A Century of Greenwood County, KS History

A Century of Greenwood County, KS History - Eureka Herald, 1968

1871

Ordinance 16 of the city of Eureka, passed in June, 1871, fixed the salary of the city clerk at $150 per year, payable quarterly. The city treasurer's salary was 1/2 of 1 per cent of all monies received and distributed by him. the city marshall received $100 per year. (July 6, 1871) We got out half a sheet this week because we have not had sufficient working force in the office to get out a whole one. We shall issue a whole one next week and a larger paper afterward.

Ordinance No. 22 (August) stated it was unlawful for any person or persons to stack hay, straw or grain on any lot fronting Main street between River and Fifth streets.

Moore, Weaver & co., located at the corner of First and Main streets was dealing in drugs, medicines, paint, lamp chimneys, fancy toilet articles, flower seeds, patent medicines and Singer sewing machines.

Several of Eureka's fairest daughters were out for a horseback ride. They presented a beautiful appearance as they rode through the streets. Eureka boasts a number of accomplished horsewomen.

Our New Schoolhouse

The contract for the building of the new schoolhouse in Dist. 4 (city of Eureka) has been awarded to our capable townsmen, Messrs. Martz and Reich, who are to push to work forward to as early a completion as so large a contract and the safety of the structure will permit. The building is to be built of brick. The cost will be about $15,000.

Stages are now running from Eureka to Elk Falls, where they connect with other lines for all parts of Howard County.

With this number, the Herald enters on the fourth year. Three years ago, when Eureka was a town of 29 inhabitants, we worked off the first number of the Herald in a miserable log cabin, by the light of a tallow candle, fastened in a monkey wrench. Our material was hauled from Topeka, that being the nearest railroad point. In fact, there was not a mile of railroad running in the state south of the Kansas Pacific. There were stage lines running from Lawrence to Emporia, also from Topeka. But south and west of the Neosho, there were no public conveyances. There was a mail route from Burlington to Eureka, on which we had semi-weekly service. There was also weekly service from Emporia via Madison, to Verdigris Falls, and also from the latter point to Pleasant Grove. The Otter Creek neighborhood had a few inhabitants and from that to the south line of the state there were not a dozen white inhabitants. Butler County had a very sparse population. There were a few traders, etc. in Sedgwick, but all south and west was entirely uninhabited by the whites.

For many months the Herald was the pioneer paper of the southwestern portion of Kansas, it being the only paper south of the Neosho. How it struggled for existence, some of its readers know. But that picture we do not care to draw again. The present and the future look much brighter to us than the past.

It is difficult to realize that but three years have passed during which such wonderful changes have taken place. Railroads have been built from Kansas City to the south line of the state. The M.K.&T. Road has been completed to a connection with the Missouri Pacific, and its main line is being rapidly pushed south toward Texas. The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe is also completed most of the distance to the Arkansas. A road has been constructed from Kansas City to Ottawa which will soon be extended to the southwest via Burlington and Eureka. A road is now being constructed from Fort Scott to Humboldt, which will also be extended west through Eureka.

When the Herald was started, there were but three or four towns south of the Neosho that had even a name and the total population of the whole did not exceed seventy. Now the whole country to the state line south, and a long way west of the Arkansas river is dotted with towns which count their population by the hundred, and all of which are sharing the general growth and prosperity.

Eureka, from a hamlet of a dozen shanties, has grown to be a city of a thousand inhabitants, with its hundreds of stores and dwellings, to which will soon be added a fine school house and a good courthouse. The stone school house, when commenced, was to be the largest and finest building in Greenwood county. But such was the growth of the town that before the building was completed, it was seen that it was planned on too small a scale, and further expense on it was stopped. It has never been completed.

In place of Palmer's little mule, which put in his semi-WEAKLY appearance here and constituted almost entire connection with the outside world, the Southwestern Stage Company's lines put us in daily connection with the north, east and west, while several other routes, tri-weekly, semi-weekly and weekly, diverge in various directions.

The Herald has shared in the general prosperity. It started out as a six-column paper, was enlarged to seven columns, and we, this week, present it to its readers again enlarged and otherwise improved. With regard to its future course, we can only say that, as in the past it will be Republican in politics. At the same time it will advocate the fight and condemn wrong under all circumstances.

We hope in the future, as business increases and as our means increase, to keep the Herald in the front rank. We shall make it just as good as its income will admit of, and as several experienced publishers have said, the fact that the Herald has survived during the first year of its existence shows that we can do a very great deal in the future. If we can be excused for a little boasting we will just say that the Herald has a good subscription list, all volunteer, no canvassing having ever been done for it. The size of this list, the rarity of discontinuance, and the promptness of payment by its subscribers show that the efforts of its editor to make a good paper here have not been failures.

We offer our hearty thanks to all who have befriended us, and earnestly ask the cooperation of all in our efforts to build up a paper which shall be an honor to our city and county.

There were 60 business hoses on Main street in January, 1871.

In June, 1871, a terrific storm descended on El Dorado and surrounding area. Over 100 houses were demolished and the loss estimated at $450,000. More than farmers were in the path of the storm. A canvas was made in Greenwood County to aid the suffering citizens of Butler County.

Last Saturday the people of this district voted to issue $15,000 to build a schoolhouse. Only four votes were cast against the bonds. This action shows what kind of people we have here. Ever ready to take hold of any public work, they do so with a will whenever called upon. Eureka now pays a large portion of the taxes of this county, and we have yet to hear the first grumble at paying taxes for any public purpose. We think that a schoolhouse will be built here which will be an honor not only to Eureka but the whole of Greenwood County.

A Sabbath School had been organized at the Quincy schoolhouse with J.E. Walters as superintendent. He is teaching school in Greenwood City (Pleasant Grove) and has a full school.

It is a well-founded fact that a newspaper does more toward building up a town and county than any other known thing. Yet, there are many who expect a first-class paper at the very start; and because it does not happen to contain as much and as choice reading as the leading papers in the big cities, they do not help to keep it up. But how is it expected to furnish a first-class paper for nothing? Our flour cost money, so does our paper and we have to pay our printers, yet we are expected to furnish a paper "brimful of reading matter" for nothing. To make a paper pay and readable, you should encourage it, not run it down. Subscribe for it and get others to do so and send us items from all points. We are anxious to help to settle our county with good, honest and industrious men and nothing helps to do so as much as a live paper.

Mardin has a new sausage machine. Its capacity is about half a mile of bologna per day. It is so constructed as to be easily cleaned and kept in order. Its cutting power is equal to any emergency. Meat cut for one cent a pound. Bring in your raw material and have it made into the genuine article. Mules must be cut in two, dogs, cats and other small game may be brought in whole. The thing cost something over $100. We hope Mardin will get customers enough to enable him to keep at work.

We do wish that some people would consider the propriety of publishing everything that transpires in a community. We have a common interest, though we do not all see it in the same light. We are like a family. Now, no family proposed to make known all its private transactions, all the little misdeeds of its members. In like manner, no community ought to publish to the world all that is wrong, mean or vile within it. Of course we do not refer to flagrant crimes or to wrongs against which the people should be cautioned. Nor do we say that wrong should be condemned. We do not see what good it does to publish all the dirt about people in town that can be raked together. If A. got drunk, or B. went fishing on Sunday, as some A's and B's do in every town, what is the use of making a personal fight on them? Our principles are well known, and we are against wrong at all time and under all circumstances. We can, however, fight it without personality.

Little matters sometime indicate the condition of affairs in a town quite as plainly as anything else. Good sidewalks, neat fences, shade trees and such improvements give evidence of thrift. We are glad to see so many of our citizens are preparing to do their share toward adorning the town by fencing and putting out shade trees. Every week there are more new sidewalks built. some are putting down rock. Neat chimneys have taken the place of the unsightly stovepipes which were used before brick was to be had. All these things go quite far to show that Eureka is in a prosperous condition, as do the many new buildings going up in every part of town.

Title Page
1872

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