Editor’s Note: Due to an office error a portion of this article was excluded from last week’s edition. The full article is below. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
Greenwood City Sunday School
“This article first appeared in the Topeka Capital Journal and later in The Herald in 1939. Most of the people who came to Kansas in the early days were more or less religious, even though at times they acted like heathens. Sunday Schools were started in almost every town before the post office or church was established. In a majority of cases the Sunday School was begun for the purpose usually associated with this kind of institution. In others, however, the Sabbath School was merely a diversion. Take the Greenwood City instance to illustrate.
Greenwood City was started in March, 1871, by J.P. Mitchell, an Irishman, near the Verdigris River between Quincy and Toronto. A full set of municipal officers was inaugurated and being in Greenwood County, the very heart of the cattle country, the new city was the haunt of cowboys and desperadoes. Dissolute women seldom entered the city, but for noise and rowdyism, Greenwood City was in the front rank of the frontier towns. Drunken cowboys and outlaws frequently “shot up the town.”
Among the desperadoes and outlaws who used to rendezvous at Greenwood City were Kinch West, Jack Tedford, Bill Holliman, Vid Farr, “Leather Bill,” “William the Innocent,” and many others. While these gentlemen lingered on the classic banks of the Verdigris, the Texas authorities were offering large rewards for them. Kinch West was worth $10,000 dead or alive and Holliman also as much. The whole bunch was “on the dodge” and Greenwood City was the safest place on the frontier because most of the inhabitants were of the same stripe.
One day late in April, 1871, Bill Holliman met one of the city officers. “Don’t you shorthorns have what you call a Sunday School?” was the question asked. “Yes, sometimes.” “Why don’t you start one here in Greenwood City?” “You boys would try to break it up.” “Not much we wouldn’t. I’ve talked it over with them. They think it’s too damm bad there ain’t not a place to go on Sunday. You start it and I’ll come and Kinch West will come. We’ll shoot the first man that misbehaves.”
“But you must leave your six-shooters at home.” “Can’t do that: some marshal or detective might git the drop on us.” “Well, tell the boys to come out next Sunday afternoon at 3 o’clock.” “No let’s have it in the forenoon: the boys will want to git drunk in the afternoon.”
The Sunday School was organized and the behavior was splendid. The exercises were carried out enthusiastically, especially the singing. At first the school was attended by men only, then some of the farmers began bringing their wives and children. This Sunday School flourished for many years-long after the ambitious town of Greenwood City had died the natural death of a boom town, and nothing but a memory of its wildness remained.
When the railroad, the Missouri Pacific, was surveyed, Toronto was the lucky candidate for the rails, and Greenwood City soon was a thing of the past. Then law and order came to Greenwood County, and its desperadoes skipped to safer places on the border, now moving farther west. Kinch West was killed in Fort Worth by an officer who tries to arrest him. Most of the others died “with their boots on,” but probably attended Sunday Schools in towns where they congregated before the last summons came.”
