Category: News & Events

When Ira “Big Mac” McConaughey died in 1936, news of the famed flier’s death was carried in major newspapers across the country from New York City to San Francisco. Born at Deerfield to James C. and Emma McConaughey, Ira had made a habit of making headlines.

Ira was in the automobile repair business at Deerfield with Bill Bechtel prior to entering the Navy in 1918. McConaughey served aboard the U.S.S. Cacique, a freighter leased by the United States Navy to transport Allied personnel and cargo to France in support of the European fighting front during World War I. After his honorable discharge in 1919, he returned to Kearny County and once again engaged in the garage business with Bechtel. Their Santa Fe Garage opened in 1920, and in addition to repairing vehicles, the proprietors also sold automobiles, gas, parts, and tires. The business was located on the east side of Deerfield’s Main Street and later became the sight of Santa Fe Motors.

Even before he was a pilot, Ira made the local news for his prowess behind the wheel. In June of 1920, the Advocate reported that he was a speed king, “eating breakfast in Kansas City, dinner in Wichita and supper in Deerfield. What is the need of an airplane, when a Ford makes these things possible?”

But Ira soon caught flying fever. The Angel Flying Circus was the main attraction each day of the 1923 Kearny County Fair, and less than a month later, Ira and Fred Fulton purchased their own plane from Jimmy Angel who taught them how to pilot it. Before long, Ira was performing with the flying circus at fairs and air shows. His name was consistently in the local papers from that time on.

In March of 1924, Ira was piloting when a crippled Angel plane crashed into a willow tree break near Dermott, Arkansas. Ira and passenger “Sailor Jack” Lewis were only injured, but star acrobat Mildred Bennett was killed instantly. Bennett, 18-year-old Hardtner, Kansas native, was the first woman to transfer from one plane to another while in mid-air, a feat she first accomplished at Kearny County’s 1923 fair.

In May of 1924, the Advocate reported that, “Ira McConaughey was here Tuesday visiting his parents and his arrival was out of the ordinary way, having arrived in his air plane, the first bird man ever to visit relatives and friends in Lakin, by this kind of conveyance.”

By July 1924, Ira was at Texarkana, Texas, and in charge of the flying field there. That October, the Advocate carried the news that he had flown from Texarkana to Dayton, OH, in nine hours, “a most remarkable record” for that time.

Before long, McConaughey was making the national papers. In 1928, he won the free-for-all event at the Newton, Kansas air races with an experimental plane developed by Walter H. Beech of Travel Air Manufacturing (later Beechcraft). In 1929, Ira flew the mystery ship to a world’s speed record of 235 miles per hour for land planes. When Big Mac performed at the Kansas City air races in 1929, the Kansas City Star said he “has traveled faster than any man who ever percolated through the upper reaches of the stockyards.” According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Ira’s speed record was not broken until about a month before his death.

McConaughey also worked for Swallow Company, Riesser Company, Travel Air and Universal Airlines, and he was chief pilot and operations manager at Central Airlines where he flew a regular run between Wichita and Tulsa. In 1931, he moved to Dallas and became a pilot for American Airlines.

In September of 1932 when three army airplanes failed to locate a crashed airplane in the Guadalupe Mountains, it was Ira who located the wreckage. McConaughey was dispatched from Dallas to hunt the plane and sighted it; then, he landed at the emergency field and returned to the downed plane in a borrowed automobile. Again, Ira’s name made national news.

Ira died in a Dallas hospital on September 26, 1936, after a brief illness. He was 41 years old and left behind his wife of five years, Mary Francis; his mother, two brothers and two sisters. Ira “Big Mac” McConaughey had logged more than 12,000 hours in the air, or approximately 1,500,000 flying miles.

SOURCES: History of Kearny County Vol. II; archives of The Advocate, Wichita Evening Eagle, Wichita Eagle, Sylvia Sun, Kansas City Post, Tulsa Daily World, Atlanta Journal, Washington D.C. Evening Star, New York Daily News, San Francisco Examiner, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and Dallas Morning Star; Ancestry.Com; Wikipedia; and Museum archives.

Free and cheap land enticed more than one million people into Kansas by 1890. The Homestead Act allowed settlers to claim 160 acres of public land by paying a small filing fee, building a residence, growing crops and living on the land for five continuous years. Filers could also purchase government-owned land for $1.25 per acre after living on it for six months, building a home and planting crops. The head of the household or any citizen or person intending to become a citizen was eligible to claim land. An 1864 amendment allowed a soldier with two years of service to acquire the land after a one-year residency.

Over 80 million acres of public land were distributed through the Homestead Act by 1900. Under pre-emption law, no more than 160 acres could be obtained by one person, but that changed in 1873 with The Timber Act which allowed homesteaders to get an additional 160 acres if they set aside 40 to grow trees. The intent was to solve the lack of wood on the Great Plains. After planting the trees, the land could only be completely obtained if it was occupied by the same family for at least five years.

Many other settlers came to Kansas by way of Railroad Land Grants or School Land Grants. Desiring a transcontinental railroad, the U.S. Government gave public lands to railroad companies in exchange for building tracks in specific locations. Railroads were then able to sell their excess land to settlers looking for new homes. From the late 18th century through the middle of the 20th century, the federal government granted control of millions of acres of federal land to each state as it entered the Union with the stipulation that proceeds from the sale or lease of the land be used to support various public institutions—most notably, public elementary and secondary schools and universities. Persons over 21 years of age could settle on a quarter section of school land, live on it for six weeks, and pay just $3 per acre. That cost was later lowered to $1.25.

Kearny County experienced its first real surge in land seekers between 1885 and 1888. When settlers arrived here, they found it drastically different from the ‘civilized’ areas they were accustomed to. Survival generally took the physical efforts of every member of a family, and only the most resilient souls succeeded in making their “home sweet home” on the Kansas plains.

As lumber was not readily available, resourceful pioneers turned to the earth to build their homes. Dug-outs were made by digging into a dirt bank, and sod houses were built from the abundant supply of thickly rooted prairie grass. Adobe bricks made of a mixture of mud, sand, clay, and straw or grass were also used. Some settlers were fortunate to have access to limestone to build their abodes, but many “settled” for tents, boxcars, small shacks or shanties.

The late Dave Grusing recalled moving to Kansas in September of 1908 with his parents, John and Anna. “We arrived about midnight in Leoti. Put our dogs and our baggage in the depot, then walked to the Jones Hotel about in the middle of Leoti. Herman and Grace and I walked. Dad carried Helen, and Mom carried Martha. We kids were barefooted and no sidewalks, just a plain path with plenty of stickers.”

The next morning after breakfast, Dave and his father walked downtown and “looked all around and saw nothing but open country. I asked Dad where the town is. Dad said, “You are in it now.” All I knew about a town was Salem (Oregon) and didn’t know what a small town like Leoti was like.”

The family’s first home in Kansas was a two-room sod house that belonged to a man who was away herding sheep. They were told they could stay there until he returned.

“Our new life on the prairie was exciting. The pasture north of this sod house had quite a lot of cow chips so Mom, Herman and I would pick a batch every day. Mom would bake the best of bread.” John Grusing purchased a cow for milk and butter. He also bought a shot gun. “He would shoot rabbits and we would eat them. Mother could make the best brown rabbit gravy to put on our bread.”

Then a man by the name of Krohm told Dave’s father that he was going to relinquish his homestead in the extreme northern part of Kearny County, and John Grusing could file on it. The legal papers went through the Dodge City land office about two weeks later. Krohm sold his belongings to John for $1,200. This consisted of four horses, four cows and calves, three hogs, 40 chickens, a wagon, a spring wagon, harnesses and some farm machinery, a well with a hand pump on it, a two-room sod house, a sod hen house, and a pasture fence.

Twenty years after the land surge, some places in Kansas still hadn’t changed much. Dave wrote, “When we moved onto the homestead, it was about as bare as anything could be – no trees, only three hollyhocks close to the dugout and four cucumber vines.”

SOURCES: Kansas State Historical Society; A Case Study of Kearny County, Kansas in the Populist Era by Harold R. Smith; A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans by William E. Connelley; History of Kearny County Vols. I & II; Hartland Herald and Advocate archives; Wikipedia; Center on Education Policy and Museum archives.

William Barringer Logan was living in Missouri and enlisted in the Lyon Home Guard when the Civil War broke out. General Nathaniel Lyon had created the Home Guard in the summer of 1861 to defend innocent civilians in their home regions from guerrillas and pro-South Missourians. Home Guard enlistees were armed by the Union government, but only 10,000 of the estimated 15,000 actually received weapons. They had no uniforms and received no pay unless on active duty. William B. Logan took part in various skirmishes with rebels during his service with the Home Guard.

In February of 1862, Logan enlisted in Company B of the 6^th Missouri Cavalry. This regiment was sent on campaigns to Fort Smith and Fort Gibson and through Indian Territory and Arkansas. After capturing Fort Smith, the regiment then went into Eastern Missouri around Cape Girardeau to prevent General Sterling Price from reaching St. Louis. They assisted in turning the confederates on this invasion up the Missouri River and followed closely after them to Kansas City where Price’s army again turned south. They continued to fight him into Arkansas.

Logan served until the end of the Civil War and was mustered out with the rank of captain. He returned to his farm in Clinton County, MO, but even after the war, hard circumstances beset the farmers in Missouri for many years. Captain Logan was called upon again to fight guerrillas. He organized a band of loyal men to put an end to Ol’ Sheppard and his gang, Missourians who fled to the rugged backcountry and forests to live in hiding and resist the Union occupation of the border counties. These bushwhackers fought Union patrols, typically by ambush, in countless small skirmishes and hit-and-run engagements, but Logan’s group opened the way for permanent peace in that locality.

In 1886, Captain Logan moved to Kansas with his wife, Hannah, and his children, Calvin, Minnie and Kate. Eldest son, William Monroe, had arrived in Kearny County six months earlier. William B. Logan’s years had enabled him to accumulate some possessions and capital so that he did not come to Kansas as poor as many other early settlers. He shipped a carload of goods containing among other things two spans of mules and two cows, household utensils, and about a year’s provisions. He brought with him $1,200 and filed on a homestead in the northern part of the county. There he erected a 34×20-foot soddie with nine-foot ceilings and a 16×16 sod kitchen. All was plastered inside, and a coat of stucco was put on the outside front which gave the Logans the warmest, coolest and roomiest of pioneer homes.

According to A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, Capt. Logan cut the first crop of wheat and the first crop of rye in the north end of Kearny County. He kept his table supplied with roasting ears, melons and other foods that he grew in his garden. The year 1888 was very dry and with general economic conditions deeply depressed, settlers had very little financial backing and left in large numbers. Nearly all the other settlers had left the school district by the time Logan had proved up on his claim, so he exchanged his homestead for a timber claim relinquishment one and a half miles northwest of Deerfield. He proved that up and continued to be identified with farming in Kearny County and with cattle ranching. When the Garden City Sugar Company acquired title for the site of Lake McKinney which included Captain Logan’s tree claim, he purchased a homestead west of Lakin and moved his family there.

Logan was appointed probate judge by Governor John Martin in 1888, serving out an unexpired term. He was then twice elected to this post. In 1903, he ran again and filled the office for another two terms. His principal duties were looking after the filing and proofs of claims, issuing marriage licenses and performing wedding ceremonies. He also served a stint as editor of The Advocate in 1890. After leaving the office of probate judge, Logan devoted himself to the real estate and insurance business, continuing in that work until failing eyesight forced him into retirement.

The building known as the Logan-Otto building was completed in 1908 on the east side of Main Street, Lakin. Logan moved his insurance and real estate business into the north side of the building in June, and the post office moved into Charles Otto’s side in August. Eventually, Logan’s son Will moved his Arkansas Valley Seed House into the back of the building. There was a common stairway between Logan’s side of the building and Otto’s. The upstairs of both buildings were used for social events and as lodges for such groups as the Odd Fellows, Rebekahs, and Knights and Ladies of Security.

Captain Logan was very influential in local politics and served as chairman of the Republican Central Committee in Kearny County for many years. He joined the Presbyterian Church and almost continuously held the office of elder, and he and his wife were regular attendees at Sunday School as long as they were physically able. William served as a school board member, director for the Kearny County Bank, and held membership and offices in other organizations such as the Odd Fellows, Grand Army of the Republic, Sugar Beet Growers of Kearny County, and Masons.

Captain William B. Logan was the last surviving member of the Lakin post of the GAR and was considered one of the most intensely patriotic men in Kearny County. He died at the age of 90 in 1926, and flags were placed at half-mast in recognition of Logan’s service to his country.

SOURCES: “A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans” compiled by William E. Connelley; History of Kearny County Vol. I; National Park Service; Civil War on the Western Border.com; civilwarmo.org; archives of the Advocate and Lakin Independent; and museum archives.

Summertime is synonymous with fishing trips, fireworks, baseball, homemade ice cream AND watermelon. Who wouldn’t want to sink their teeth into a juicy red Black Diamond when the temps are sweltering? Did you know that Kearny County farmers once grew some of the best watermelon in the nation, and instead of being used for human consumption, a large percentage of the melons were harvested for their seeds?

Vine crops like watermelon, cantaloupe and several varieties of musk melons were some of the first crops grown in the county, particularly on the South Side. They were irrigated with a windmill or a small ditch from the river.  As neither of these two means could supply a large amount of water, only small acreages were planted.  Before long, the need for larger irrigation ditches to supply water to larger fields was recognized.

Water from irrigation ditches fueled by the Arkansas was plentiful, and melon raising became a very important industry all along the Arkansas River Valley. Immense vine crops were grown in the 1890s for the D.M. Ferry Seed Company of Detroit, and it was not unusual for farmers to have 50 to 80 acres apiece planted to melons.

The land was carefully prepared for melon planting with seeds planted in rows some four or five feet apart giving adequate room for the vines to grow and produce the delicious fruit.

Harvesting came in the latter part of August and September. Melons were pulled from the vines and piled in the field waiting for the “melon grinder.” The grinder was an ordinary lumber wagon rigged with a wire-covered reel running the long way of the wagon box. A crank was fastened on the end of the reel at the back end of the wagon, and a knife was attached upright to the reel up front. There was a large box kept full of over-ripe melons under the knife. The man standing behind the box would throw a melon into the turning reel allowing the seed to fall through the mesh wire into the wagon box. The melon halves rolled out the back end of the reels into piles. These melons were fed to both hogs and cattle.

When the wagon box had the desired amount of seed in it, a gate under the crank was opened and the seed drained out into a tank to sour. This souring process allowed the seed to be easily separated from the pulp, making washing the seed easier.

On mornings during melon season in Deerfield, the road would be lined with as many as 25 to 50 wagons loaded with barrels of melon on their way to the Arkansas River to wash seeds. After the washing process, seeds were placed on screened wire frames to dry. The frames were several feet off the ground allowing air to circulate and dry the seeds. Once dried, the seeds were ran through a fan mill to clean them from any foreign substance that might remain on them. The next step was to sack the seed for shipping.

In May of 1896, local papers reported that several farmers had filed suit against D.M. Ferry & Co. After receiving all of the previous year’s crop, Ferry & Co. claimed the seed was worthless and refused to pay the contract price. The farmers, in desperate need of their money, decided to do some investigating of their own and sent a seed buyer back to the company to buy a bunch of seed. George H. Tate of Lakin was chosen to do the job. On Tate’s arrival in Detroit, he made known his wants, stating that he would like to buy a large amount of seed grown in Western Kansas, preferably Kearny County. The seed company told Tate they had just what he wanted, the germination was near perfect and grown in Kearny County. He purchased seed and returned with the evidence in hand. In December that year, the Index reported that all the court cases against D.M. Ferry & Co. had been tried and that the farmers had won every time.

In 1909, 50,000 pounds of melon seed valued at 18¢ per pound were shipped from Lakin. One year later, the price had risen to 20¢ per pound. In 1910, William Logan’s Arkansas Valley Seed House was doing so much business that it had to move to a larger location. According to the Advocate, “the three establishments dealing in seeds and grain have had to enlarge their capacity every year for three years past.”

Although sugar beets soon surpassed melons as the main money crop grown in the area, the Advocate reported in 1920 that big, fine watermelons were being brought to town daily by the growers who found a ready sale for them. In the 29th Biennial Report of the State Board of Agriculture, G.W. Pepoon who lived on the South Side reported that melons in irrigated fields yielded 300 pounds of seed per acre in the early 30s. Both melons and sugar beets took a large amount of water to grow and eventually lost their dominance to feed and grain crops.

SOURCES: 29th Biennial Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture; Kansas State Historical Society; History of Kearny County Vol. I; History of Farming in Kearny County by Joyce Kopfman; and archives of The Advocate, Lakin Index and Garden City Sentinel.

John Grusing became a naturalized citizen of the United States on November 16, 1914. He was born in Germany in 1873 and came to the U.S. at the age of 19, settling in Franklin County, Nebraska where he met Anna deVries who was also German-born. They married in 1899, and in 1901, the family moved to Oregon. John suffered severely from poor health which had been brought on by spinal meningitis so they moved back to Kansas, arriving in Leoti in September 1908. After a few weeks, the Grusings moved to their homestead 23 miles north of Lakin where they made a cozy home for their growing family, farmed and raised stock. John’s health improved greatly.

Neither John nor Anna came from ministerial families, but they were instrumental in organizing the Lydia Methodist Church and were both very active workers in its various departments with John serving as a trustee for 52 years and superintendent of the Sunday School for more than 20. The Grusings were respected by their neighbors and were characterized by their fervent faith and devotion. Education was also important to John and Anna. They were determined that their children have a better education than they had and insisted on regular school attendance. John was a director of the Eureka School that their children attended about two miles west of their home.

John played the organ, and the Grusing family loved music and singing. Not only did they sing around the organ or piano, but also while at work. On winter evenings, their big barn echoed with hymns and school songs which were sung from memory while doing chores.

John and Anna had 14 children. The oldest, Gracy, died before she was a month old. Of the remaining 13, four became ordained ministers and three of those served as missionaries in one or another corner of the globe. The other nine served their communities as teachers, church or Sunday School officers, or organists. Their children included sons David, Herman, William, Ed, Henry, Ben and Wesley. Their daughters were Grace Grusing, Helen Kysar, Martha Brown, Alice Geyer, Clara Warrington, and Edith Litton. Many of John and Anna’s descendants still reside in Kearny County.

“We were a happy, contented family enjoying our comfortable home and each other. There was a feeling of security and well-being,” recalled some of the Grusing children in Volume I of Kearny County’s history. Daughter Martha, a missionary in Africa, said her parents “taught us to trust the Lord Jesus for salvation, and to live lives of usefulness.”

Both Anna and John died at their home north of Lakin, Anna in January of 1959 and John in March of 1961. They are buried at the Lydia Methodist Cemetery.

His family and his church were John’s life, and with Father’s Day approaching, we pay tribute to John Grusing and all other fathers who have sacrificed unselfishly to provide for their families and raise their children to be respectful and contributing citizens. One of John’s neighbors once said, “If every man in the world were like John Grusing, we would need no armies and no policemen.”

SOURCES: History of Kearny County Vols. I & II; Diggin’ Up Bones by Betty Barnes; Ancestry.com; archives of the Lakin Independent and Methodist Life; and Museum archives.

In March of 1925, the new bridge over the Arkansas at Deerfield opened to much fanfare.  A parade was formed going out to the bridge where Commissioners George B. Martin and Thomas Williams took down the bars and the long procession passed over. After the bridge’s inspection, Rev. H. J.  Karstensen of the Deerfield Lutheran Church gave a superlative speech suitable to the occasion. This was followed up by more speeches and then a free dinner at Deerfield’s theater. Over 500 meals were served, and the Kearny County Advocate reported that the crowd was one of the largest that Deerfield had experienced in a good many years.

According to the March 27, 1925 Lakin Independent, the bridge was 630 feet long and consisted of seven spans of 90 feet each. Twenty-five-foot piling was driven into the river bed as a foundation for the concrete pillars to rest upon. They reached the solid ground below the sand and cut off eight feet below the surface to prevent rotting. Steel strings with steel banisters were built to span the distance between the pillars upon which a concrete floor was laid. A one-lane structure with a width of only 16 feet, the bridge was considered wide for that period of time and was one of the most substantial structures across the Arkansas River in Kansas. Engineer R. B. Glass said the new bridge would hold up a Santa Fe train. The entire cost of the bridge, according to the paper, was $48,902.25.

In November of 1976, The Lakin Independent reported that the contract for a new bridge at Deerfield had been awarded to L & M Construction Company of Great Bend, Kansas, on a bid of $285,988. Load capacity of the old bridge had been limited to passenger vehicles and light trucks, and the Kearny County highway department constructed a temporary crossing in the river bed the previous year so that farm trucks and heavier industrial loads could cross the river.

Former Kearny County Historical Society president Foster Eskelund wrote to O.D. Turner, Secretary of the Kansas Department of Transportation, in hopes that the old bridge would be deeded to the KCHS which would preserve the historical landmark, and a petition was circulated to this effect.

Eskelund received his answer in March of 1978 when Raymond E. Olson, engineer of secondary roads for the State of Kansas, replied to Foster’s request. Because the new bridge across the Arkansas River was constructed immediately adjacent to the old bridge with only about an eight-foot clearance between the two, and the spans between piers of the bridges were of different lengths, there was no line-up of the piers. “This has the effect of providing many obstacles in the river that tend to collect trash and trees which the Arkansas River is famous for during periods of flood. There is a good possibility that the piers of the old bridge will collect and build up debris until it deposits in the piers of the new bridge. We do not think this would be a good thing for the new facility,” wrote Olson. “It is the matter of debris that becomes the primary reason to remove the existing bridge.”

Although Olson said that the KCHS might be able to negotiate with the contractor to dismantle a span of the old bridge for assembly at another place, there is no evidence in the society’s records that this was ever done. Dismantling of the old bridge began in April of 1978.

SOURCES: Museum archives and archives of the Advocate, Independent and Garden City Telegram.

In June 1921, the Pueblo Flood swept the Arkansas River Valley and left much destruction in its wake. Heavy rains began west of Pueblo at Dry Creek on June 2, leading the river to swell to more than thirteen feet on the gauge at Pueblo’s Main Street Bridge. Then intense rains began in the city on the afternoon of the 3^rd. By midnight on the 4th, the flooding peaked at more than 24.5 feet. Levees broke in several spots and inundated a large part of Pueblo’s downtown covering the business district with water that reached a depth of 20 feet in some places.

Raging waters rushed down the Arkansas, and torrential rains exacerbated the problem. On June 3, Lakin’s Independent praised the much-needed and long-hoped-for rain, but a week later it was a very different story.

“The long looked for rain arrived Thursday evening, and it was no gentle shower, a five-inch fall being recorded and this stands for all parts of the county.” With high water cutting off nearly all transportation, mail carriers had a flood-enforced layoff, and Lakin was left without power when a pole carrying the transmission line was destroyed. Portions of the Santa Fe Railroad tracks between Hartland and Sutton, as well as two miles east of Lakin, were damaged. A set of farm buildings was carried away between Deerfield and Holcomb, and irrigation canals sustained damage from the high waters as well.

At Deerfield, part of their bridge across the river was “some where else than here now the high water taking it out.” Later reports said that 160 feet of the bridge was taken out, cutting off the South Side and greatly inconveniencing its residents.

The Hartland bridge was swept away as well. Lakin’s new concrete bridge which had been completed in 1917 withstood the rampage; however, the road south of the bridge was left in very poor condition. Reports came in that three men who came down the Arkansas river on logs were rescued near Kendall, and at Sutton, Will Thompson and his wife were found sitting on the highest hill north of the river. The Thompsons had fled there after moving their household goods to the upper story of the headgate house.

On June 17, The Advocate reported that the water at the south approach to the Lakin bridge was still too deep for automobiles, and South Side farmers were forced to make the trip to town with “the old and reliable horse and wagon.” Teams of horses were required to help cars that attempted the trip across this stretch of road. While it took much longer to repair the bridges, passenger and freight traffic on the Santa Fe between Dodge City and La Junta was finally resumed after a 12-day tie up.

At the highest mark, the flood water of the Arkansas did not spread to more than a mile wide here. According to the Independent, damage done by the flood was hard to estimate, but Kearny County had not suffered as great a loss as had a number of counties in eastern Colorado and Western Kansas. At Syracuse, Stillman Hixson drowned after aiding a number of tourists who were trapped in the high water. Hixson was hit by a nearly eight-foot high wall of water that came rushing down upon him and swept him off the railroad track where he had gone to seek safety.

The flood was the worst in Pueblo’s history, and the number of casualties is still unknown. Many bodies washed up later, some much later than the initial aftermath of the tragedy. Many victims did not have family looking for them because they were poor, single immigrants; others were never found. The list of missing people was nearly twice as long as the list of the deceased, ranging from 50 in the days after the flood to nearly 300 in the following weeks. In addition, some of those who were missing were later found alive but were not reported as such.

Buildings collapsed at Pueblo, some because train cars that were swept up in the flood had crashed into them. The spark from a downed power line ignited boards at a local lumber company and created a fire that damaged many of the remaining structures. Telephone lines were destroyed affecting communication between Pueblo and the rest of the state, and there was no power. The streets were  littered with debris and mud, and decomposing bodies of livestock littered the Ark Valley. All told, the flood inundated 300 square miles and carried away more than 500 houses, along with 98 businesses or industrial buildings, 61 stores, 46 locomotives, and 1,274 railroad cars.

Prior to the Pueblo Flood, Kearny County had suffered its share of losses from Arkansas River flood waters, and the wooden bridges at Hartland, Lakin and Deerfield were frequently under deluge. On May 29, 1902, Thomas Hinsley drowned at Hartland while trying to save the bridge. The 52-year-old was taking up some flooring and was swept into the current. During that flood, Hartland’s bridge lost a span of 125 feet. In August of that year, the bridges at Kendall, Lakin and Deerfield all suffered damage “owing to the river being on a tare.”

Parts of the Hartland, Lakin and Deerfield bridges were taken out in early October 1904 when flood waters from Trinidad, Colorado flowed into the Arkansas at Las Animas and reached Kansas. Although the Kendall bridge was not damaged, Charles Johnson tried to cross the river there and lost one horse and a wagon in the rapidly swelling tide. By December 10, only the Hartland bridge had been repaired and was usable. Four years later, all three of Kearny County’s bridges were washed out when a cloudburst near Lamar, Colo., made the river rise rapidly. It was the most flood damage experienced here up until that time.

In May 1914, another flood washed away part of the Hartland and Lakin river bridges while the Deerfield bridge went unscathed. Then in September 1915, the Lakin bridge went out again. Word had been received that the Arkansas was out of its banks at Colorado, and this area was hit by the heaviest rainstorm of that season. “The flood reached this place at about 8 p.m.,” reported The Lakin Independent, “and the rush of the water was heard for miles.”

SOURCES: History Colorado.org; Colorado Encyclopedia.org; History of Kearny County Vol. II; archives of the Lakin Investigator, Lakin Independent, Advocate and Syracuse Journal; and Museum archives.

In section 5 in the northeast corner of the Lakin Cemetery stands a grave that has been veiled in mystery for many years. Was the man buried there Chinese or Japanese, a cook or a farmer? Over the years, various theories and translations of the foreign language on the marker have been offered, but they don’t add up to a neat and tidy airtight case.

As reported in Volume I of the History of Kearny County Kansas, the grave was thought to be that of a Chinese man who was an employee of the Garden City Land and Irrigation Company. The man was supposedly a cook for the construction gang during the making of Lake McKinney.

The second volume of Kearny County history stated the grave was believed to be that of a man of Japanese origin who died in Kearny County in April 1908. “One translation states that he was a man of 24 years by the name of Inutaro Miiyamoto.” There is no information provided as to where this theory was derived.

In 1976, Richard L. Spear, Associate Professor of Oriental Languages & Literature at the University of Kansas, translated the inscription on the tombstone and identified the man buried there as Rintaro Tokunaga. “Tokunaga is the family name, Rintaro the given name.  The characters are read down from right to left. They are clearly carved by someone unfamiliar with written Japanese,” wrote Spear. Spear further wrote that Tokunaga was of Japanese descent and was 33 years of age at the time of his death on April 4, 1908.

In the early 1980s, Verla Hancock of Springfield, Colorado made a rubbing of the gravestone while visiting friends in Lakin. She sent a copy of the inscription to the Department of State in Washington to have it translated into English to which she received the following reply, “We have translated the inscription as follows: “My dearest husband Takumago Taro Age 33, April 4, 1908.” Furthermore, the Department of State letter noted the name and the flag on top of the stone were both Japanese.

No mentions of a local Chinese man could be found in the papers; however, there were two mentions of a Japanese man dying at this time. On May 1, 1908, The Lakin Investigator reported that “Mr. Ritapunago, one of our Japanese farmers on the southside, was buried in the Lakin cemetery on Wednesday afternoon. He was 35 years of age.” A week later, the Advocate report was basically the same but did not list an age or name.

A few years ago, the Museum was gifted with the old Rolodex systems from the Lakin Cemetery. Curiously enough, the index card for the grave listed two names, Rintaro Tokunaga and Ritapunago.  “News” was cited as the source of the information. In 1960 when Vernon “Barney” Barnes became caretaker of the Lakin Cemetery, many of the graves were not marked nor entered in the records. Little by little, Barney and his wife, Betty, put together whatever information they could find, and it is very likely that the rolodex card was completed during this time.

Eventually Betty published a series of books entitled “Diggin’ Up Bones” which contains obituaries for those buried in local cemeteries. Betty’s entry for the mysterious grave reads, “Tokunaga, Rintaro – Sec. 5 NE Corner of Cemetery” but includes the May 1, 1908 article from the Lakin Investigator with Mr. Ritapunago’s name in it. Having his age and name wrong in the newspaper would not have been uncommon for that time, especially when the subject was a little-known foreigner and Japanese interpreters were scarce. Perhaps that is the conclusion that Betty Barnes came to and that she believed the two men were one in the same; however, she also included the Department of State’s translation in her entry.

In researching this article, the author could find no information or records for any of the names associated with the grave other than Tokunaga’s but did uncover a new piece of evidence. An article appearing in the Dec. 22, 1908 Hutchinson News reported that the M.L. Grimes monument company had just completed a gravestone to mark the grave of a native of Japan. “The stone is not large and it contains the darwing (drawing) of the Japanese flag and the Japanese letters spelling out the name of R. Tokunaga, who died on April 4, 1908.” The paper said the stone was ordered by a friend of Mr. Tokunaga’s who was living at Granada, Colo. Grimes said the gravestone was the first that his store had made for a foreigner and that the Japanese lettering was a new thing for the workmen in the shop; however, the article stated that Mr. Tokunaga had died at Granada and was buried there.

There are too many similarities in the Hutch News article to dismiss it. Research in the online archives of the Colorado papers, on findagrave.com and Ancestry came up empty for an R. Tokunaga in Colorado at that time. Japanese began settling around the Granada area in 1900, and it is possible that Tokunaga came to Kearny County from there. In 1907, the Garden City Reflector and Advocate reported that the sugar company (later known as Garden City Land and Irrigation Company) was leasing several sections of its land in Kearny County to Japanese farmers to cultivate sugar beets. Many of the businessmen who invested in the sugar beet industry were from Colorado so it makes sense that they recruited Japanese farmers from that area.

T.J. Randolph of the Lakin Cemetery said that Rintaro Tokunaga is the name on the Cemetery’s data base. The author believes that the gravestone made in Hutchinson is the same small one located in section 5 of the Lakin Cemetery marking Tokunaga’s final resting place. The tombstone was broken in the 1980s and was pieced back together, but is showing its age. Randolph said he would like to see the stone replaced with a new one to appropriately honor the man buried there and is in hopes that donations will fund the project.

SOURCES: Diggin’ Up Bones by Betty Barnes; History of Kearny County Vols. I & II; ancestry.com; newspapers.com; findagrave.com; amache.org; Museum archives and archives of The Advocate, Lakin Investigator, Garden City Reflector, Garden City Telegram, and Hutchinson News, with special thanks to T.J. Randolph.