- Hamilton 1919 -
The following are articles from the 1919 Hamilton Grit paper.
“John Saniter, who made the tax assessment for Janesville township this year has shared the following figures from it: Janesville consists of 92,160 acres or measures approximately 15 miles from east to west and 10 miles from north to south. There were 6,435 acres in wheat, 4,415 acres in corn, 305 acres in rye, 2,358 acres in alfalfa, 299 acres in sweet clover and 1,100 acres in wild timber. He found 1,684 horses, 344 mules, 8,670 cattle, 71 sheep and 1,078 hogs. There were 38 autos in Hamilton and 97 in the township outside of town.
From the Severyite reprinted in the Grit. How is Severy fixed to take care of a carload of bank robbers if they should take a notion to hold up one of our banks? Don’t you think it would be a good idea to get prepared for such a raid as this by supplying a number of the merchants with shotguns loaded with buckshot and a few rifles, and maybe we could at least make it interesting for bank robbers if they should happen along. Both our banks are using the round rotary door safes which is next thing to impossible to get into until they are opened by bank officials, but the bank robbers are onto this and are making their visits to the banks about 8:30 in the morning, about the time that the money safes are being opened, and so far, they have been getting away with the goods.
Hamilton post office has been raised from 4th class, to a third-class post office, or what is known as a Presidential office, that is the appointments are made by the President and confirmed by the Senate. However, all such offices have been put under civil service of late years.
The raise has come about largely through the efficient management of the present post-master, A.F. Dove, who has done all in his power to keep cancellation up, as this is what the rating is made from. He seldom missed going to the trains when thereby he could save a few cents in cancellation to this office. The salary for 3rd class is based on the year’s business and is fixed for a period of years at a time. This office will pay $1,100 to start with, a raise of $100 in salary.
Monday morning Sheriff Colvin phoned marshal Harman to be on the lookout for four bank robbers in a Cadillac car, who had robbed an El Dorado bank an hour before. While in the City Meat Market talking on the phone to the sheriff a car answering the description went through town going up MainStreet at a good fifty miles an hour clip. They were perfectly safe here as they were miles on their way north before people grasped the situation.
Tuesday’s dailies located the robbery at Benton, 20 miles west of El Dorado, and report from $30,000 to $40,000 in Liberty bonds, and $8,000 in cash stolen. At latest report the robbers had not been caught.
The first hard surfaced road to be built in the county under new law, will probably be a stretch of 14 miles from Eureka to Reece, the preliminary steps having been taken, and more than half the names of owners of land in the district benefited having been secured.
In the new road law, the U.S. government pays 50% of the cost. It is proposed that the State pay 25%, though not yet enacted into law, the county 12 ½%, the township in which the road is 6 ¼% and the land owners of the benefit district 6 ¼%. If state aid is not secured the township will pay 12 ½% and benefit district 12 ½%. Under this law three kinds of road may be built: gravel at approximately $12,000 per mile: bituminous macadam at $22,000 or concrete at $35,000 per mile. This is the law the Booster Club is looking at, to put a road north and south from Hamilton.
A weary willie rested his bones in the city hotel, (jail) De Hardman, Saturday night, and Sunday morning was sent on his way rejoicing towards Emporia. The tramp problem has never bothered Hamilton, about one every two years is the record. By the way: The University of Kansas through its Extension Division is asking all municipalities to deal with the tramp problem during the harvest season in a uniform was: lock them up, or put them to work, not shift them from one town to another; and especially do not let them band together and start something. City Attorney Huxman, of Hutchinson, is quoted as saying: “Act, then deliberate.”
Eight years ago, a dozen automobiles were about Janesville township quota, now around one hundred and fifty. Then two or three silos, now practically every big farm has one or more. As late as two years ago there was not a farm tractor owned in the township. Last year John Jensen brought one in and O.E. Short and E.R. South were the pioneer purchasers, each buying one. This year tractors have been sold to F. R. Mossman, H.R. Samuels, F.B. Piatt, F.W. Ott, Wiggins and Lindamood, Herrman and Gordon, Frank Carson, Charles McClintick, Cliff Worley, Roy Herrman and E.L. Myers. Perhaps more than this number are seriously considering the purchase of tractors.
The Grit could locate 25 harvest hands right now if they were available. Harvest will be on in full blast in another week, with not nearly enough help in site. Farmers are willing to hire the hands now in order to have them when needed, pay them wages, for days they can work, and board on rainy days, with regular harvest wages at harvest time. If you are an able-bodied man, do not be a slacker, but enlist for harvest, it is just as patriotic as fighting Huns, lots less dangerous, and lots better pay.
Farmers should let E.B. Kelly, at the Hamilton Grain Co’s office know at once how many hands they will need, as he has been appointed local labor agent by County Farm Agent Wright.
O.E. Hover had an experience while at Kansas City last week he will not soon forget, though the final outcome was fortunate. Oscar wears a sparkler as big as a head light on his shirt front and this attracted the eye of a smooth guy stopping at the same hotel, the Dixon. During the night he got into Mr. Hover’s room, secured the diamond and fled with it. When the loss was shortly discovered detectives were put on the job and the nipper was quickly located at the Muelenback hotel; after a sweating process the thief admitted his guilt, told where he pawned the jewel, and it was soon secured. Floyd Stevenson who was at Kansas City at the time, and had seen the swift guy talking to Mr. Hover had to stay a day longer than he intended to be in the city to identify the man.
Earl Behmer’s new Ford roadster that he bought three weeks ago was stolen at Soden’s Grove at Emporia Saturday night. Earl was away on his wedding trip and his brother Russell used the car, parking it in the grove, when he came back to where he had left the car, there was nothing there but an empty space. This was at 11 p.m. Saturday night. To this mix sunshine and shadow by getting married and having one’s new car stolen all in the space of half a week shows that life is just one blamed thing after another. A late report is that two Madison young men have been arrested for the crime, and the car located.
Earl Behmer’s car, stolen at Emporia August 28, was recovered at Eufaula, Oklahoma, in the possession of Valentine Recek, of Madison, who was brought back and lodged in jail at Emporia. His brother George Recek and Lawrence Milner having been previously arrested for taking the car. The bond of each was fixed at $3,000.
The latest report is that two other Madison men have been charged with complicity in a previous car theft.
Police officials believe a wave of crime, confined principally to automobile stealing will sweep over this section of the country within the next few weeks. The police of the larger cities are warning the local authorities in the towns and villages to be on the alert for auto thieves who will work on farms during harvest time.
These spotters will be followed by the men who are to do the actual stealing from the farmers. The latter will know where all spotted cars are kept, how they are protected, the habits of the owners, the best time for stealing the cars, necessary road information and in fact all the “dope” necessary to insure a perfect job of thievery and a successful getaway.
Car owners should keep a memorandum of their license and engine number, and a concise list of all marks by which you might identify your car, if stolen. A car should never be parked in a public place and left out of sight without being locked.
A few plain facts: Here is a community of a thousand souls within five miles of three churches, and from constant observation there are not more than one tenth of this number who attend church services with any degree of regularity. If it wasn’t for the occasions most people go to funerals or commencement exercises, they wouldn’t know what the inside of a church looks like. The Catholic church with its faithful few has one service a month: the Baptist are so few that they have about quit business; and the Methodist District Supt. seriously contemplated removing the minister at the last session of the quarterly conference. Only one member showed up at that meeting, and he was late; no reports financial or otherwise. How would you like to live in a churchless town? Well, better get busy, and look into the situation, or such will be your fate. It isn’t that people are hopelessly wicked, no indeed, we all measure up with our neighbors in morals or think we do, but we do seem to be hopelessly indifferent to religious matters.
In November Harry Hover, of Eureka, proprietor of the Harry Hover Hardware here, was slugged and robbed in a Wichita hotel Friday night, and is now in a serious condition in a hospital in that city. A man of apparent prosperity gained his confidence and took him to a hotel to show him a good thing in an oil deal, and while in the room hit him a number of times over the head with the butt of a revolver, relieved him of his watch, money and diamond. At the latest report the scoundrel has not been found by the police. Harry’s brother went to Wichita as soon as he heard of it, returning Saturday night. Latest reports are that Mr. Hover’s condition is not as bad as first feared.
A basketball court is being fixed for the girls north of the school house. (Outdoor court) The four-acre tract at the northwest corner of town has for years been as the “apple of the eye” to Perry Clemans, who has spent much time and money on it, bringing the fruit trees and vines to productivity. It is a beautiful building site, being the highest elevation in the town’s limits, and the summer when he let a contract to McMullen & Dix of Eureka, for a home on it, the Grit felt it would be a credit to the community even before it was begun, and now finished, it proves it.
It is a seven-room modern house, of Dutch Colonial architecture, with full basement and bath; a commodious sleeping porch, overlooking the city below is one of the features of the new home. The floors are laid in oak; closets, pantry and built in conveniences, the delight of the housewife, have been amply provided for. It is heated by a Round Oak hot air furnace, and wired for electric current. Mr. Clemans has one room furnished in the basement for his own particular use, down where it will always be cool, usually the man’s den is put off in some obscure corner, or up next to the stars, but Perry is wise for his day and generation and has a cozy retreat worthwhile. The house they are leaving has been the family home ever since coming to Hamilton, now more than seventeen years ago.
December article related to coal: It is common knowledge that west of town six or seven miles on several farms, coal crops out and in the past some of it has been mined and used. It could be utilized now if the fuel shortage pinches more. While the usual bunch were waiting for shaves at the barbershop Saturday morning all the wind work necessary to organize a mining company was indulged in, and they vowed, yes, they did, to get busy this week, but don’t quit buying wood on the strength of it.
The school has been unable to secure permission to use a hall for basketball. We will certainly appreciate it if someone will make us an offer of a court.”
