On a bitter cold night, January 16, 1912, the operator of the Santa Fe station at Lakin hurried into a restaurant with a telegram in his hand. The restaurant was the only place in the town still open, and a number of men lingered there.
The operator told the men that the envelope had to be delivered to the Isaac Hoffman ranch that night, 35 miles south of Lakin. It was from Otto Lewis to his nephew, John Lewis, working at the Ike Hoffman ranch, and said Lewis must come at once to Hutchinson, for his father lay dying in a hospital there.
In addition to the men in the restaurant was Mrs. McRae, who ran it, and her 17-year-old daughter, Agnes.
One by one, the men in the restaurant made excuses why they could not take to the message to John Lewis – especially on such a cold and nasty night. The operator, in despair, was about to go when Agnes spoke up from behind the counter and said she would take the telegram to the ranch.
Her mother, surprised, told the girl she would do no such thing, but the daughter replied, “How would you feel if you were out on our ranch and such a message should come for you, telling you that father had died?”
She asked the liveryman to saddle her pony, Button, and kissing her mother, rode out into the cold with the letter.
It was a half mile to the long bridge across the Arkansas River. Already the lights of the town had given way to the black of a winter night. The pony’s hooves struck the planks of the bridge, and the clatter echoed up and down the valley in the brittle air. At Alvin Beaty’s ranch, near the bridge, peafowl were disturbed by the noise and set up a clamor.
As soon as the bridge was crossed, Button, who had been snorting in protest at being led from a warm barn into the cold night, settled down to a steady gait.
The horse and rider passed the Billy Stutzman, Nathan Fulmer, George Bahntge, and Thomas Gibson ranches and galloped on into the sandhills. Halfway through the hills they passed the Frank McAlister ranch where no one stayed at night. Twenty miles south of Lakin they reached the Charles Hoffman ranch.
Agnes woke the Hoffmans and told them her story. Charles Hoffman took Button into the barn, and throwing the saddle on Chinook, his own saddle horse, sent the girl on her way with a fresh mount.
At about one o’clock in the morning she arrived at Ike Hoffman’s ranch, southeast of Ulysses, delivered her message and started on her return.
Through the sandhills, going south and coming back north again, every bush cast a menacing shadow in the cold night. The crusted snowbanks dotted the hills like ghosts. Wild-eyed cattle would start up at sight of the horse and rider, then race off in a wild stampede. Wire fences had to be crossed, and Agnes crossed them by stepping on the wire while the horse passed over them.
When she reached the Charles Hoffman ranch again, Mrs. Hoffman had prepared coffee and a lunch which the girl ate with relish. The saddle was put back on Button again, and the girl started for home.
As dawn began to streak the eastern horizon, Agnes reached home again. She had ridden 70 miles through a winter night – a little over a third of it through the trackless sandhills of Kearny County. And all this on an errand of mercy.
March is Women’s History Month and an opportune time to share this story which appeared in Volume I of the History of Kearny County and was written by the Rev. F.F. Thomas, subject of last week’s article. The eldest daughter of Billie and Josephine McRae, Agnes was born on the McRae’s Bear Creek ranch in the sandhills south of Lakin. As she grew up, she showed an unusual ability to handle horses and often joined her father on the range. When she was 12 years old, she helped in the cattle roundups doing just as good a job as many of the ranch hands. At 15, Agnes was not only an expert rider, but she was also more skillful with a rope than her father. Mr. McRae stayed on the ranch during the winter, but Mrs. McRae moved to Lakin so their children could attend school. She ran the restaurant as a way of helping out with expenses. While Agnes knew the sandhills well from childhood, still the ride across them in the cold and dark against unknown dangers was one that made grown men hesitate to undertake it. The fact that she made the ride is another feather in the cap of pioneer womanhood. In 1913, Agnes married Everett Kemper whose family resided on the South Side. They made their home at Lakin until 1942 when they moved to Dodge City where she died in 1963.