A. Barnett recalls beginnings of McCook

We pick up with Albert Barnett’s memoirs of early McCook where he revealed a tricky land purchase for a “sheep ranch” by H.C. Ryder which suddenly became the designated site for the B & M Railroad Division Point, a designation highly sought after by both Culbertson and Indianola.

“But a part of the sheep ranch had been called McCook. A few enterprising business men had decided they would open up in business in the new town and about a dozen of we high salaried people were sitting on the banks of the Republican (not the Wabash) waiting for the sale of town lots. I was holding down a bum lumberyard, the tale end of what had been a lumberyard in Culbertson when they hoped for the division, which belonged to the man I have since been in partnership with. Al Ebert was doing the same kind of stunt for Mr. Franklin and Bert Andrews had a pharmacy for the late Doc Green.”

“Fairview post office was a sod building which was a combined hotel, store and post office, kept and run by Colvin and Russell and we high priced men got our meals at the hotel and slept over at our respective places of business. The Frees and Hocknell Lumber Co. had put up a small frame building, and as there had been more demand for feed than lumber a car of corn had been shipped in and thrown in this building and Charlie Babcock and I had slept in the corn bin on top of an old blanket or two. One nite as Charlie and I were turning in he said, “Barnett you have heard about people sleeping on husk mattresses”. I said, “yes”. He said, “it is nothing like the clear corn”. One nite he was down to Indianola and I staid there alone. I had just come from Chicago and of course was a tenderfoot. The boys who lived around on the few ranches and who had been coming after their mail as well as some who were camping here waiting for the town to start knew I was alone and thought they would scare me. They rapped on the window along in the middle of the nite and wanted in. I got up and lit a light and got an old bulldog revolver I had bought at a Jew pawn shop before I left Chicago and with that in my hand I opened the door and told them to come in. I expected to find regular hold up men but they were only the boys I had been playing croquet with in the daytime and I do not know who was scared the worst.”

“After about a week of high living at the Fairview hotel the lots were put on the market and probably a hundred were sold the first day. Ryder bought the second lot north of Wm. Line’s present residence and that is where the first house was started. Ike Moore hauled the first load of lumber to this house which was the first load of lumber to come on the town site and I loaded it. At noon when we went over to the hotel for dinner we all stopped to wash at the Bench which stood outside the door where a bucket of water and six wash pans were kept for the use of the boarders. Some one noticed the load of lumber on the town site and called the attention of the gang to it. Really that load of lumber on the town site looked big enough to build a whole house…..The first house was not very large. In thirty days thirty houses were built. Ryder that year built over thirty-five himself. The town went with a boom and it was all hustle and bustle.

“A great part of this hotel was at Indianola and Churchill, the landlord, put it on cars and brought it up here. I boarded here. When dinner was called we rushed in like a lot of railroad graders when there are more graders than there are seats. There were a lot more boarders than there were plates and we did not stand on ceremony.”

The last installment of A. Barnett will be next week. This Saturday is the monthly meeting for SWNGS. It starts at 1 PM and everyone is invited to attend. Our beautiful library is located at 322 Norris Ave., in the historic Temple building, rooms 2-7 on the second floor.