Plans begin in 1898 for courthouse in McCook

When my house was quiet again, I went back to the Dalton newspaper which is available online at dalton.advantagepreservation.com to search for my mother, aunts, uncles, etc., which all lived in that vicinity at one time. Not many years are on the site for Dalton, there are far more papers copied for Yuma, Colorado, it just depends how many newspapers were actually available to be scanned. One thing I did find was in the personals section and that was the fact that my mom moved to McCook in 1941. That date had not ever been really clear to me but the paper noted that my grandparents had moved her to McCook and that Anton Rudd (a great uncle) had stayed at their farm while they were gone. You can search for papers by state or town on that site; navigating it is not as easy as I would like but definitely worth the effort.

Now here are some tidbits of information from January 1898 in the McCook Tribune which is available online at www.chroclingamerica.com. Go to the advance search tab, pick the McCook Tribune, and then enter the words or phrases you are looking for in the boxes below. Once you get the results you can organize them by front page only, date, etc. These papers cover to about 1918/20 and not all of them are available but the search process is really easy!

“Thomas Fowler started home, last Saturday evening, from McCook on a wheel that gave way on the hill south of the river. The result was that he and his wheel both had to walk the rest of the way, reaching home, however, in time for breakfast Sunday morning.”

“C. F. Babcock has moved his real estate office to the Bates building, second door south of DeGroff & Co.’s.” (Again, this little note gives us information on the names of buildings in McCook.)

“On Friday of last week, while assisting his brother-in-law, J. S. McBrayer, in moving a house, Mose Jennings was thrown to the ground by contact with a double-tree and one of the heavy rollers passed over his right leg before he could be extricated from his position. While his injuries are not of a serious nature, they are none the less very painful.” (A double-tree was a cross bar in front of a wagon which allowed two horses to be harnessed to it.)

“Bids for erection of court house read and considered. Bid of James McAdams to enclose building for $8,935.00 was accepted.” (This was part of the City Council proceedings and was for the first court house built in McCook which was razed when the present courthouse was built.)

“On last Saturday afternoon, Frank Coleman, 21 years of age, son of Uncle William, went hunting, and succeeded in bringing down some big game. While talking to Charlie Simmerman, he let the muzzle of the gun rest on his right foot, and the fool thing went off, plugging a hole right through his foot, just back of where the toes join on to the foot. He was at once driven to McCook, and is in the hospital under the care of Dr. Gage. It is thought that the toes can all be saved. It will probably lay him up till May. Had he been husking his corn out, as he should have been such a fine day, he would have saved himself and others a great deal of trouble.”

Part of the paper had a St. Francis Line news column which was referring to the railroad’s line that ran to St. Francis, a line that was purported in its heyday to have produced enough revenue for the railroad to pay all the crafts working at the time. “Seven stores and houses were moved in one week from Blakeman to Atwood (Kansas). Mr. Gaunt has moved the McFadden building over and will soon put in a large stock of merchandise. “

This Saturday we will have our monthly meeting at the SWNGS library, 110 West C, Suite M-3 at 1 p.m. The public is welcome to attend.