News, Events & County History

Knowing that an investment in education pays the best dividends, Kansans invested early on in the education of their young folk. Two hundred school districts were organized in 1884, and among them was School District No. 3 of Finney County. This district included the east half of present-day Kearny County. On Kansas Day 1884, a new town hall was christened on the east side of Lakin’s Main Street. The hall was used as a school, church, and community gathering place, but by the end of 1885, it became ever apparent that the building would very soon be too small to accommodate the ever-growing population of young people.

An election was called to vote bonds to construct a modern school building and passed unanimously. The contract was let in April 1886 to W.J. Hobson of St. Joe, Mo. for $9,500. Designed by E.J. Eckel of St. Joe, Mo., “It will be an ornament to the town and a credit to the people who so cheerfully assumed the responsibility of providing such excellent facilities for the education of our youth.” Construction commenced immediately in the center of Block 50 with a completion goal set for August 25^th of that year. The cornerstone was placed in a grand celebration on July 5 that included orators and speakers, ladies on horseback in red, white and blue, a basket dinner, baseball game, lofty tumbling performance by the Fat Men’s Club, fireworks, and pony, foot and sack races.

Among the speakers was A.B. Boylan, director of the board of education. “A few slight years have elapsed since this all was the range of the buffalo, antelope, and the wild horse. Little did I think when I first took up my abode on this then wilderness of a prairie that I would be called upon such an occasion, but so it is.” Boylan closed with this sentiment that still rings true today, “It is necessary that our children still have the advantage of education that they may understand the constitution of the United States, that they may form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity.”

Thirteen days later, the school building was hit by a tornado. The north side was blown down, delaying completion until late October. School opened Monday, November 1, 1886 with four teachers and an enrollment of about 80 pupils. D.D. Davidson was the superintendent.

Three of the school’s four rooms were fitted for school use. Primary grades 1,2 and 3 were together while the intermediate grades of 4,5 and 6 were in another room. High school was considered grades 7, 8 and freshmen. The fourth room was unfurnished and became known as the “Lodge Room” for local fraternities of the Masons, I.O.O.F., Knights of Pythias, Modern Woodmen, Knights and Ladies of Security, and others.

An addition of two large rooms was completed in 1912, one upstairs for an assembly room and a room downstairs for the primary grades. The basement was also added to, and a new furnace was installed. Inspections in 1919 revealed that the stone foundation on the original part of the building had deteriorated and was becoming unstable. Architects recommended that building a new school would be more cost-effective than repairing the old one, and in May of 1920, the walls of the 1886 building were laid to the ground.

SOURCES: Dec. 12, 1884 Smith County Bulletin; 1885 and 1886 archives of The Advocate; May 23, 1919 Advocate; May 7, 1920 Lakin Independent; History of Kearny County, Kansas Vol. 1; and museum archives.

When Governor Martin declared Lakin as the temporary seat of Kearney County in 1888, the former City Restaurant building on Lot 7 in Block 6 was rented for $15 per month to house the court house and county officers. The building had been erected by H.C. Robinson in 1885 and sat just southeast of Lakin’s Town Hall. When a tornado struck Lakin in July of 1886, the town hall was thrown from its foundation and demolished. Portions of the hall’s roof and building were hurled against the restaurant, but Robinson’s building survived the tempest. Soon after the building was rented by the commissioners, a stone vault was constructed at the back of the building to protect the county’s records. Rock for the vault was brought from quarries northeast of Kendall.

After Lakin lost the county seat election in 1889, Hartland’s Kearney House was rented as the court house. The hotel was a grand two-story structure that had been built for $3,500 in 1886 and was located just north of Hartland’s depot. Originally operated by the Bowen Bros., the hotel changed hands several times. L.E. Williams was the proprietor at the time of the January 1894 courthouse fire and sued county commissioners for negligence. In February of 1897, the Finney County District Court found the commissioners guilty as they had violated their lease by allowing the Kearney House to be occupied by a person who was not a county officer. There had also been hay, straw and other combustibles stored in unoccupied rooms of the building, and the hall door had been left open. The assessed damages came to $1,200. County commissioners appealed, and the verdict was reversed in July of 1899. The case then went to the Supreme Court which overturned the verdict. In July of 1900, county warrants were drawn for $1,674.34 and paid out to Williams.

After the Kearney House burnt, county commissioners rented a building in Hartland commonly known as the Jones building to house county offices. The two-story structure was just south of Hartland’s post office, and monthly rent was $15. This was a considerable savings as rent at the Kearney House had been $40 per month.

After the special county seat election in June of 1894, court offices were moved back to Lakin in the south side of what was commonly called the Spivey & Holmes building. Located on the southeast corner of Main and Waterman, this two-story building was opened in May of 1886 and had several office spaces. Holmes Hall, a large hall on the second floor that had been used as a community gathering place, was converted into a court room. The Kearny County Bank occupied the north part of the building.

By spring of 1895, county officials had grown weary of the condition of the Spivey & Holmes building and claimed that county records were being damaged whenever a rain shower or dust storm hurled across the prairie. Besides that, monthly rent was $105. J.H. Leeman had torn down his Hartland hotel, the Buffalo House, and rebuilt it in Lakin on the west corner of South Main and Railroad Avenue. Renamed the Lakin House, Leeman offered up the building as a location for the court house in the fall of 1895, and commissioners accepted Leeman’s proposition for $40 per month. The court house remained at this location until 1899.  At that time, the court house was moved back to the Spivey & Holmes building where county offices occupied the greater portion of the structure. Though remodeled several times during its existence, this building eventually became too small to house the court house.

American Legion members became the driving force behind the building of a new court house, circulating petitions to start a building fund and urging commissioners to purchase the block where the current court house stands. A federal public works grant of $31,5000 helped fund the construction, with remaining costs met locally. The court house was completed in August of 1939 at an original construction cost of $70,000. This amount excluded the jail and library additions which were completed in 1964 and 1973, respectively.

An estimated 3,500 people converged on Lakin when the court house and Highway K-25 South were dedicated in September 1939. The highly anticipated dedication day was full of activities with the highlight of the day being an address on the court house steps by Kansas Governor Payne Ratner. The joyous celebration was a rarity in a decade plagued by dust storms and the Great Depression.

“This dedicatory ceremony is a tribute to the progressiveness of those who made the building and the day possible,” Gov. Ratner said. “It seems to me the occasion should also be regarded as a time for dedicating our efforts toward better government—county, state, and national. It should be a time of inspiration, directing us to better citizenship, to greater fields of endeavor, and to larger and more useful lives.” Dr. Grant Hastings, chairman of the festivities, joked that the occasion was the first time a governor had visited Lakin outside of an election year.

SOURCES: Archives of the Kearny County Coyote, Lakin Investigator, Lakin Index, Pioneer Democrat, Kearny County Advocate, and Lakin Independent; History of Kearny County Vol. I and II; and museum archives.

John O’Loughlin’s arrival in the spring of 1873 signaled the beginning of a new town, but Lakin’s growth was relatively slow until 1879. Lakin’s first newspaper, the Lakin Eagle, arrived on the scene in May of that year. Four Lakin businesses advertised in the Eagle’s inaugural issue – O’Loughlin’s general merchandise; Harrison Burtch’s saloon; Gray & Jones groceries, hardware and lumber; and Potter Cason & Co. land agents. O’Loughlin had outgrown his dug-out trading post by this time, and carpenters were at work on a 30×50 two-story store building for Lakin’s founding father. The store sat next to his dug-out on the railroad right-of-way which became Lakin’s first business district. This strip of land, originally referred to as Main Street, began near Buffalo Street and ran about three blocks west. The Harvey House and railroad section house had been built here, and they were joined in the summer of 1879 by Joseph Dillon’s hardware store, George Bandall’s blacksmith shop and W.P. Loucks’ boarding house. In time, the strip became known as Front Street.

Cattle ranching was already a thriving business here, but the Eagle encouraged homesteaders to come here by promoting the agricultural possibilities. Pioneers were lured here by cheap land and the construction of irrigation ditches. In an area lacking in trees, the Eagle touted our natural building materials of sand stone, blue lime stone and potters clay. The Eagle predicted that Lakin would be the largest town in western Kansas in less than five years and claimed that the only thing holding Lakin back was the refusal of the Arkansas Valley Town Company to lay off the townsite into lots.

By the end of 1879, other businesses had set up shop in Lakin, but the Eagle had ceased operation. In the 1880 U.S. census, Kearney Township of Ford County had a population of 159, most of whom were living at Lakin either in the Harvey House, section house, shanties, dugouts or one of the few private residences that had been built. Aside of railroad and Harvey House employees, other occupations listed in the census included music teacher, grocer, carpenter, store clerk, druggist, harness maker, wild horse catcher, stone mason, lawyer, printer, cattlemen and laborers.

On March 7, 1882, Gilbert Bedell, an engineer from Larned, assisted by F.L. Pierce and Dayton Loucks, commenced a survey on Sec. 27, Twp. 24, Range 36 preparatory to the platting of Lakin. The original plat consisted of Blocks 1 through 20 with all east-west streets called avenues, and north-south roads called streets. Named for James Waterman who had come to Lakin in 1880 in the employ of the railroad, Waterman Avenue was the only street on the original plat dubbed for a local. Proprietors began moving their businesses from Front Street to the “new” Main Street, and O’Loughlin began digging a cellar on the northwest corner of Main and Waterman preparatory to moving his general store building there. Lakin’s new depot was completed in the spring of 1882 and sat back a small distance off South Main. In June, the Arkansas Valley Town Company requested that all those who hadn’t moved off the railroad right-of-way be removed at once.

The Lakin Herald reported steady growth, “Our town is fast building up, every week adds another new house to our young city.” Businesses were also being erected on Waterman Avenue which was the main thoroughfare through Lakin prior to the construction of Highway 50. Lakin was becoming “civilized” with literary societies and a town orchestra. Herald Editor Joseph Dillon encouraged citizens to plant trees to beautify the town. “The planting of trees shows taste and refinement.”

This area which was once labeled as the Great American Desert was promoted as the Garden of the West by land speculators. The extensive advertising campaign by the A,T&SF and the passing of the Homestead and Tree Claim Acts brought in settlers in ever-increasing numbers from 1883 to 1888. In 1883, construction began on Lakin’s town hall which was used not only for activities and meetings but also as a school and church. A $10,000 schoolhouse was opened in November 1886, and Lakin was designated as the temporary county seat of the newly organized Kearney County in March of 1888.

Lakin lost the county seat to neighboring Hartland in 1889. This loss, coupled with drought and nation-wide economic depression, led to a large number of settlers leaving the area.  Portions of the supplemental plats that had been completed in 1885 and 1887 were vacated and returned to acreage to relieve the owners of paying city tax. Lakin’s boom had broke.

John O’Loughlin’s general store on the corner of Main and Waterman.

Sources: The Lakin Eagle from May 20, 1879 through Oct. 10, 1879; The Lakin Herald from June 24, 1881 through Dec. 28, 1883; Kansas State Historical Society; History of Kearny County Vol. I, and museum archives.

The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad constructed a two-story dining hall in Lakin in 1876 west of John O’Loughlin’s trading post near present-day Hamilton Street. The wooden structure was built at a cost of little more than $5,000, and announcements of the eating house’s opening appeared in papers across the state in May of that year.

About that same time, Fred Harvey struck a deal with Santa Fe superintendent Charlie Morse to take over a lunchroom on the second floor of the Topeka depot. Harvey got the space rent-free. In addition, the Santa Fe covered all the utilities and provided free transportation for Harvey’s eating house provisions and employees. As landlord, the railroad also covered the major equipment expenses, but food, labor and any upgrades were Harvey’s responsibilities. Harvey hired Guy Potter, a friend and former proprietor of the Planter’s House livery stable at Leavenworth, to run the lunchroom. The venture proved successful for both Harvey and the railroad, and thus began a chain of events that would ultimately earn Harvey the distinction as creator of America’s first restaurant chain.

By the end of 1876, Guy Potter had made his way to Lakin and was managing the railroad’s eating house which was often referred to as the Lakin House. Potter had a reputation for being good-natured and hospitable, and for serving square meals. “No one need go hungry who patronizes him, and we should judge that it was pretty well-known from the number that register with him,” proclaimed a Kansas editor who ate there in 1877. Potter and Harvey remained friends, and when the Potters’ 19-year-old daughter, Frankie, passed away that summer, her remains were taken back to Leavenworth and the funeral held at the Harvey home.

In January of 1878, Topeka’s Daily Commonwealth reported that Harvey had entered into the hotel business at Florence, Ks. Both the hotel and restaurant were upgraded. A top chef was brought in, and a revised menu featuring fish and local game cooked European-style was created. The tables were set with Irish linens, china and stemware from London, and silver plates from Sheffield.  Matthew Fisher was hired to manage the establishment. Like Potter, Fisher had also previously been with the Planter’s House where he served as steward of what was considered one of the finest hotels in the west. Florence’s Harvey House quickly became so successful that its rooms were constantly sold out.

In March of 1878, the Leavenworth Times reported that Harvey was the new proprietor of Lakin’s eating house. Guy Potter and his wife were still managing the facility and providing service “seasoned with smiles and hearty good humor.” Although Lakin’s depot hotel was not as extravagant as the one at Florence, excellent service, imported linens and consistently good fresh food were always on the menu. “The best place to eat and sleep in the Wild West,” the hotel quickly became Harvey’s home away from home.

It wasn’t long before Mr. Fisher was called up to manage Lakin’s eating house while Potter eventually became manager of Harvey’s cattle ranch at Granada, Colo. Among other employees in Lakin’s eating house were Florence and Charles Beauman, Harvey’s niece and nephew from England. In November of 1878, Carrie E. Davies and her two children arrived from Chicago to make their home at the hotel with her then-husband and chef, Samuel Phillips, who had moved to Lakin earlier. When the family moved to their claim west of Lakin, Carrie ordered a dozen trees, part cottonwood and part elm. When she received them, the ground was so hard at her homestead that it was impossible to dig holes, but manager Fisher offered to buy the trees. They were then planted in front of the eating house around a fountain. The water supply was sufficient to keep the elms alive, but the cottonwoods died.

Because this was early on in Harvey’s career, the dining hall was not yet being referred to as a Harvey House in the papers. By August of 1879, rumors were circulating that the railroad was going to move the eating station. The dining hall was moved in December 1880 to Sargent (Coolidge) which became the division point of the A,T&SF in 1881. This same Harvey House was later moved to Syracuse where it was destroyed by fire in 1906.

There are no known pictures of the eating house when it was at Lakin. Mrs. Davies’s elms served as the only visible evidence of its location for years.  Davies once wrote, “As I look at those trees with their strong bodies and lovely leaves, I think how fittingly they represent the early settlers. Storms of life may come, winds of affliction may blow, the scorching suns of adversity may shine but through it all, the old settlers rejoice in the rainbow promise and receive the rain that causes sweet memories to be ever green and refreshing.”

By 1962, only one elm remained. When the tree died, part of the elm was brought to the museum where it is on display in the annex.

Sources: A,T& SF Railroad Annual Report for the year ending December 31, 1876; May 17, 1876 Harvey County News; Feb. 5, 1871 June 21, 1877, Aug. 1, 1877 and  March 7, 1878 Leavenworth Times; May 27, 1879 Dodge City Globe; Aug. 12, 1879 Lakin Eagle; Dec. 19, 1876 and Jan.3, 1878 The Daily Commonwealth; June 8, 1888 Hutchinson News; Appetite for America by Stephen Fried; History of Kearny County Vol. 1, and museum archives.

When temperatures drop and you reach for another log to throw on the fire, just remember it could be worse. You could be grabbing a cow chip.

Keeping warm in the winter was a real problem in the 1800s on the treeless Kansas prairie. Called “bois de vache” or “wood of the buffalo” by French explorers, dried buffalo dung or “chips” became the main fuel source. Buffalo chips were nearly odorless and clean to handle after drying in the hot sun for a few weeks. Because they burned with little flame, “bois de vache” were perfect for heating and cooking, and they were readily available to travelers on the Santa Fe Trail who would fill the underbelly of their wagons with the precious commodity. This fuel supply was soon depleted when the buffalo were killed off. Settlers then began using cow chips.

Quirky as it may sound, there was a science to picking out the better quality chips. A chip from cattle on lush, tender grass was almost worthless as it burned fast and didn’t last long. Those that had been exposed to wind and rain gave off very little heat and produced a great deal of ash. Good, mature buffalo grass in the fall made the ideal chips. The chips held their shape, burnt well but not fast, and furnished the maximum B.T.U.’s.

Cow chips were gathered and stored for the winter as autumn set in, and it was not uncommon to see a huge pile stacked outside of a prairie home. Cooking with the chips did not change the taste of the food, but many women had quite the aversion to bringing cow manure into their homes to cook with. They became adept at cooking with the fuel, learning to stir with one hand and tossing another chip on the fire with the other.

The famous photograph of Ada McColl steering a wheelbarrow full of chips was taken around 1893 near her Lakin home.  Entitled “Independence on the Plains. Gathering Chips,” the image is well known in historical circles and has appeared in a number of publications and on the front cover of Joanna Stratton’s Pioneer Women. The Finney County Historical Society even used the image as the official FCHS logo for a time.

Ada moved from Medicine Lodge in 1886 to Lakin where her family homesteaded. She had not planned on being one of the most well-known pioneer women models but instead wanted to learn how to operate a camera. She began serving as an apprentice at H.L. Wolf’s photography shop in Garden City. Wolf gave Ada a few pointers on using the camera her parents had bought her, and she went on to create family portraits and to document the Kansas prairie. She kept records of photography expenses and numbered and/or named all of her photographs. “Gathering Chips” was taken by Ada’s mother, Polly McColl. Polly also took a turn posing behind the wheelbarrow of prairie woodfire in a lesser known photo. Wolf processed Ada’s photographs from her glass negatives in his studio and may have received credit for some of her work as dozens of copies of the “Cow Chip Lady” were printed in the 1890s.

While visiting relatives in Iowa in 1893, Ada met her future husband. She moved to Iowa in 1895, leaving her negatives and photograph collection behind with Wolf. In a letter dated March 30, 1895, Wolf told Ada that he would send them to her at any time should she want them. Apparently, she never asked him to send them to her. When Wolf sold out, he left the plates in his studio, and the new owner took possession of them.

After nearly 100 years of obscurity and speculating who the woman in the photograph was, Ada McColl was finally identified as the “Cow Chip Lady” in 1984 when her great-granddaughter presented several pieces of evidence to the Kansas State Historical Society, completing a quest that had been started in 1964 by Ada’s daughter, Erma Pryor. Ada Catherine McColl Thiles died in Iowa in 1956 at the age of 85, but her iconic photo has made the “Cow Chip Lady” a lasting figure in American (and Lakin) history.

Sources: Kansas State Historical Society; The Sequoyan Volume 6 Number 2; nebraskastudies.org; ancestry.com; and museum archives.