- County Wide News In 1921 (Part 3 of 3) -
“Lew Wahl’s sorrel team ran away at his place near Quincy. He left them standing while he went to get a drink. The team was hitched to a wagon with a mowing machine tied on behind it. After jamming the machine into the chicken house and tearing the machine loose from the wagon, the team ran over the railroad track into the pasture where the parts of the wagon were strewn about. The team was found in the pasture.
While at the picture show in September, Virgil resident W. Rose had a person or persons enter his melon patch and nearly demolished the entire crop. Why is it that boys, or even men, would want to take out their spite against a man through his melon patch? Melons have no feelings.
The Farmers Union at Lamont loaded a car of wheat Friday. Being in a hurry to get to Madison in time for supper, the Missouri Pacific engineer started away from the elevator with the wheat with the throttle wide open, and before he got two car lengths on the way, the carload of wheat jumped the track. We suggest that the engineer be made to pay the expense of putting the car back on the track.
In September the article in The Madison News read: THE BLACK HAND IN MADISON. Three prominent business men of Madison, Sam Ott, William Horst and Frank Elrod, each received “black hand” letters. Each of the letters demanded that that the men receiving it place $1,000 in bills on the railroad bridge Monday night under penalty of having his house blown up with nitroglycerine. Each man was given a different hour at which to place his money on the bridge.
Frank Elrod went to the bridge at his appointed hour. As soon as he left the bridge, two men were seen crawling around over the bridge. Then he returned to the bridge and left a package. Presently the two men were seen crawling about the bridge again. Officers and others in hiding nearby called to the men to halt. The men started to flee. The officers opened fire and advanced. They took two men into custody. They proved to be two Madison boys, Frank Cravens and Fred McMurray, both of whom were brought up in this community.
The two young men were brought before Justice of the Peace S.B. Green Tuesday morning and their preliminary hearing was set for Tuesday morning, September 27. Each of them was released on a bond of $1,000, after County Attorney Joseph A. Fuller had insisted that the bonds be fixed at $1,500 each. Justice Green thought that if $1,500 would bring them into court, $1,000 would do it. S.F. Wicker of Eureka is the attorney for Cravens and McMurray. The following is a copy of the letter received by one of the business men. “ 202 Have ben requested by the gang to be at the r.r. bridge to night with one thousand dollars in cash no silver. Leave bills in pacage and come to town. Keep your mouth shut and come alone and you will not be molested. We are seting here with 280 quarts of nitro. Do as you like. Be there at 9:30. If not at 12:00 we turn the store and house up side down. gang (The spelling and grammar are copied as it was in the letter. The letter was printed with a lead pencil.)
The incident caused considerable excitement. Some of the women folks of the men threatened were badly frightened. One business man said the bonds of the men arrested should have been placed at $5,000 each. Another said that the incident “raised” Madison to “Class B” and that if a movie murder stunt could be pulled off, it would raise Madison to Class “A.” One man said that 280 quarts of nitro did not scare him as it would send him off on the long, long trail with probably the whole town for company.
The letters were sent through the mail. The penalty for sending a threatening letter through the mail is severe.
Section Foreman Cornelius and his men and an expert from Nevada. Mo., put the car of wheat back on the track, that got off the rails of the Farmers Union siding at Lamont. They used jacks to get the front end back on. Then frogs were placed in front of the rear wheels and the engine pulled the rear wheels up on the rails. (Earlier story talked about the derailment at Lamont).
In October of 1921 Climax High School lost the football game to Latham High School, the score being 20 to 7. The average weight of the members of the Latham football team was much greater than that of the Climax team. Their team average 158 pounds while that of the Climax team is but 132 pounds.
In October Mrs. Francoise La Febvre of Madison had a “V” shaped wire removed from her lungs in Kansas City. Two X-ray examination made before she went to Kansas City, had failed to locate the cause of Mrs. La Febvre trouble. The wire is supposed to be part of an egg beater. It is probable that the wire was in some food that she was eating.
Virgil, Kansas was to become a third-class city in November of 1921 after the petition with the necessary signatures has been presented to the county commissioners. The petition also asked that an election be called for the purpose of electing city officers. The city officers to be elected will be Mayor, four councilmen and a police judge. The other officers, the marshal, treasurer and city clerk will be appointed by the mayor and council.
The big oil fields on both sides of the town have made Virgil grow until she is of city size. To be declared a city will put Virgil on the map in larger letters. The needs of the community and the best interests of the public will be served if Virgil is incorporated as a city. The first council will have a big job of passing ordinances for governing the new city.
The Madison News ran a story in December talking about the Walt Marlar shooting mystery that has not been solved even though the county officers and the A.H.T.A. (may stand for Anti-Horse Thief Association) has been working on the case for three weeks. About three weeks ago Marlar showed a pair of pants with a bloody hole in the side of the hip, the hole having been made apparently by shot fired from a shot gun. It is said that Marlar said he shot at a man whom he caught at his corn crib at night, that the man fell and was seemingly dead when he got to him, that he loosened the man’s trousers and found that he had two pairs of trousers, that he went to the house to call his neighbors over the phone, and that the man was gone when Marlar got back to the crib but had left his outer trousers behind. Now it appears that there is no wounded man in the neighborhood nor has anyone disappeared from the community. Some appear to believe that the blood on the trousers is chicken blood and that someone either put a dummy up for Marlar to shoot at or that Marlar’s story is a hoax fixed up by himself for some purpose or other. Anyhow, here is the problem. Marlar lives on the E.E. Dodge farm southeast of town.
