Editor’s note: To capture time accurately, language from the past generally is left unchanged. This may result in some antiquated or out-of-use language from time to time. We try to maintain the exact wording when possible, but edits are occasionally made for the sake of brevity or because such wording isn’t acceptable today.

50 years ago: Oct. 24, 1974

City officials in Tonganoxie have entered the dispute over telephone service which brought complaints from an estimated 300 subscribers. Officials at a recent city council meeting directed the city clerk to write a letter to Southwestern Bell registering citizen complaints and asking a phone company representative to attend the next meeting to explain what is being done to remedy the problem. Repair on the central phone office began about two months ago. The phone service problem is strictly limited to Tonganoxie.

What could be the social event of the year takes place October 31st with hundreds of school agers expected to show something other than their own faces in the Annual Kiwanis Costume Parade?

The great American system of popular government is about to explode again. Tuesday the ordinary citizen (women included) may step up to the ballot box and X in secret who they want to operate the government from the county seat in Leavenworth all the way to Washington, D.C. Know who the candidates are (omitting the prohibitionists who get on the ballot but never elect anybody), and think about it a little ahead and not guess or use snap judgement when you vote.

To be decided on Election Day is an amendment OK’ing Bingo under certain restrictions, a modification of gambling law in the state constitution. Also to be decided is an authorization for Leavenworth County Commissioners to provide voting machines, a proposal which was narrowly defeated in the 1974 primary election.

Gary Oelschlaeger, Brian Smith, Mike Mahoney and Doug Tate are a few of the students of Mrs. Ester McPherson’s Spanish Class planning a trip to Mexico as part of their training in learning the language. They are selling subscriptions to the Tonganoxie Mirror to help pay for the cost of the trip.

75 years ago: Oct. 20, 1949

Mrs. Bob Duncanson presented her son, Lee Mark, to his fiancé, Ann Darlene Laughlin in a wedding ceremony this week. The vows were exchanged at Sacred Heart church with Margie Laughlin attendant to the bride. The best man was Hugh Laughlin, brother of the bride. The bride wore a mauve dress with a hat to match and wore a lovely orchid corsage. The newlyweds left for Wisconsin for their honeymoon and will return this week to make their home in Tonganoxie.

Friendship Valley School is hosting a pie social next week for one and all. You can see people you know and enjoy yourself to the utmost with entertainment and good food.

Robert Greenwell, among many others, has begun a new 4 H club in Linwood, named the Deadwood Beavers. Hopefully this group of young people will get “chewing” on some community activities soon.

The “Kansas City Kansan” newspaper has an editorial about the hills west of Tonganoxie, labeling them the “Algonquin Mountains,” saying they are the beloved hills of the philosopher of Stranger Valley.  Don’t know who that is, but we’ll take the newspaper space as a compliment.

100 years ago: Oct. 30, 1924

Shall a newspaper oligarchy or the people rule Kansas?

The issue in Kansas is too plain for even the simplest to misunderstand.

The Kansas City Star with its Kansas newspaper sycophants the Wichita Eagle, the Wichita Beacon and the Emporia Gazette have owned the governorship of Kansas or held a veto power in that office for nearly twenty years.

Defeated in the primary which this pharisaical bunch held sacred during all the years when their gang triumphed, they now refuse to abide by its decrees and selecting the one man of their number who can be least injured by defeat they make a last desperate raid in an effort to recapture their grip on that office.

Proceeding with a fake issue raised after the primary nomination made an issue the hollowness of which is shown by the fact that the Star is attempting to elect a Klan-supported candidate in its own state of Missouri. It appears that this newspaper oligarchy is attempting to befuddle and fool the people of this state.

Hence the question: Shall a newspaper oligarchy or the people themselves rule Kansas?

If this gang can beat Ben Paulen, a clean, capable, unpledged, unbossed, honest, economical, businessman, then for a dozen years no man free of the control of this power-coveting outfit will dare to seek high office in this state.

125 years ago: Oct. 19, 1899

Seven criminals were sentenced by the district court Saturday.

Clyde Blue entered a Leavenworth saloon, stole some money out of a drawer, and could not run fast enough to get away. He will serve the state one year.

Al Smith, colored, stole a heifer recently. In attempting to sell her, he was caught, and his clothes will be marked KSP for 365 days.

Harry McLain stole a stallion at Conner and took it to K.C. The judge thought that was three time as bad as stealing a heifer and prescribed accordingly.

J.L. Jones, an old soldier, killed a comrade over a game of cards in the Klondike and got off very light. The jury had said that he was guilty of manslaughter in the fourth degree and the judge made it one year.

John Robb who stole Mose Harvey’s cattle from Fairmount will have five years for repentance.

Nicholas Dougherty stole a team of mules from a man who was attending a Kickapoo primary.

He will lament at Lansing five years.