mr. Lippman were not so widely known, but that electioneering lies told against them had considerable effect. The result does not show that they were not the choice of a majority of the republicans in the county, but it does show that they were not the choice of a minority of about one-fourth of the Republican voters, and that this minority voted with the democrats for Troup and Harter. Now that the election is over and the smoke of the contest is clearing away, we can look back on our course and the words we have published and say truly that we have done what we could honorably for the success of the whole republican ticket and have said nothing that we need to take back or apologize for. We can stand by what we have said.”

Charles L. Harter assumed his duties as Cowley County Sheriff on January 1, 1878.

By April 1878, Charles C. Black had become a partner of Winfield attorney, L. J. Webb.

On June 1, 1878, Jay Page a saloon keeper in Winfield, was shot and killed by Black’s law partner, L. J. Webb, who was also a member of the House of Representatives in Kansas. A statement made by a Traveler reporter that Page had won from Webb $100, which Webb had collected for his clients, was in error according to C. C. Black, Webb’s law partner, who said that Webb could not possibly have had any money belonging to clients. Chas. C. Black dissolved his partnership with Leland J. Webb in September 1878, the time for which said partnership was formed, having expired.

In July 1879 A. T. Shenneman again ran for the office of Sheriff. At the Republican convention in September 1879 the nomination of Shenneman was unanimous.

The editors of the Winfield Courier had learned a lesson or two about politics by this time. They wrote a blistering editorial on October 23, 1879. “We are reliably informed that one of the boldest and most vicious schemes is organized for the purpose of electing C. L. Harter to the office of sheriff by fraud, bribery, slander, and rascality. The scheme embraces the buying up by whiskey and even money the hundreds of transients now in the county at work on the railroad or looking at the country, and voting them for Harter. It is thought that most of them have democratic proclivities, and would readily vote for a democrat, if well supplied with whiskey, even to swearing in their votes, if need be, and thus some three hundred illegal votes are expected in the townships, while in this city we are told that near two hundred persons have registered illegally with a registering officer who is a member of this Harter ring. We are told that a City Marshal and a U. S. Deputy Marshal are members of this ring; that a pretended republican, who never voted a republican ticket, named Ebert, a saloonist, brags that he has taken up and registered sixty-four of these frauds. The next thing in their program is to fabricate and circulate a large batch of lies against Shenneman. This was shadowed forth a week ago in the Telegram, which asked a dozen questions, like “Did not Shenneman steal a sheep?” etc., each question containing a mean insinuation against Shenneman. Now we have to answer each and every question in that list with a distinct and emphatic No, and we boldly assert that there is not a fact in existence which is the slightest reason why Shenneman should not be elected sheriff. But the plan of the ring is to make lies and tell them, and they will be told. We are informed that business has been so good the past year that Harter has a ‘bar!’ and is to use it in buying up votes and setting up the whiskey. The program includes every kind of a trade which will make a vote for Harter. His colleagues on the ticket are to be sold out. Stapleton, Benedict and Story are to be slaughtered to get votes for Harter. No stone is to be left unturned, no means however foul are to be neglected, all to make votes against a man eminently qualified and for a man totally unfitted for it in every particular. We have liked Harter and neglected to speak the truths which ought to be spoken of him when he is a candidate for the office of sheriff, but since we know, by his own statement, that he made a bargain and sale with Allison, two years ago, we doubt not that such a bargain exists now, and such an attack on Shenneman would not have been made without Harter’s approval. Neither can we think he is not in a ring which aims at illegal means to secure his election.

“So it becomes our duty to tell the following truths, which everyone who has noticed and examined the matter, knows to be true: that Harter is grossly inefficient as a sheriff, the most so of any we ever had, that he is deficient in moral and physical courage, and is by many called a coward, that he has never attacked and overcome resistance, but has backed down when resistance was threatened, that he has never run into danger, that he has been avaricious and made more money out of the office than any other sheriff ever made in the same time, that he has constantly charged and collected constructive mileage, that he charges full mileage from Winfield to the home of the taxpayer on each tax-warrant put into his hands, on one warrant for fourteen cents collecting six dollars, and sending down to Arkansas City, to another officer, a large batch of warrants, ordering that $2.80 be collected on each for his mileage though he did not travel a mile, and that a hundred other incidents illustrate the same fact. He is believed by the people here to be grossly immoral, among the other things that unfit him for the office of sheriff.”

The Courier editors then printed notarized affidavits by citizens pointing out actions taken by Sheriff Harter detrimental to the county.

In another article on October 23, 1879, the Winfield Courier again attacked Harter.

“A good joke is told on Charley Harter about the Arkansas City bank robbery. After the news had arrived, Charley met Burt Covert on the crossing of Main street and Ninth Avenue, his face pale and hair disheveled, and grabbing him by the arm, said: ‘B___; B __Burt; Read’s Bank has been robbed; five hun__hundred dollars reward, get Dick Walker and go after them quick.’ Burt and Dick went after them while Charley, after his ‘excitement’ had subsided, learned that it was Arkansas City, instead of Winfield, that had been raided, and immediately took steps to capture them if they came within two blocks of Main street.”

On November 6, 1879, the Winfield Courier printed an article about the defeat of Harter by Shenneman, who had a majority of about 300 notwithstanding that the most unscrupulous fight was made against him. The Courier editors stated: “The balance of the Republican ticket is elected by about 600 majority, notwithstanding the fact that a Democratic Mayor and the executive force of the city, backed by six whiskey saloons and two breweries, worked hard at the polls all day. They carried the city for Harter by only 16 majority.”

F. Charles L. Harter and Charles C. Black—Brettun Hotel.

Ex-Sheriff C. L. Harter wasted no time after losing the election. The Winfield Courier announced on November 27, 1879, that the Central Hotel in Winfield had changed hands and that C. L. Harter would take the place of James H. Vance. The new firm, “Majors & Harter,” outlined plans to enlarge and remodel the Central Hotel.

Charles C. Black went through a number of changes during the time he lived in Winfield. For years he enjoyed hunting and partying. He married Marian E. Braidwood from New York in Winfield on July 4, 1874. His wife’s sister, Annie Braidwood, married W. M. Allison, at Black’s residence on March 31, 1875. Allison at that time was editor of the Cowley County Telegram. Black began to change after his child died in August 1875. He became a member of the Winfield City Council in 1875 and 1879. During this time he became a “capitalist,” handling loans and real estate. In August 1877 C. C. Black became a member of the Winfield bar. A Traveler correspondent reported that the Judge, lawyers, clerks, sheriff, and reporters all had a good time later that night drinking the health of C. C. Black at a much more acceptable bar.

In 1878 Bret Crapster, Black’s cousin, became the Local Editor for the Telegram, whose editor was Black’s brother-in-law, W. M. Allison. At that time the Telegram was squeezed into unsatisfactory quarters in the basement of M. L. Read’s bank. In December 1879 W. M. Allison was able to move his office into rooms that had been occupied by attorneys Pryor & Pryor over Read’s Bank. By taking out the partitions and vault foundation in the basement, he was able to convert the whole room into a printing shop for the Telegram staff and started to print a Daily Telegram and a Weekly Telegram.

In January 1880 Chas. C. Black purchased from W. H. H. Maris the stone building that was occupied by J. B. Lynn’s store on the corner of 9^th Avenue and Main Street; the W. C. Root & Co.’s boot and shoe store on the west side of Main Street between 8^th and 9^th Avenues—two doors south of 8^th Avenue; and Maris’s residence on Elm Row for $12,000. Maris received in part payment a farm of 640 acres southeast of Winfield that had been owned by J. G. Titus and $5,000 in cash. In February 1880 C. C. Black moved his law office into the second story of the stone building formerly owned by W. H. H. Maris.

On Thursday, April 29, 1880, Winfield had a catastrophic fire, which destroyed a landmark, the “Old Log Store.” This structure had done service as store, church, political headquarters, law office, post office, schoolhouse, printing office, and almost everything else at the southwest corner of Main Street and Ninth Avenue in Winfield until Robert Hudson put his log wheels under it on Thursday, March 21, 1878, and moved it to a new location on 8^th Avenue between Main and Millington streets. At the time of the fire in April 1880 the old landmark had been converted into a furniture and undertaking store on the first floor by Fred Leuschen, and as the Leuschen family’s quarters upstairs. The cause of the fire was not known and Mr. Leuschen said there had been no fire in the lower portion of the store where the fire broke out. Some thought that spontaneous combustion of the material used in varnishes, stains, etc., was the cause of the fire. The flames spread rapidly, it being but a few minutes before the entire building was entirely enveloped. Mr. Leuschen’s family barely had time to escape with their lives and all their personal effects were entirely consumed. Immediately east of Leuschen’s furniture store stood two frame dwellings, which it was impossible to save, one belonging to C. L. Harter and occupied by the moulder at the foundry, and the other owned and occupied by Robert Hudson. The furniture being all carried out, these gentlemen sustained no great loss except that of the buildings. On the west side of the Leuschen building stood the livery stable of Hackney & McDonald. The contents of this place were removed, with the exception of a few bushels of grain and some hay. After this latter building took fire, it became evident that the Central Hotel must also yield a victim to the fell destroyer. The work of removing the contents began at once. Hurrying to and fro through the hallways of the building was a score or more of half dressed women, carrying in their arms bundles of clothing, and crazed with excitement and fear, presenting a spectacle that baffles description. Carpets were torn up, and with the beds and bedding, hastily carried into the street opposite the building. By the time this work was completed, the east wing towered up a waving mountain of flames. Harter & Majors had just completed the sale of this hotel to Mr. A. H. Doane, of Danville, Illinois; but as the transfer had not yet been made, the loss fell upon the old proprietors. The Lindell Hotel, adjoining the Central, soon gave way before the flames, though, as in the case of the Central, all the contents were carried out of reach of the fire. The value of the buildings destroyed was between $10,000 and $11,000, with an insurance of only about $4,400.

C. L. Harter had no insurance on his tenant dwelling. He lost $300.00 on this structure.

C. L. Harter and Sid S. Majors owned a portion of the Central Hotel, which experienced a loss of $2,500, covered by $2,100 in insurance on the building and furniture. Majors and Harter experienced a loss of about $3,000 in excess of their insurance.

The dire need for a hotel or hotels in Winfield was felt by everyone. In May 1880 Soranus L. Brettun, grandfather of Charles C. Black, arrived in Winfield to confer with Black. Ex-sheriff Charley Harter escorted Mr. Brettun on a tour of inspection through Cowley County to study hotels at Arkansas City and other cities.

In June 1880 Judge W. P. Campbell of the 13^th Judicial District directed bench warrants against the Winfield Courier and the Telegram editors for what Judge Campbell considered a contempt of court over articles written by the newspapers. He fined D. A. Millington of the Courier $200. Ed. P. Greer, Local Editor, had become a partner of Millington just weeks before. He was fined $1.00. W. M. Allison of the Telegram was also fined $200. The contempt cases were set for hearing in the Supreme Court of Kansas on July 6, 1880.

Allison announced soon after he was fined that the Daily Telegram could no longer afford to pay for associate press dispatches as this service brought in only $25 a week. The paper lost $600 with this experiment. He began running an evening daily, getting telegraph news from the Topeka Commonwealth. Bert Crapster, Local Editor of the Telegram, sold his interest in the Telegram to Chas. C. Black in June 1880. Attorneys C. C. Black, B. L. Brush, and L. J. Webb prepared to defend the newspaper editors against the Campbell contempt case. At the same time Black assisted Allison in strengthening the Telegram both editorially and financially. Weeks later Chas. C. Black became sole proprietor. Campbell dropped the contempt case against the Winfield editors when he realized public opinion was against him and he could not be elected again.

Work on the “Brettun House,” as it was first called, commenced in August 1880 when the excavation began slowly progressing.

On September 9, 1880, the Winfield Courier editor, D. A. Millington, responded to a Winfield Telegram item by Chas. C. Black, editor, in which Black predicted that Hancock and English would win the upcoming presidential election. “Now, honestly, Charley, don’t you feel it in your bones that the Telegram item of ‘What will happen - Nov. 2. Election of Hancock and English’ is a whopper.” If you believe it is true, we fear that you will occupy rooms at Osawatomie before Nov. 2.”

The Telegram quickly responded: “On the contrary Brother Millington, Charley is so thoroughly convinced of the truthfulness of the ‘item,’ and that his own reason shall remain enthroned; that he hereby proposes, to wheel you in a wheelbarrow at noon at as early a day as the result shall be definitely known, from the Brettun House down the middle of Main street to the Stewart House, if Hancock and English fail to receive the majority of electoral votes cast for President and Vice President in the coming election! Provided that you agree to wheel him the same distance and under the same circumstances in case Hancock and English do receive the majority. Party being wheeled to furnish suitable music for the occasion. Do you accept? Telegram. CHAS. C. BLACK.”

Millington replied: “All right. It is a bargain. We accept on the ground that the election returns will sound to Charley so like ‘the rack of empires and the crash of worlds,’ that he will certainly go daft unless his mind is diverted at once by good vigorous wheelbarrow exercise.”

[The Brettun House was located at 623 Main Street. The Stewart House was located on the corner of Main Street and Blanden.]

In September 1880 the progress being made on the “Brettun House” was reported by the Winfield Courier. On September 16^th they stated that the basement walls were up; on September 30^th they announced that the walls were rising Heavenward quite rapidly. On October 21^st they had the following item: “Brettun” is the name of a new brand of cigars at Goldsmith’s—named after Winfield’s new Hotel.

On September 15, 1880, the Arkansas City Traveler had an editorial. “The Democracy evidently weakens before the contest fairly began. Mr. Pyburn, the Democratic nominee, surprised the people of Cowley last Friday by withdrawing his name from the ticket, urging he could spare neither the time nor money to make the canvass necessary. The Democratic central committee met in Winfield to select a new candidate for State Senator, and the lightning struck C. C. Black, editor of the Telegram. Mr. Hackney’s victory is now an assured and easy one, as Mr. Pyburn is the acknowledged leader of Democracy in this county, and by all odds the most available man in their party. Many leading Democrats of Winfield, we understand, have now declared themselves for Hackney, and none of them have any hope for success with Mr. Black. We feel good all over.”

On September 30, 1880, D. A. Millington, editor of the Winfield Courier, wrote an editorial concerning the attempt by Democrat Charles C. Black to oppose W. P. Hackney.

“The friends of Mr. Charles C. Black are attempting to prostitute the cause of temperance in this community toward securing votes for their candidate in his race for the State Senate. To prove that this is the case, we have taken some pains to examine into his past record, and contrast it with his present professions. Persons who resided here in 1872-3 will remember the groggery kept in the building now occupied by Wallis & Wallis, known as the “Triplett Saloon.” That saloon was owned by Chas. C. Black; the rum sold over its counter came marked to Chas. C. Black, and Black hired and paid the employees in and about the saloon.

“And now Mr. Black comes before the people, not as a reformed rum-seller, but as one whose skirts are free from the contamination of the vile traffic, and asks for the votes of those who are honestly and earnestly striving to drive the rum demon from our midst. Fie, for shame! Without the courage in 1873 to come boldly out and face the wives and children whose husbands and fathers he was driving to ruin, he found in the person of Triplett a tool, who, for a paltry sum, would assume the fearful responsibility, while he stood behind the scenes and reaped the profits; and those profits are perhaps today represented by mortgages on the homes of hard-working farmers, who, if they were willing to debase their manhood and sacrifice their principles by entering the same business, could in a few months pay them off. He worked for whiskey then because there was money in it; he works for temperance today because there is office in it. He helped to spread intemperance then because it paid; he wishes to help corral it now because it is popular to do so. He wanted money then; he wants votes now. He used Triplett to accomplish his ends then, and paid him for it; he wishes to use the temperance element to accomplish his ends now, and pays them in promises. If his positions then and now are consistent, we have nothing more to say. If they are not, we ask in the name of common decency that he either come boldly out and tell the people that he has reformed, hunt up the widows and orphans he has helped to ruin, and do all in his power to repay them for the injury done, or forever hold his peace.”

Editor Black of the Telegram insinuated in October 1880 that his opponent, Hackney, received the noticeable scar on his face in a drunken brawl. Many of the old veterans of Cowley County wrote scathing articles about this, especially those who had served in the Union Army with Hackney at Allatoona Pass, Georgia, an important Federal supply depot, where 707 Union men were killed out of 1,944 present for duty. Hackney was shot through the face and body; his brother was wounded in three places; and a brother-in-law was killed.

During this senatorial campaign, Kansas was voting on the Liquor prohibition amendment. Hackney announced that he intended to vote against the amendment; but if elected and a majority of the voters declared for the amendment, he would support measures to support it. Black announced that he was for the amendment.

In November 1880 both the Arkansas City Traveler and Winfield Courier gave details on one of the most fantastic and humorous performances that Winfield ever witnessed. People assembled on the sidewalks, in the streets, in the windows of adjacent buildings, and on the awnings to watch a procession formed at the Brettun. Leading the parade were members of the Winfield Cornet Band; St. John Battery; O. M. Seward, Chairman of the Republican Committee, mounted on a fiery steed; and S. L. Gilbert, chairman of the Democratic Committee, on a used up mule labeled, “This is the mule that beat us.” Next in line was bareheaded J. B. Lynn, Mayor of Winfield, dressed in overalls and flannel shirt and wheeling a large load of rock, followed by C. C. Black, editor of the Winfield Telegram, who wheeled D. A. Millington, of the Winfield Courier. Next came the working men on the Brettun House building, forty strong, with their trowels, hammers, saws, hods, and other implements of labor followed by the Winfield Courier force, with plug hats and canes, headed by Ed. P. Greer, each bearing an appropriate motto. Next in line was Charles Kelly, representing the postal service, with the motto “A clean sweep. No post-offices for rent.” At the rear of the procession the Telegram force followed, mounted on a huge dray with a large job press printing Telegram extras, which they passed out to the crowd. Arriving at the Courier office, located under the Winfield Bank on the corner of 9^th Avenue and Main Street, the procession halted, and D. A. Millington mounted the chair on the wheelbarrow and addressed the crowd. He was followed by Charles C. Black, who also addressed the people. The procession then moved on to the Williams House, located on the northeast corner of 10^th Avenue and Main Streets, where it halted, and Mr. Lafe Pence delivered a short and patriotic address. The procession moved forward another block, counter marched, and dispersed.

(Black’s prediction that Hancock and English would receive the most electoral votes failed to materialize. Garfield and Arthur won! James Abram Garfield became President on March 4, 1881, and was assassinated on September 19, 1881, at which time Chester Alan Arthur was inaugurated President.)

In November 1880 the Winfield Courier referred to the Brettun, stating that S. L. Brettun was building a magnificent hotel of magnesia limestone, 56 by 120 feet, four stories high, with every modern improvement, including steam, hot and cold water in the rooms, passenger elevator, etc., to be completed this winter at a cost of $25,000. They also mentioned that Charlie C. Black had just erected a very fine stone printing office, with steam power, presses, etc. The new location of the Telegram was 112 East 8^th Street, Winfield.

In December 1880 the walls of the basement and first and second stories of the Brettun were up. Frank Barclay, a local plumber was making arrangements to put the gas and steam piping in the Brettun at Kansas City, where he engaged several plumbers and gas fitters to help him in the work. In January 1881 the Winfield Telegram announced that the Brettun House would contain about 1,500 feet of gas pipe, 1,250 feet of water pipe, and including that in the radiators, 3,600 feet of steam pipe. This only includes that which is actually in the building, and excludes the earthenware sewer. Almost a mile and a fifth of pipe in one building is not so bad for Winfield. In March 1881 workmen put on the stone cornice on the Brettun House and Mr. S. L. Brettun came to visit his grandson, Charlie Black.

On January 13, 1881, the Winfield Courier had an item from the Telegram, stating that W. M. Allison had purchased the Sumner County Democrat and would take possession on February 1, 1881.

On March 17, 1881, the Winfield Courier announced that Charles L. Harter, of Winfield, had married Annie Davis, of Hamilton, Ohio. Further details were not forthcoming.

Rumors began in April 1881 that ex-sheriff Charles L. Harter would take charge of running the Brettun as the stone work on the Brettun House received its finishing touches, leaving the building ready for the finishing work. A narrow escape from fire occurred when the tinners at work on the roof went to dinner, leaving their furnace sitting on the pine sheeting. While they were absent some coals of fire rolled out, setting the pine on fire, and it had been fanned into a blaze when discovered. On April 28, 1881, it was announced that the Brettun was not finished yet, but the carpenters were busy getting it ready for the plasterers, Archie Stewart receiving the contract for this work.

Late in April 1881 Charles C. Black left at once upon receiving a dispatch announcing the severe illness of his grandfather in Hampton, Illinois. On April 28, 1881, the Winfield Courier printed the following item. “The Moline (Illinois) Review-Dispatch of April 22nd contains the following notice of the death of Soranus L. Brettun, which is doubtless correct, though no information of the kind has been received from C. C. Black, who was there at the time named. It is with deep regret that we have to make this announcement. Mr. Brettun has been a friend to Winfield, where he has invested large sums of money and made some of our grandest improvements and we had learned to regard him as a citizen of this place, and a man of enterprise, a warm hearted and courteous friend and a true gentleman of the old school.”

‘“Mr. S. L. Brettun, of this place, died last night at nine o’clock. Funeral tomorrow, Sunday afternoon at one o’clock, from his late residence. His disease was lung fever. Mr. Brettun was born in Livermore, Maine, May 11, 1806, and was in his seventy-fifth year. He came to this place in 1837, and has been actively engaged in business ever since. His wife is still living, and they have three grandchildren living: Mr. C. C. Black, of Winfield, Kansas; Mr. Brettun Crapster, of Kansas City, Mo.; and Miss Louise Crapster, who is living with her grandmother. Mr. Brettun has held many offices of trust in this county, and his death will be universally regretted. During the past few years Mr. Brettun has invested largely in Kansas real estate. His own children are the late Mrs. Francis Black, of Hamilton; Mrs. Dr. Crapster, of St. Louis; and Clarence, who was drowned in early boyhood.’”

In May 1881 J. P. Baden moved into new quarters in Black’s building on the corner of Main Street and 8^th Avenue.

In June 1881 a correspondent from the Leavenworth Times stated that the Brettun would cost from $15,000 to $18,000 and would be heated with steam, lighted with gas, and have hot and cold water in every room in addition to an electric annunciator.

On Monday evening, June 13, 1881, many of the citizens of Winfield met on the steps of the Winfield Bank to provide for raising funds for the immediate relief of the sufferers caused by the cyclone on the previous evening at Floral, Tisdale township. Early on Tuesday morning a wagon load of provisions was sent to Floral under charge of Messrs. C. C. Black and J. P. Short.

On June 23, 1881, the Winfield Courier announced that the Brettun House would require 1,200 yards of carpet. This was followed by an item on July 28, 1881, by a Courier reporter. “We peeped into the Brettun House Monday. Charley and Mrs. Harter, with a corps of lady assistants, are busy making the sheets, pillow cases, and linen for the establishment. It requires nearly a carload.” On August 4, 1881, the Courier had another item about the Brettun. “The Brettun House engines were started Tuesday, and the pumps set to work filling the mammoth water tank in the third story. A perfect army of painters, carpenters, stone masons, and plumbers are at work and things about there look lively. One carload of furniture has arrived and three more are on the way. They will perhaps open about August 12^th.

On Thursday, August 18, 1881, the Winfield Courier announced the opening of the Brettun House. “This hotel, the finest in the state, was opened to the public last Wednesday by Messrs. Harter & Black. They have furnished the house elegantly from top to bottom. Last Thursday evening the gas in all the rooms was turned on and the barber shop and billiard rooms were lit up. The sight was an imposing one and the magnificent building looked like a marble palace. Here can be found every comfort that the traveling public could desire. Pleasant rooms, good beds, gas and water, bath rooms, billiard hall, barber shop, telegraph office, a splendidly set table, and promenades, parlors, and verandas in abundance. Harry Bahntge is running the billiard room and Nommsen & Steuven the barber shop and bath rooms. The bath rooms are cool and pleasant, and furnished in good style and fitted with hot and cold showers.”

More information was given on August 18, 1881, from the Leavenworth Times. “The Brettun House, just finished, will be in grand form when everybody, nearly, will be invited to be present. The house is built of native limestone, and has a porch on two sides, east and south. The building alone cost about $25,000, and when finished, its cost will not be less than $35,000. It is heated by steam, has gas, has hot and cold water, and is furnished with the East Lake and Queen Anne styles of furniture, with different shades of carpet in every room. The building was designed by Mr. Brettun, from whence it takes its name, but his death prevented him from completing his plans, and his grandson, Mr. C. C. Black, has had them completed. Mr. Chas. Harter will manage the house.”

On September 8, 1881, the Winfield Courier announced a problem at the Brettun. “Their dry well is filled up and they find it necessary to construct a sewer. It takes thirty barrels of water a day to run the house.” Mrs. C. L. Harter was seriously hurt on the nose on September 10, 1881, when a cornice on one of the wardrobes in the Brettun House fell on her.

In September 1881 the color line came promptly to the front at the Brettun House in Winfield. Mr. P. B. Andrews, a colored man from Bolton township who was well liked and who had served as 1^st Sergeant in Co. G, 42^nd U S C Infantry during the Civil War, was sent as a delegate from Bolton Township to the Republican Convention. With other members of his delegation he went to the Brettun House in Winfield for dinner. Joseph D. Houston, a young lawyer who had come from Kentucky to Arkansas City in 1880 and was a partner in 1881 of attorney C. R. Mitchell, complained to C. L. Harter about the presence of a colored man in the dining room and asked that he be removed. Mr. Harter informed Mr. Andrews that he could not take dinner in the dining room but must go to the kitchen. Considerable feeling was manifested for awhile, but Mr. Andrews, with several friends, retired to seek more hospitable quarters.”

Mr. Joe Houston soon experienced the contempt of citizens in Arkansas City. He spent a great deal of time testing the curative properties of the Geuda Springs, sold his town lots, and lost his lucrative practice in Arkansas City. In December 1881 he moved to Wichita and went into partnership with Judge W. P. Campbell.

In March 1882 several parties were summoned before the Grand Jury of the State of Kansas in reference to the matter with Mr. P. B. Andrews being refused a seat in the dining room of the Brettun House at Winfield. In April 1882 a number of the Creswell delegates to the Republican County Convention held in Winfield when Andrews was told to leave were subpoenaed to appear before the United States grand jury at Topeka to give evidence concerning the incident with Andrews. In October 1882 the case of the United States vs. C. Harter for excluding P. B. Andrews, a colored citizen, from the dining room of the Brettun, was continued. Witnesses from Arkansas City (Cal Swarts, G. H. McIntire, P. B. Andrews, S. J. Rice, and others) attended the court at Leavenworth. The Arkansas City Traveler commented on October 10, 1883, when this matter again came up. “Cal Swarts is now in Leavenworth, in attendance as a witness before the United States court. This is the case that has grown out of the row raised by our very high toned Southern friend, Joseph Houston, at the Brettun house, in Winfield, some two years ago. Joseph’s intensely aristocratic, blue blood threatened to stop circulating through his delicate body at the prospect of his being compelled to eat in the dining room that sheltered a colored gentleman. We sincerely hope that Joe is satisfied with the result of his vigorous kick, and that his respectability is as yet uncompromised.”

In October 1881 Abe B. Steinberger purchased the Winfield Telegram of Chas. C. Black for $4,500. He started the Cowley County Courant, a Republican newspaper soon thereafter.

On October 6, 1881, the Winfield Courier printed a number of items about the Brettun.

“The Brettun House draws part of its water supply from the K. C., L. & S. railroad tank.”

“The cooks at the Brettun House went on a strike Sunday noon, and it was only with the utmost diligence on the part of the proprietors that the boarders got their supper.”

“Harry Bahntge was fined $100 and costs for selling liquor in his billiard saloon at the Brettun House, on Monday. Harry waltzed up and paid like a little man. And still they keep gathering them in.”

On November 17, 1881, Mr. George Rembaugh married Miss Kitty Majors at the home of her sister, Mrs. James Vance, Winfield, Rev. Platter tying the knot. George’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Sid Majors, presented a goodly share of the splendid wedding cake she had made to George to share with the Courant band of printers.

On March 2, 1882, the Cowley County Courant printed an item about the amount of steam, water, gas, and sewer piping in Winfield. The city had a total of 34,000 feet of piping, of which the Brettun House had over 15,000 feet. The Courant article said: “For such a large amount of plumbing for a town, without gas or water-works, Winfield is principally indebted to Mr. Frank Barclay, who came here about four years ago, and under whose supervision nine-tenths of all the above work has been done.” In another item on that date the Courant stated that the main supply pipe at the Brettun that supplied the tank and the entire house with water froze up and required considerable labor to thaw it out.”

On March 16, 1882, the Courant recounted the following incident at the Brettun.

“The Brettun House was the scene of quite a matinee this noon. Waldron, the young colored porter, who occasionally works in the dining room, made some impertinent remarks to one of the waiter girls with whom he had been quarreling for the last week, when the girl struck him with a goblet she was washing. The glass broke, cutting his ear severely and penetrating to the bone. A little scuffling was indulged in after the blow, when Charlie Harter came in and called the house to order. Waldron threatened to shoot the girl and had a revolver in his hand, which was snatched away from him by the head porter. The subject of the water girl’s vengeance then went to the doctor’s for repairs. The latest telephonic dispatch states that the excitement is gradually subsiding, and no immediate fears are entertained of another outbreak.”

Charles C. Black, executor of the Brettun estate, settled the first annual account and settlement of the Brettun estate with the Illinois Probate Court. The Winfield Courier stated on April 6, 1882, that the inventories filed were about two yards long. The attorney for the estate was D. C. Beach.

On April 6, 1882, Abe Steinberger, Courant editor, printed an item about the Brettun.

“We had occasion last evening to visit the Brettun barber shop, preparatory to making ourselves look pretty for the dance. As we entered, the extreme emptiness of the establishment struck us with dismay. A second glance showed us a piece of colored anatomy which seemed to be alive, apparently engaged on some remnants of cigar stumps. A few well directed remarks to the aforesaid anatomy in regard to the whereabouts of the proprietors convinced us that the anatomy was just barely alive, and that Charlie Steuven had gone fishing, and had either been kidnaped or drowned, and that he had gone down the street and been the victim of some foul conspiracy. Turning these things over in our mind, we got our shaving cup, climbed on a stool in front of a glass, and proceeded to demonstrate that we were independent of the bloated bondholders who ran the shop. About the time our face resembled a snow-drift in Alaska, Harry Bahntge dropped in, and thinking we contemplated suicide, declined to be a party to it and left. As Harry went out one door, A. D. Speed came in the other. We felt a little uneasy when we saw Speed—it made us think of his goat and the pranks of its versatile nature. However, we suggested that he did not have much time to lose. That did the business—he was soon in the same condition as to lather as we were. At this stage in comes Timber Toe Smith. Things now took an interesting phase. Smith insisted upon doing the shaving. Speed objected, but his objection was overruled, and he was laid back in the chair. Sufficient towels and things were placed about his neck to cover any accidents or slips that might occur. Smith made several well directed but ineffectual efforts to cut Speed’s cheek. It was not long though before he of lumber notoriety got in his work and brought blood in three places. This was enough for us. We were shaved and fifteen cents ahead of the game, and had not lost any blood yet, and did not propose to be. Thus thinking, we took what we supposed to be a last, fond, lingering look at Speed and fled.”

The following item appeared in the Winfield Courier on April 6, 1882.

“Hon. Charles C. Black and wife, Mrs. Brettun, his grandmother, and Miss Lou Crapster, his cousin, started Tuesday for Hampton, Illinois, where most of the party will spend the summer. The last named started suddenly and left her bangs.”

On May 11, 1882, Mr. George Rembaugh, who had been foreman of the Telegram and later a member of the Courant offices, severed his connection with that paper.

The Winfield Courier had an article on July 13, 1882, about the demise of the Courant.

“Vale, Courant. The Cowley County Courant, Daily and Weekly, is dead. The Daily died on July 1st after eight months of fitful existence. The Weekly lingered until last week and died at the age of eight months and a week. The remains were taken in hand by George Rembaugh and Sam E. Davis, and from its ashes a “thoroughbred” democratic weekly will be raised up. It will assume the name of Telegram, and once more the old condition of things is resumed, and the Courier and Telegram, as in days of yore, will represent the principles of the two great political parties. And it is better for all that this is the case. The interests of the county, the state, and the nation demand that there be two active, belligerent parties. There is a good, strong democratic minority in this county, and it needs an organ. Now that it has one, we hope to see it well supported. Messrs. Rembaugh and Davis are live, energetic young men and can do the work as well or better than anyone we know of. Mr. Davis is a life-long democrat, by birth and education, and should have the full confidence and support of his party. The suspension of the Courant but illustrates what we have all along known to be a fact—that it is impossible to bore a three inch hole with a two inch augur. Mr. Allison tried it and was bruised. Mr. Black got all he wanted and let go. But to Mr. Steinberger belongs the honor of mashing the old thing all to pieces.”

On July 19, 1882, the Arkansas City Traveler mentioned the Cowley County Telegram.

“The Cowley County Telegram, successor to the Courant, made its first appearance in public last week. It is a nine column paper, well printed, and will be published as a weekly by Messrs. Davis & Rembaugh in the interest of Democracy and anti-prohibition.”

[In January 1883 Geo. E. Rembaugh took control of the Cowley County Telegram.]

On July 13, 1882, the Winfield Courier printed an item from the 8^th edition of Real Estate News, a publication printed by Gen. A. H. Green, a Winfield lawyer and realtor, that was widely disseminated in Kansas and elsewhere concerning Cowley County.

“BRETTUN HOUSE. This building is constructed of the celebrated Cowley County stone, covering an area of 55 by 100 feet, three stories high with English basement, south and east fronts, and double deck eight foot piazza along the entire fronts. On the basement floor is a large and pleasant billiard room, barber shop with baths, two large sample rooms, preparatory kitchen with elevator, ice rooms, steam laundry, and drying rooms. On the first floor we find a large and well ventilated office, reception room, reading room, lavatory, telegraph and ticket offices, and coat room. Adjoining the office are three large sample rooms. The dining room is large and well located, having south and west windows. Adjoining it is the kitchen supplied with steam ranges and carving tables, china and silver closets, store rooms, etc. On the second floor are the double parlors, bridal chamber, parlor chamber, bath room linen closets, and fourteen large and airy chambers arranged in suits. On the third floor are twenty-six rooms with sufficient number of linen closets, wardrobes, etc. The halls are spacious and extend entirely through the building north and south, east and west. Careful attention is given throughout to ventilation. There are three flights of stairs running from the basement to the second floor and two from the second to the third floor. The entire building is heated by steam, and lighted with gas. Each room is furnished with marble basins and soft water. Stand pipes with hydrants on each floor. The boiler and engine house is built separate from the main structure, thus avoiding danger by fire. All slop and waste water is taken from the building through waste pipes and underground drains, which are double trapped against sewer gas. While there are some larger hotels in the State, we assert with considerable pride for Winfield, that the Brettun House is the finest, most complete, and convenient house in Kansas.”

On October 4, 1882, the Arkansas City Traveler printed an item taken from the Telegram. “Arthur Bangs left on the morning train Monday, for Hampton, Illinois, where we understand, he will be united in wedlock to Miss Lou Crapster. We welcome Arthur to the matrimonial realms; Arthur is a Bang-up young man of the strictest integrity and honesty, and one who commands the respect of every one. We wish Mr. and Mrs. Bangs all the joy that can possibly be attained in this world.” On the day following, the Winfield Courier had an item. “Arthur Bangs and his bride, nee Miss Crapster, arrived home from the East Monday evening and were met by a number of their friends. Arthur carries his honors gracefully but bashfully. He will get used to it after awhile.”

[Arthur Bangs was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 20, 1860. In June 1881 he was twenty-one years old when he became chief clerk at the Williams House and manager of the Tisdale Omnibus and stage line in Winfield. He met Black’s cousin, Lou Crapster, during one of the visits made by Brettun Crapster and family to Winfield. Lou Crapster was cared for like a daughter by Mrs. Brettun Crapster.]

On December 7, 1882, the Winfield Courier announced that Charlie Harter had purchased C. C. Black’s interest in the Brettun House and was now the sole landlord.

On December 28, 1882, the Winfield Courier printed an article about gambling in the Brettun House. “Last Friday Harry Bahntge, who has been for a long time running a gambling den in a room back of his billiard hall in the Brettun House, was arrested and brought before Justice Buckman. He plead guilty to running a gambling table, was fined one hundred dollars and costs, which he paid, and went on his way rejoicing. In about an hour he was again arrested on another charge, which he likewise settled up. But the majesty of the law was not satisfied, and he was immediately arrested a third time, on another charge, and after it was settled, he was again pounced upon for the fourth time by the sheriff. This was more than even Mr. Bahntge’s proud spirit could brook, and he prayed the Court for mercy. When it was intimated that the end was not yet, and that the next case was five hundred or the pen, he wilted like a cabbage plant at high noon, and swore by all that was good and great that if they would but spare him the last dose, he would pay all the rest up, throw his room open, turn the gambling devices over to the officers, take the bars from the doors and the blinds from the windows, and let the bright sun of heaven pour into its iniquitous recesses forever more, amen; and further, that he would never do so any more. Upon these conditions he was let off, after paying two hundred and fifty dollars in fines and costs, and turning over to the constable his gambling table and checks, which were, by order of the Court, destroyed in the public street. The execution of the table was witnessed by a large concourse of people.

“Mayor Troup and his associate and assistant in breaking up this business, Frank W. Finch, are entitled to the thanks of the community in addition to the knowledge of having done their whole duty in the premises.”

On February 1, 1883, the Winfield Courier had the following item. “Charles C. Black was down from Topeka this week and while here made an arrangement with Rembaugh by which Charlie takes a hand again in conducting and editing the Telegram. This places that paper on a substantial foundation and will make it one of the leading Democratic papers of the state.”

The Brettun House received attention on March 22, 1883, by the Winfield Courier. “The Council had a lively time on Monday evening with an ordinance letting the Brettun House block out of the fire limits. Charley Harter had erected an ice house to which Dorley, the carriage maker, objected, claiming that it added to his insurance rate. He had Harter up before the police court, so the matter was brought to the Council for adjustment. Holders of eight out of the twelve lots in the block were in favor of letting Harter have his ice house, so the matter was laid over till next meeting with the understanding that the suits be dropped and it be then passed.”

In April 1883 Messrs. Black & Rembaugh of the Telegram and partners of the Courier Co. submitted a proposition to the Winfield City Council to do the city printing for one year from May 1st as follows: Council proceedings without charge; other city printing except job work at rates allowed by law for public printing; job works at lowest schedule rates. On motion the printing was awarded to Black & Rembaugh for six months from May 1st, 1883, and to the Courier Co. for six months thereafter, and the City Attorney was instructed to draw a contract accordingly.

The State Editorial Convention, attended by about 176 guests, was held in Winfield in 1883. On May 17, 1883, the Winfield Courier listed those who stayed at the Brettun House: H. C. Ashbaugh of the Newton Kansan, Adrian Reynolds of the Howard Courant, Geo. W. Cooper and wife of the Garnet Journal, F. P. Baker, president of the Association, of the Topeka Commonwealth, Prof. E. M. Shelton of the Manhattan Industrialist, and the State Agricultural College, H. Buckingham of the Concordia Empire, J. A. Udden and Ed Neilander of the Lindsborg Posten, C. H. Van Fossen of the Kansas City, Kansas Globe, Wm. H. Cramer of the Neodesha Free Press, S. Kauffman of the Garnett Plaindealer, W. Hollingsworth of the Vinita paper, J. H. Downing and wife of the Hays City Star-Sentinel, and secretary of the Association, P. G. Prouty of the executive office, Topeka, Geo. Sweezey of Halstead, R. P. Murdock, wife and child of the Wichita Eagle, Jacob Stotler and daughter of the Emporia News, Miss Kate Murdock, daughter of M. M. Murdock of the Wichita Eagle, B. J. F. Hanna of WaKeeney, H. A. Perkins and wife of the Iola Courant, W. T. McElry and wife of the Humboldt Union, A. L. Rivers and daughter of the Chanute Times, W. O. Graham and wife of the Harper Times, O. O. Leabhart and wife of the Harper Sentinel, Fletcher Meredith, wife, son, daughter, and Mrs. McLaughlin, of the Anthony Journal, A. B. Whiting and wife of the North Topeka Times, James Dillon of the Garden City Irrigator, V. J. Lane and daughter of the Wyandotte Herald, G. O. Perkins of the Oswego Independent, Mary McGill of the Oswego Independent, J. F. Drake of the Emporia Republican, S. O. Ebersole and daughter of the Minneapolis Sentinel, G. D. Baker of the Topeka Commonwealth, Conklin and sister of the Lyons Republican, Geo. W. Martin and wife of the Junction City Union, O. S. Hunsell and wife of the Council Grove Republican, H. B. Kelly and wife of the McPherson Freeman, J. S. Jennings of the Wichita Republic, H. P. Standley of the Arkansas City Traveler, W. P. Campbell, wife and daughter of the Wamego Reporter, F. D. Coburn of the Kansas City Indicator.

The following insisted upon it and paid their own bills at the Brettun: Theo. S. Case, of the Science Review and postmaster of Kansas City, with Mrs. Case, W. A. Bunker, and wife of the Newspaper Auxiliary, Kansas City, Mrs. Helen Moore of Topeka, Ben McGree of Newton, and G. B. Rogers of Newton, chief train dispatcher.

In another article on May 17, 1883, Millington of the Winfield Courier complained about all the work involved in hosting the State Editorial Association. “The arrangements for receiving and entertaining the editorial fraternity were made in due season and were ample and complete as far as human foresight could make them; notwithstanding the work of preparation fell on a few and largely on us. C. C. Black of the Telegram was absent during the time the matter was worked and did not get back in time to share in the large amount of work of receiving and assigning the guests and providing for their pleasure and amusement. Geo. Rembaugh was left alone with all the work of getting up the Telegram on his shoulders, but he did it up well and got time to do much work on the preparation and entertainment.”

Charles C. Black and wife and Ed. P. Greer represented Winfield on the editorial excursion that was made after the Winfield meeting to Chihuahua.

On May 24, 1883, the Winfield Courier printed an item from the Indianapolis Sentinel, written by J. C. McKee, one of the guests at the State Editorial Association meeting, which mentioned the Brettun House. “It is a No. 1 hotel, first-class in all its appointments. The table is as good as can be found in the best hotels of Indianapolis, while private gas and water works and steam heating appliance give the guests every convenience. Nor is it a fancy price hotel—$2 and $2.50, according to room, pays the bill. C. L. Harter, an Ohio man of course, owns the hotel, and is a young man who does his best with good success to satisfy all who call upon him.”

Noble Prentis of the Atchison Champion, while stopping at Las Vegas on the trip to Chihuahua, commented on the Association meeting at Winfield. “Among the Arions was Charley Black, and right here is a good place to speak of the Winfield editors and their kindness to the brethren and sisters. They did not go around with rosettes on them as big as buckwheat cakes, doing nothing in particular, but were always to be found wherever there was opportunity to do a visitor a favor. Mr. Millington, as patriarch of the Winfield editors, set the example of unwearied kindness. He made a caravansary of his own house, in which hospitable endeavor he was aided and abetted by his wife and daughters; and never rested until he had not only welcomed the coming but speeded the parting guest. Charley Black worked, preached, sung, and would, doubtless, have prayed with the visitors had he been called on. The visiting newspaper folks were also placed under infinite obligations to Mr. Ed. Greer, of the Courier, for favors. Mr. Greer is a native Kansan, born in Doniphan County, his father being one of the earliest Superintendents of Public Instruction, serving, I believe, even before the admission of the State. To the list should also be added the name of Mr. Rembaugh, of the Telegram. To return to the proceedings of the Association. After the money and the music, came the address of welcome. Mayor Troup being busy in the District Court, the ever useful Black read the remarks that Mr. Troup had prepared; and President Baker read a brief response, calling Charley, “Mr. Troup,” to keep up the illusion.

On May 24, 1883, another story by the Winfield Courier told of a tragedy in the county.

“Last Saturday morning as freight train No. 12 was crossing the bridge over the Arkansas River at Oxford, the trestles gave way and the engine, tender, and one car were plunged into the stream. The engineer, Howard Finley, has not been recovered. It is believed he is crushed between the engine and tender far beneath the murky waters. The fireman, James Kelly, was also pinched between the engine and tender, but was released beneath the water when the engine’s downward course was arrested. When he came up, he seized a timber and floated on it downstream a quarter of a mile to a bank, where he crawled out and escaped. He is now at the Brettun House, is badly bruised up about the chest, and injured internally, how seriously is not known. Messenger, the assistant train dispatcher, was in the cab when it went down, but the cab broke off and floated away, and he broke through the window, got out, seized a floating tie, and floated down to the bar and escaped. He is considerably cut and scratched about his face. The car which went down had seven horses in it. Four of them were lost and three rescued. Another car hung on the end of a standing trestle, partly over, but did not go down. The balance of the train was hauled back to the Oxford side a car at a time. The passenger train at 5:30 in the morning crossed the bridge, and this trestle works swayed and settled and the conductor observed that as the train left it, that section rose up again about ten inches, and the track was left curved about eight inches out of line. He and agent Lockwood telegraphed back to Oxford to allow no train to cross the bridge, as it was dangerous in the extreme, and Lockwood was to prevent trains leaving here for the west. But the section hands at Oxford examined the bridge, took up the rails in the curve, and spiked them down again, making the track straight, and when No. 12 came from the west, they pronounced the bridge safe. Engineer Finley moved onto the bridge slowly and carefully, stopped and examined the trestle before moving onto it, found the track straight and apparently safe, moved forward again slowly, and the trestle suddenly gave way, the tender and engine slid backward down into the stream, with the result above stated. Howard Finley has been one of the best and most careful engineers on the road. He leaves a wife and five children, living at Cherryvale, who have the warm sympathies of this whole community in their terrible affliction. Fortunately for them, he had recently taken a life insurance for $5,000. Immediately after the accident Geo. Rembaugh went over on a hand car to get the particulars, and we got the above report from him. Probably more than a thousand people visited the scene of the disaster the next day, Sunday. Men went from here in omnibuses, buggies, and wagons. Wellington turned out in numbers, and the whole surrounding country on both sides of the river was represented. The late heavy rains had swollen the river to a volume scarcely ever reached before, and the wreck could not be reached from this side on account of the overflow. The smokestack of the engine was sticking out above the water and the freight car was still hanging on the ragged edge.”

[The body of Howard Finley was recovered on Saturday, July 7, 1883. It was found floating in the Arkansas River, ten miles below the Kaw Agency, and was identified by a stencil plate on a key ring in the pocket, bearing his name. The remains were badly decomposed, and were interred on the spot.]

Charles L. Harter frescoed and grained the Brettun throughout in July 1883, using ash and French walnut.

In October 1883 F. C. Nommsen sold his interest in the Brettun tonsorial rooms to his partner, Capt. C. Steuven, and moved to Colorado due to poor health.

On October 4, 1883, the Winfield Courier told about an unusual event at the Brettun.

“On last Saturday morning a baby about two weeks old was found in a basket on the front steps of the Brettun House. With it was the following note, written in a neat feminine hand, without address or signature. ‘I leave the little babe with you because I think you will select someone that will be kind to it and raise it. I was married and deserted. He was a fine looking and talented man. I don’t know where he is and I’m too poor to care for it, unless I had a home. It breaks my poor heart to give it up. Keep a record of it in the clerk’s office, and if I get work, I will reclaim it, unless someone takes it to raise as their own. Its name is James Garfield, after our lamented President. I have some property coming to me eventually, but my people know nothing of my sad fate. They tried to keep me from marrying, and that is why I will not appeal to them. May the good Lord forgive me and watch over my darling child and bless those that give it sympathy.’ Mrs. Chas. Harter took the little one in and cared for it until Sunday morning, when Mr. and Mrs. Addison Thompson, from near Seeley, a childless couple, heard of it and asked permission to take the babe, care for and raise it, which they were allowed to do.”

At the Cowley County Fair held in October 1883, Black & Rembaugh were awarded 1^st premium for the best printed newspaper, Kansas work.

On November 29, 1883, the Winfield Courier announced that the Water Company in Winfield had closed a contract with the Brettun to furnish its supply of water.

The Winfield Courier on February 28, 1884, had the following item about the Brettun.

“J. L. M. Hill has bought a half interest in the Brettun House equipments and business and will go in Saturday. Some years ago Jim was Winfield’s most popular feeder of the hungry, where the English Kitchen now is. He soon made a fortune and went into the furniture business and other pursuits. He once more assumes the title of ‘landlord,’ and under the management of Harter & Hill the Brettun will undoubtedly continue to increase in popularity and prosperity.”

[In February 1884 the building previously owned by J. L. M. Hill, known as the “English Kitchen,” was located at 808 Main, Winfield, Kansas.]

In April 1884 the Winfield City Council instructed the street commissioner to ascertain the cost of 800 feet of sewer pipe to be attached to the Brettun House sewer leading down Main Street and across the Southern Kansas Depot and to report back to them.

On April 17, 1884, the Winfield Courier told about an important meeting.

“On Monday evening a large meeting was held in the Courthouse for the purpose of receiving and discussing the new railroad proposition. The meeting organized by placing Mayor Emerson in the chair with Geo. H. Buckman as secretary. Henry E. Asp then read the proposition as decided upon in a conference between the representatives of the railroad company and the railroad committee. After the reading of the proposition, Mr. James N. Young, of Chicago, representing the company, was introduced and stated that the company were now ready to build the road, and desired to do so with as little delay as possible. That their intention was to build from a connection with the St. Louis & San Francisco, north or northeast from Winfield, to the south line of Sumner County, during the coming summer, and that the company desired an expression from the citizens as to whether they wanted the road or not, and would aid it, at once, so that the final location of the line might be decided upon. Senator Hackney was then called out and made a ringing speech in favor of the proposition and urged all to take hold with a will and secure it while they had the opportunity. Ex-Mayor Troup also spoke strongly in favor of securing the road at all hazards, as did Mr. Black, of the Telegram, and Judge T. H. Soward. A vote was then taken on the proposition, and almost every person in the house voted the affirmative. A committee of five, consisting of Geo. H. Rembaugh, Henry E. Asp, George. H. Buckman, Geo. H. Crippen, and Ed. P. Greer, was appointed to secure the necessary amount of names to the petitions. The meeting was one of the largest ever held in the city and enthusiastic and united on the railroad question.”

In September 1884 Mr. James Fahey rented the Brettun billiard rooms, putting in carpeting, and fixing the rooms up in a very attractive way.

In October 1884 Chas. C. Black, aware that election time was drawing near, resorted to his old trick of creating dissension and obtaining subscriptions for the Telegram. He used Rembaugh as his tool in attacking Henry E. Asp, Republican candidate for county attorney, and Ed. P. Greer of the Winfield Courier, who was Republican candidate for the office of Representative of the 66^th District. Rembaugh wrote and published a letter in the Telegram charging Mr. Asp with collecting funds for clients and refusing to pay them over; as a result, his partner, Mr. Torrance, had to pay and the Judge was about to disbar him, send him to prison, etc. Rembaugh also charged Asp with trying to bribe John C. Roberts to vote and work for railroad bonds. Torrance told all who would listen that this attack was done by liars.

Next an attack was made on Greer, The Telegram charged that Rev. B. Kelly said, “Ed. Greer was drunk two weeks ago.” Mr. Kelly answered that he never said or thought of such a thing. The Telegram replied: “J. F. Martin said he had seen Ed. drunk.” Martin pronounced this was a lie. Then a real conspiracy was concocted by an editor, a whiskey man, a beer man, and a low character, to prove that Ed. had been seen drunk and in company with a bad woman. One man was given $20 to bribe some loose women to make an affidavit to that effect. This failed. They then circulated an affidavit signed by the above low character to that effect. They then employed the editor as a go between to stir up a prohibition lawyer who was supposed to hate Ed. and convince him that Ed. was bad so that he would go and convince the ministers and other good men, telling the prohibition lawyer that Arthur Bangs would swear to the charges. The lawyer got caught and tumbled to his part of the program. Bangs being appealed to said it was a lie. The whole conspiracy was uncovered by the Winfield Courier, which depicted the operators as the “vilest hounds in the state.”

On December 1, 1884, the Winfield Courier announced that Charley Harter would soon commence the erection of two fine business buildings on his lots north of Myton’s new block on the corner of 8^th Avenue and Main Street [718-720-722 Main Street].

S. H. Myton, who came to Cowley County in 1871, built up a hardware and implement business. In late 1884 he started building a fine cut stone block, 75 by 90 feet, two stories high, which would cost more than $20,000 and in which Myton would have 18,000 square feet of floor space. Myton planned to occupy the entire building, which had three rooms on each floor with elevators that ran from the basement to the second floor.

After Black failed to defeat Asp and Greer, he left Winfield for some time. He reappeared in February 1885 as Secretary of the Denver, Memphis & Atlantic Railway Company.

On February 19, 1885, the Winfield Courier covered a meeting with Black by prominent businessmen at the Courthouse.

“Chas. C. Black, secretary of the Denver, Memphis & Atlantic Railway Company, spoke on the prospects of that line. He explained that the road would have reached Winfield ere this if the financial panic, beginning with May last, hadn’t made progress impossible. With the loosening of the money market, he said the road would be pushed right through. The company have decided to make it a broad gauge, connecting at Baxter Springs with the Fort Scott & Gulf railroad. The contract for twenty-five miles of track has been let to John Fitzgerald, of Lincoln, Nebraska, a contractor of reliability and capital of half a million, who will begin to throw dirt as soon as the frost is out of the ground. With the twenty-five miles begun on the east end, the company will re-solicit aid along the proposed line (the bonds formerly voted being all void, owing to the road’s procrastination). The proposition having carried by so small a majority before in this county, Mr. Black thought it likely that aid would be asked by townships, Winfield being solicited for $40,000. M. L. Robinson also spoke flattering of the prospects for the D. M. & A., as well as the Kansas City and Southwestern, together with other projects conducive to Winfield’s prosperity. There seems no doubt that both these roads will be traversing the fair fields of Cowley before this year is ended. The officers of the K. C. & S. have everything arranged to commence operations as soon as the money market will permit. The meeting, by a unanimous vote, signified its willingness to vote forty thousand dollars to the D. M. & A., and, if needs be, vote the same amount again to the K. C. & W.”

The Winfield Courier had a follow-up item on March 12, 1885.

“Chas. C. Black, secretary of the D., M. & A. railroad company, got in Monday from an eastern trip in the interest of that road. He was accompanied by Major Joe Hansen, general manager. Prospects for that line seem flattering. If Winfield gets the D., M. & A. and the K. C. & S., as is now almost certain in the near future, Winfield and Cowley County will have a solid, substantial boom that will outdistance anything yet on record. J. N. Young, president of the K. C. & S., is expected to arrive from Chicago today.”

On April 23, 1885, the Winfield Courier had an article concerning the Brettun.

“The Police News comes to the front this week with full illustrations of the affair between the young lady and the drummer at the Brettun a couple of months ago. The girl and the waiter tray are there all right, but the drummer looks like a ten-penny nail encircled by a horse collar. The News should have had Jim Hill and Charley Harter in the background; or rushing frantically into the foreground to rescue the ten-penny nail. Then the picture would have been the height of artistic elegance. The young lady is to be commended for her good sense. She ought to have put quinine in the drummer’s coffee, too.”

On that same day the Courier told about a convention of area flour millers.

“The regular monthly meeting of the Southern Kansas Roller Mill Association was held at the Brettun House today. Arkansas City, Elk Falls, Wellington, Augusta, and this city were represented. Flour will probably go up. The fifteen cent raise in wheat will need an offset.”

On May 7, 1885, the Winfield Courier printed an item from the Sedan Times.

“The Winfield Courier has on foot ‘something that will astonish the newspaper fraternity along the border,’ and the Telegram advertises that it has now a large dose of paralysis which it proposed to turn loose to wither, blight, and astonish, etc. Meanwhile the ‘fraternity’ can only watch, and pray, that Bros. Millington and Black are not going to have a slugging match, or even spur for points. Hurry up, and end our suspense.” The Courier editor responded: “Hold, brethren, the suspense must continue yet a little while. These surprises are in training and in time will burst upon your fevered vision like an Aurora Borealis in June.”

On June 11, 1885, the Winfield Courier made an announcement. “Chas. C. Black is in Chicago finally arranging matters for the beginning of construction on the D., M. & A. The work will begin at once.”

The Winfield Courier on June 11, 1885, had another item taken from the Arkansas City Traveler, about two old veterans meeting again at the Brettun.

“Col. E. Wolfe, of Indiana, whose short but happy speech in this city on Decoration day charmed the hearts of his hearers, was here on a flying visit from Winfield; but meeting some old army friends, was induced to stay over Sunday. The Colonel is happy at a camp fire, effective in a set speech, and irresistible in a story. On Saturday evening he spent two or three hours in the room of an old army friend, W. J. Woods, and told of an amusing incident that had occurred between himself and Gen. Hatch the day preceding. The last time the pair had met was in Tennessee, near Memphis, at the early part of the war. Hatch was in the regular service and Wolfe a volunteer officer. On the night in question some movements were in operation, and orders were coming in thick and fast. To wile away the tedium of the time, the two officers sat down to a game of poker in a log cabin which they occupied as headquarters. The play was interrupted by the arrival of frequent orderlies, which were promptly attended to, and then the game proceeded. After awhile, however, orderlies began to come in at both doors, and the situation grew critical. Major Hatch started to his feet with the exclamation, ‘Wolfe, this thing is getting too hot. Mind, it’s your deal!’ and leaving cards and stakes on the table, he hurried from the hovel and mounted his horse. On Friday last the narrator of the story entered the Brettun house, in Winfield, and handing his grip sack to the clerk, waited the movements of a gray headed gentleman in order to place his autograph on the register. The former having entered his name, handed the pen to the Indianian; their eyes met, and recognition was mutual. ‘Hello, Hatch!’ said the ex-volunteer officer, ‘who would have thought of seeing you here?’ A twinkle came to the eyes of the veteran addressed, and extending his hand, he dryly remarked, ‘Wolfe, it’s your deal!’ A quarter of a century had elapsed since that unfinished game of poker, and we have the word of both gentlemen that they have never played the game since. The fortune of war and the accidents of life have carried them in opposite directions, and since that night in the negro quarters by the turbid Mississippi, till the accidental meeting in the hotel at Winfield, they have not seen each other. But the striking incidents of that time were indelibly impressed on the minds of both, and when they came together at last, the long past scene was restored, and the parting exclamation was as fresh in the memories of both as when uttered. When old comrades meet there is an inexhaustible flow of incident and adventure set a-going.”

On June 18, 1885, the Winfield Courier reported on progress of the proposed railroad.

“Chas. C. Black returned Tuesday from a meeting of the D., M. & A. executives in Chicago. He reports all arrangements completed for lively operations on this line. The survey has been completed between Kingman and Belle Plaine and grading will commence before the first of July. Chas. J. Peckham came over from Sedan Wednesday to join Chas. C. Black and J. J. Burns on a trip to K. C. and St. Joe on D., M. & A. business, taking the Santa Fe this afternoon.”

Business picked up at the Brettun in July 1885. In one week the Brettun filled the alimentary canals of about three hundred individuals, making landlords Harter & Hill nearly run their coats off, according to the Winfield Courier.

On Thursday, July 2, 1885, the Winfield Courier had a number of items about Black.

“Chas. C. Black got in Saturday from a meeting at Emporia of the D., M. & A. officers and directors. He informs us that the contract for the construction of three hundred miles of the line, from the east line of the State, near Baxter Springs, to Larned, Pawnee County, was ratified. It is given to John Fitzgerald, of Lincoln, Nebraska, and S. H. Mallery, of Charlton, Iowa. These gentlemen are contractors of large experience and means. They begin grading at Belle Plaine on July 4^th. That place has a big celebration, and the grading is commenced on that day as an additional attraction. The work will be pushed as fast as men and teams can be got to do it. The D., M. & A. Company have laid out the new town of Northfield, between Conway Springs and Kingman, in the southeast corner of Kingman County, and lots go on sale next Thursday. Mr. Black is highly pleased with the outlook for the D., M. & A. The counties all along the line are enthusiastic for it and no difficulty seems likely to present itself anywhere in obtaining the required bonds. There will be no cessation in the construction—it will be whooped right through to completion. Trains will be running through Winfield by fall.”

“Hon. Geo. D. Thompson and Messrs. E. W. Haag and W. W. Robbins came over from Harper Saturday evening, returning Sunday morning. They were here to consult with Chas. C. Black regarding Northfield, the new town laid out on the D. M., & A. in Kingman County, of which company the gentlemen are members.”

On July 9, 1885, the Winfield Courier told about the rivalry that had developed among hotel rustlers. Arthur Fresh, the “flying Dutchman,” worked at the Commercial House; Dan Cisler, called “Lum,” worked at the Brettun with C. C. Callahan. Fresh had Cisler arrested for striking him on the cheek with a stone, while they were wrestling for grips at the Santa Fe train. They were charged with disturbing the peace and were found guilty in Justice Snow’s court. Cisler paid $1 and costs, $18. Callahan appealed his case. A follow-up article was written by the Courier on July 16, 1885, after Fresh and Callahan had a fight. “The trial of the ‘Flying Dutchman’ of the Commercial, Arthur Fresh, for his wrestle with Lum Callahan, of the Brettun, came off in police court Monday. He paid $3 and costs, $11. He immediately made complaint before the County Attorney and had Lum ‘jerked’ again.”

Charles L. Harter took a vacation in July 1885. The Courier had the following item. “Miss Julia Smith, Mrs. Anna Harter, Master Robert, and ‘the old man’ of the Brettun left Monday for the west. Miss Julia goes to Salt Lake City to visit a brother, Mrs. Harter and son for two months in Manitou, Colorado, and Charley for a week at Dodge City.”

On July 28, 1885, Geo. C. Rembaugh received official notice of his appointment as postmaster at Winfield from the First Assistant Postmaster General. He was instructed to fill out the blank oath, bond, etc., and return them to Washington, when his commission would be issued. Rembaugh replaced D. A. Millington, who voluntarily resigned.

The Winfield Courier announced on August 13, 1885, a change that would occur at the Telegram in a few days. Walter G. Seaver, of the Dexter Eye, was taking business and editorial charge of the Telegram, replacing George C. Rembaugh, whose attention would be devoted exclusively to the post office.

Chas. C. Black was President of a meeting of Vernon Township and Winfield citizens in September 1885 to make arrangements for a new bridge on the old piers on the Walnut at Bliss & Wood’s mill. It was determined to erect a $6,000 bridge on private subscription.

On October 1, 1885, the Winfield Courier printed an article of great interest.

“The Akron Town Company has filed its charter with the Secretary of State. This is on the D., M. & A. at Akron post office eight miles north of Winfield in Fairview township. The Directors are Thomas S. Covert and J. M. Covert, of Akron; J. J. Burns and Thomas Donohue, of Belle Plaine; and Chas. C. Black, of Winfield; and the capital stock is $10,000. The headquarters will be at Akron and Winfield.

“We notice that three other town companies on the D., M. & A. west of this place have filed charters, viz:

“Mallory Town Company. Located in Sumner County. The Directors are Donohue and J. J. Burns, of Belle Plaine; Chas. C. Black, Winfield; and Jo. Hansen, St. Joseph. The capital stock is $10,000.

“Belmont Town Company. Located in Kingman County. The Directors are Geo. Thompson, Harper; William Stoors, Belmont; Chas C. Black, Winfield; Jo. Hansen, St. Joseph; J. J. Burns, Belle Plaine. The capital stock is $10,000.

“The Milton Town Company, with headquarters at Milton and Winfield, has filed its charter. The directors are Chas. C. Black, Winfield; J. J. Burns and Charles Donohue, Belle Plaine; and Jo. Hansen, St. Joseph. Capital stock: $10,000.”

On October 8, 1885, the Winfield Courier covered activities by another railroad.

“Celebration Banquet. The completion of the K. C. & S. W. to Winfield was celebrated last evening in the Brettun by a grand banquet given to the railroad track layers and graders by L. D. Latham & Co., the contractors. Owing to camp headquarters being yet at Floral, a number of the employees couldn’t be present, but one hundred and eight of them engaged in the feast, and expressed the warmest appreciation. After the supper to the gang men, Messrs. Harter & Hill, ye landlords of the Brettun, complimented the officers, contractors, managing employees, and engineer corps of the road with a magnificent banquet, which was thoroughly enjoyed and most appreciably received.”

While Charley Harter began remodeling his billiard parlor under the Brettun in October, 1885, by re-covering the tables, C. C. Black joined with H. G. Fuller, C. E. Fuller, and J. B. Lynn in purchasing the B. B. Vandeventer tract just north of Winfield. Plans were made to plat the new addition, just left of the section line joining north Main, taking in nearly all of Island Park and all that land lying in the bend of Timber Creek north of the Southern Kansas railroad track. The tract, almost 140 acres, was purchased for $10,500: $75 per acre.

The Brettun House also agreed in November 1885 when pushed by the Court to extend its sewer to Timber creek, thus ridding the city of Winfield of that awful smell like a conglomeration of Limburger and decayed eggs.

On November 19, 1885, the Winfield Courier wrote about the Brettun sewer system.

A Sewerage System. With all of the enterprise and real ‘git up and git’ style of business that this state is noted for, its new buildings which are conceded to eclipse in style and beauty all of those in the ordinary eastern towns and cities, there is one question that has been overlooked or forgotten in every city and town in Kansas, and Winfield is just as badly in need of a complete system of drainage as any city in the west. This, many of our people will say, would be an extravagant expense for a matter that can be allowed to go on, as it has in the past, all of which is seemingly true; but the health of those living in the heart of the city as compared with those living in the suburbs is a good example of what the foul air and gases arising from waste slop-water, water-closets, etc., that are dotted close together in the center of the city with no means of escaping, except as it can evaporate and decompose, or can soak into the top soil and make a more permanent nuisance. All of this can be nothing but injurious, and while it may run along for a short time with no more serious results than that of injuring the health of everyone and causing the malaria which is so common during the warmer seasons, the time will come, and before long, when this country will be overrun with a siege of cholera, such as has carried away thousands of souls in the old country, in just such poorly drained locations as this, during the last summer; and that this country is certain to be swept over by such a terrible epidemic, there is not the least doubt, when the towns and cities have such natural advantages and inducements to hold out to it. A good system of sewerage is just what Winfield is most in need of at present, as has been shown by the complaints and condemnation of the Brettun House sewer, which differs from dozens of others in the center part of the city only in this one particular. It is carried along Main street for a short distance, while the others are carried into the alleys, streets, and gutters, and are not so easily discovered by the lynx-eyed citizens who feel the effects but cannot discover and locate the exact cause. Winfield is conceded to be the Queen City of the West, being so far in advance of other Kansas towns by having the advantage of the finest building stone, lying in the center of the best country and farming district, and with a class of citizens whose social and moral standing is higher than any of the other cities of the west, as has been conceded by everyone who visits the city, and more permanently recognized by the location of the M. E. College here. And the natural healthfulness and superiority of this county, outside of the city limits, has been recognized by the location of the State Imbecile Asylum by the State Board of Charities. With all these advantages, why cannot Winfield make a move for the sanitary benefit of her citizens by going to work on the sewerage question and thus set an example to our neighboring cities in this state by leading them in a work which will be of vast benefit to our city. Winfield has a splendid natural drainage that could be made perfect with a good sewerage system. This improvement, with our water works, gas works, college, Imbecile Asylum, and other public improvements will be an important factor in holding our preference over all other cities of the state, justly merited and recognized. It would be a big step in perfecting the desirability of the Queen City for healthy, happy, and prosperous homes.”

On Thursday, November 26, 1885, the Winfield Courier commented on a banquet.

“Thursday night was the occasion of the annual banquet of the Winfield Sportsmen’s Club. The annual hunt occurred the day before, the victors and defeated had received their scores, and now was another meeting, to eat, drink (water), and be merry; the “greenies,” or unfortunates, telling how they walked and walked, and fired and fired, and came out with only a few cotton-tails; and the victors were to explain how they managed it in getting so much salt on the tails of their game. The banquet, of course, was spread in the large dining hall of the Brettun, ‘set up’ by the losing division, under Captain Hunt. Messrs. Harter & Hill did themselves proud in the preparation of the banquet, a magnificent array of about everything obtainable in the culinary art, with waiters most attentive.”

On December 31, 1885, the Winfield Courier brought up a dinner at the Brettun.

“Christmas was grandly celebrated in Winfield. Talk about epicurean lay-outs! The Brettun got up a Christmas dinner that would make the eyes of Queen Victoria water with ecstatic delight. A finer feast was never spread in Winfield. The printed ‘Menu,’ gotten up by the COURIER, was the acme of the art preservative and everybody got one to send to their eastern friends. Messrs. Harter & Hill scored a big favor in the feast—one appreciated to the fullest extent.”

On January 7, 1886, the Winfield Courier discussed an upcoming dance.

“The Pleasant Hour Club met last evening and arranged for its fifth annual Bal Masque, at the Opera House on Thursday evening, the 19^th inst. Committees were appointed as follows: On invitation, George T. Schuler, Addison Brown, and Frank H. Greer; On floor, J. L. Horning, D. L. Kretsinger, and J. L. M. Hill; On reception, Hon. W. P. Hackney and wife, Hon. C. C. Black and wife, Col. J. C. Fuller and wife, Senator J. C. Long and wife. With the great social activity that characterizes Winfield this winter, this ball will undoubtedly be one of the biggest successes the club has yet scored. Invitations will be issued to only the best people of this and surrounding cities. The indiscriminate scattering of invitations, as is to often the case in big balls of this kind, will be very carefully guarded against. The invitations will be out in a few days.”

In the same issue, it was pointed out that at a number of places in Winfield, grand banquets took place, among these being the home of Mrs. Black, who was assisted in receiving by Mrs. B. H. Riddell, Mrs. A. C. Bangs, Mrs. Ada Perkins, and Misses Lizzie and Margie Wallis, who sent out neat “at homes” and entertained over fifty guests.

On Thursday, January 14, 1886, the Winfield Courier had a number of items.

“The steam pipes of the Brettun froze up Thursday and the house and contents nearly froze out this morning. They were soon thawed out and a congenial atmosphere restored.

“The hot water pipes in the residence of C. C. Black burst Monday. They had been frozen up for some time and when suddenly heated up, burst, breaking up the floor in one of the rooms, but doing no other damage.

“The agreeable home of Mr. and Mrs. G. W. Miller was a lively scene Tuesday evening. It was the occasion of the twentieth wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Miller, which fact was unknown to the guests until their arrival, making the event all the more appropriate and lively. Mr. and Mrs. C. L. Harter were among the guests.”

On January 18, 1886, the Winfield Courier had an extensive article about the fifth annual Bal Masque of the Pleasant Hour Club at the Opera House, noting that Mrs. C. C. Black represented splendidly a peasant girl, and kept her identity from all. Also mentioned were Mrs. C. L. Harter, Mrs. Ray Oliver, and Misses Lizzie and Margie Wallis, who concealed their identity as a lively quartette of black dominos, with church spire crowns. Nobody “caught on”—impossible with such a complete covering. Miss Lizzie also appeared as The Daughter of the Regiment, with a neat suit of stars and stripes.

On February 4, 1886, the Winfield Courier announced that Bert Crapster, the smiling collector of tariff at the Brettun portals, was off for a visit at his old home, Hampton, Illinois, starting just in time to strike the snow blockades of the big storm that had hit.

News about the D., M. & A. bill was in the February 4, 1886, issue of the Courier.

“Cowley always gets there. The D., M. & A. bill, formulated, presented, and worked up by Cowley’s delegation, passed the House Monday, and is ready for the Governor’s signature. It legalizes the charter of the Company and validates all bonds voted to it. This ends a long and tedious suspense. There is no doubt now that the company has everything in readiness to begin active operations as soon as the frost is out of the ground. The leaders of this movement, our C. C. Black, prominent among them, have displayed pluck and energy wonderful. They went in to give Winfield and Southern Kansas one of the most valuable railroads in the west and nothing has daunted them. Time, money, and brains have been largely expended, backed by wonderfully zealous public spirit. The D., M. & A. will be running into Winfield by June 1^st, if not before. The Florence, El Dorado & Walnut Valley will strike us even before that, giving us five of the best railroads in Kansas, with good prospects for more. Verily, the Queen of the Valley boometh with a double-concentrated boom—the pride of every citizen and the envy of all surroundings.”

On February 11, 1886, the Winfield Courier announced that Chas. C. Black had just returned home after a month’s absence in Topeka and other places, looking after D., M. & A. matters. Black told a Courier reporter that the company had everything in readiness for active work as soon as spring thoroughly opened.

On the same day the Courier mentioned that Bret Crapster, the Brettun revenue collector, had returned from a week or two at his old home in Hampton, Illinois, where he had an agreeable vacation, even if it was a little short.

On Thursday, February 18, 1886, the Winfield Courier announced that the Island Park Place would be re-platted and put on the market to catch the spring boom. This tract contained about 140 acres, lying across the S. K. railroad and running down to Timber creek. It was owned by J. B. Lynn, president of the company; W. L. Mullen, vice-president; C. E. Fuller, secretary; H. G. Fuller, treasurer; and C. C. Black, one of the board.

On February 25, 1886, the Winfield Courier stated that Geo. W. Miller and his wife had entertained quite a number of old folks at their pleasant home. Some time was spent in social pleasantries after which they repaired to the dining room, where a well filled table met their view, spread with the very best the market affords. Mrs. Miller was assisted by Mrs. Anna Harter, Mrs. J. J. Carson, and Mrs. Oscar Tilford. Everybody enjoyed themselves hugely, nothing being lacking to make them feel at home.

On March 11, 1886, the Winfield Courier reported on a recent city council meeting at which various public health ordinances were passed. Wells over eight feet deep could no longer be used for drainage. The alley east and west in the Brettun block was vacated.

Winfield Courier, Thursday, March 11, 1886.

Implements! Farmers, please call at the New Implement House, 612 and 614 MAIN STREET, Nearly Opposite the Brettun House, and inspect our goods before Purchasing Elsewhere. VAN VLEET & SAGE.

On March 18, 1886, the Winfield Courier said Crapster, urbane collector of revenue at the Brettun portals, had a patent for feeding muzzled dogs without removing the muzzle.

Trying to handle railroad and newspaper matters, Chas. C. Black became ill with erysipelas. He finally began to recover around March 25, 1886.