×
×
homepage logo

Remember When: A Community Review for Jan. 23, 2019

By Compiled Ray Stockman, Janet Burnett, Theresa Megee, Connie Putthoff, Kris Roberts And Billie Aye - | Jan 23, 2019

Tonganoxie Community Historic Site, 201 W. Washington St. near U.S. Highway 24-40.

10 years ago: Jan. 21, 2009

Dorothy Dunlap was named Chamber of Commerce Citizen of the Year. She has been an umpire for 35 years, most of that in Tonganoxie and one year in Eudora, “because they needed someone doing it,” Dunlap said. She has also umpired in Basehor and “different places” in the area. “I played ball when I was younger,” she said. “And I like doing things with kids.” Dunlap has also volunteered in the Good Shepherd Thrift Shop and Food Bank for about five years. She is the shop’s treasurer and volunteers as manager on Saturdays.

Half a century ago, Tonganoxie High principal and basketball coach Tom Beatty decided to start up a holiday tournament in town. A 1959 senior for THS, Kenny Hardy, played that first year. “What I really enjoyed was Coach Beatty,” Hardy said. “You could come in from halftime…you could be behind and down, and he could just say a few words and you’d just feel like tearing everything apart. You’d kill yourself for him if you could. He just had a way with players.”

Pieces of hardwood from the former Tonganoxie High gym floor will be on sale this week at the Tonganoxie Invitational. The nine-inch long planks include the school’s “T” logo and the years for the gym, 1964-2000. They will be sold for $15 a piece.

25 years ago: Jan. 26, 1994

The Windmill Man. Their beautiful simplicity makes them symbols of the Kansas plains. They rise above the rolling terrain and, with quiet proficiency, do their work. And as they stand with understated majesty, they harness perhaps Kansas’ most formidable resource, the wind. One person still appreciates the importance of this mid-American icon. His name is Russell Smelser.

Smelser has been searching out and restoring old windmills since 1985. In 1986 he attended a windmill seminar at New Mexico State University. However, the windmills in the Southwest are not much like the ones Smelser is used to working on, he said. “Some of the windmills in New Mexico have blades as long as 20 feet and tails as tall as nine feet. And instead of pumping water through 20 feet of pipe, they pump water through 800 to 1000 feet of pipe.”

Kim Jansen and Kim Coffin teamed up to open their own salon, Kim’s Salon, less than three months ago at the plaza at Tonga Ridge. Their focus is on the young family. “Everyone tells us that our salon is so homey. They say it looks like a living room,” Coffin said. Kim’s Salon periodically offers deals that are easy on a young family’s pocket book. For example, once they charged children under 10 the price of their age for a haircut.

50 years ago: Jan. 16, 1969

The Mirror reported Harold Ensley, the sportsman friend, would be guest speaker at the THS Soil Conservation meeting this month. Sutton-Kolman Ford had a Harold Ensley red country sedan station wagon sale (just like the one Harold drives) for a special price of $3,395.

The 43-year old Governor Robert Docking’s Inauguration was this week starting the beginning of a second term.

The Reno Township annual report was in the paper listing total expenditures of $11,452.03.

Zoellner’s After Inventory Sale included hooded sweatshirts for $1.95. 

75 years ago: Jan. 27, 1944

Elmer Ammel, reported by us to be in England several weeks ago is actually on Trinidad Island, off South America. We missed that one by a few miles. He is an airplane mechanic in the Army Air Corps.

A road-hog plane pilot in the neighborhood of Lawrence has raised the hair of motorists several times recently. He comes down close to the pavement behind motorists, touches his wheels and zooms over the cars, sometimes coming down again in front of them. It may be a playful stunt for some student pilot, that is, if everything works out alright. The car drivers, however, do not think that it is so funny.

Chris Rasmussen, who has leased the former Rawlings Feed Store building for a frozen food locker and custom butcher, reports that he is well on the way to securing the required number of boxes sold in advance to qualify under WPB for construction and allocation of materials.

100 years ago: Jan. 16, 1919

That the country has sustained a tremendous loss in the death of Theodore Roosevelt is the expressed belief of his countrymen, hundreds of whom, in public and private life, have hastened to pay tribute to the great character and work of the former president.

W. Laming was out from Kansas City, Saturday. His butter plant down there did some business last year. They turned out 1,300,000 pounds of butter.

Lost. A gold watch between town and Hubbel Hill, while sleighing on the Cox hill Dec. 29. It belonged to my dead son. Reward if returned to Mrs. J.R. Peters.

Barclay Winslow made an overnight visit with his parents and sister Mrs. Frank Zoellner last week. He had left his home in Long Beach, Cal., the second of January, and was on a trip for the government as pure food inspector.

125 years ago: Jan. 25, 1894

Al Duty does not know exactly whether he is in luck or out of luck. This peculiar predicament was brought about by this circumstance: Last Friday afternoon he tried to build a fire in his barber shop, and made a failure of it. He poured in about two tablespoons of coal oil and touched a lighted match underneath. The result was not what he had anticipated. The flames shot from the stove like forked lighting and burned both of Al’s hands, the back of his left hand so badly that it blistered. Just eight days previous to the accident Al became one of the charter members of the Loyal Mystic Legion, which is an accident insurance company secret society. While he is unfit for duty, he draws $15 a week from the order.

Hence this is a case where a man does not know whether he is in or out of luck.

Leavenworth county scored another triumph last week, and this is the way it is told in an exchange: A sale of export steers was made at the Kansas City, Kan., Stockyards late last Tuesday afternoon, which reflects great credit not only upon the raiser, but upon the Kansas City market. M.C. Harvey, of Usher, Leavenworth County, was the salesman and the shipment consisted of 2369 head of 1,472-pound short horn steers which brought Mr. Harvey a total $19,402.

The price per 100 pounds was $4.90. After paying freight and commission charges Mr. Harvey had $19,035 left. This was the largest single bunch of export cattle ever sold at the yards. The cattle were taken by the Schwarzschild and Snizberger Packing and Exporting company and will be shipped to England. Not a single steer in the herd was rejected as docked.