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Kansas Historical Notes - August 1943

August 1943 (Vol. 12, No. 3), pages 333 to 336.
Transcribed by lhn;
digitized with permission of the Kansas Historical Society.

The Wichita Public Museum, located in the Forum building, has made rapid growth since it was started several years ago, and its rooms are now open to the public every week-day afternoon. Officers of the museum association, most of whom were re-elected at the annual meeting April 1, 1943, include: O. A. Boyle, president; Dr. Jesse Clyde Fisher, first vice-president; Carl E. Bitting, second vice-president; Harry Overend, secretary; H. D. Lester, treasurer, and Mrs. Frank Slay, curator. The elected trustees are Omrah Aley, Henry J. Allen, Carl E. Bitting, O. A. Boyle, R. M. Cauthorn, Mrs. E. G. Cone, John P. Davidson, Dr. Jesse Clyde Fisher, Bertha V. Gardner, Mrs. Wallace E. Haines, L. A. Heckard, Dr. H. C. Holmes, Robt. E. Israel, Sr., H. D. Lester, Dick Long, John D. McEwen, Eva Minnich, Mrs. Frank Slay and Harry Overend. R. M. Cauthorn is the retiring secretary.

"Every article in the Augusta Historical Museum is connected in some manner with the early history of Augusta," the Augusta Daily Gazette reported in its issue of June 18, 1943, announcing the opening of the museum on Sundays for the summer season.

A preview of the newly-restored Iowa, Sac and Fox mission near Highland was given members of Kiwanis clubs of northeast Kansas when a picnic was held on the grounds July 7, 1943. Over 150 persons accepted the invitation of officials of the Northeast Kansas Historical Society and the Highland Kiwanis Club to inspect the property recently acquired and restored by the state. Despite the labor and material shortages which came with the war the reconstruction was completed and the building has been saved from further deterioration. Landscaping is planned and a museum has already been started. Mrs. C. C. Webb, of Highland, is chairman, and Mrs. Fenn Ward, of Highland, is secretary of the board of trustees which represents the state in the care of the property. For the present the building will be opened for public inspection on Sunday afternoons from one to six.

The 141st anniversary of the birth of the Rev. Thomas Johnson, founder of Shawnee Methodist Mission, was observed at the mission in Johnson county with an all-day memorial program July 11, 1943. During the program a wreath was laid on the Rev. Mr. Johnson's grave in Pioneer cemetery, southeast of the mission. About 500

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KANSAS HISTORICAL NOTES 335

persons, including Frank C. Wornall, grandson of Johnson, were in attendance. The services were sponsored by the Shawnee Mission Indian Historical Society, Old Mission Parish Methodist Church, and the Greater Kansas City Council of the American Pioneer Trails Association. Mrs. J. W. Quarrier was general chairman.

A memorial to George Grant, founder of the British colony at Victoria and first to import Aberdeen-Angus cattle to the United States, has been erected near the colony's old cemetery at Victoria. The monument was sponsored by the American Aberdeen-Angus Breeders' Association; the Kansas Aberdeen-Angus Association; the Kansas Livestock Association; the Kansas Historical Society; the Kansas State Board of Agriculture; Grant descendants; the Philip family and public-spirited citizens of Ellis county. Speakers at the dedicatory ceremony August 4, 1943, included William Ljungdahl, Topeka, chairman of the Kansas State Commission of Revenue and Taxation; Bishop Shirley H. Nichols, Salina; Jess C. Denious, Dodge City, lieutenant governor of Kansas; James G. Tomson, Wakarusa, president Kansas Livestock Association; Johnson Workman, Russell, of the Kansas Aberdeen-Angus Association; John Brown, Rose Hill, Iowa, president American Aberdeen-Angus Breeders' Association; H. E. Floyd, Topeka, editor of The Kansas Stockman; Kirke Mechem, Topeka, secretary Kansas Historical Society; W. H. Tomhave, Chicago, Ill., secretary American Aberdeen-Angus Breeders' Association, and Will J. Miller, Topeka, Kansas State Livestock Sanitary Commissioner. Mrs. W. D. Philip, of Hays, supervised the arrangements. The following inscription appears on the marker:

TO THE MEMORY OF GEORGE GRANT
(1822-1878)
FOUNDER OF THE BRITISH COLONY VICTORIA, KANSAS.

FIRST ABERDEEN-ANGUS CATTLE IMPORTED INTO THE UNITED STATES WERE BROUGHT TO THIS LOCALITY BY MR. GRANT ON MAY 17, 1873. HIS FAITH IN THE FUTURE OF AGRICULTURE AND STOCK RAISING IN WESTERN KANSAS, EVIDENCED BY THE PURCHASE OF NEARLY 100,000 ACRES FROM THE KANSAS PACIFIC RAILROAD, HELPED PROMOTE THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THIS REGION.

Roy W. Stookey, state architect, and Nyle H. Miller, research director of the Kansas Historical Society, met with members of the executive committee of the Washington County Oregon Trail

336 KANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

Memorial Association at Hanover, August 5, 1943. The Hollenberg Ranch Pony Express Station was inspected and plans were made to continue the restoration work on the building and the landscaping of the grounds. The Pony Express, which operated from the Missouri river to the Pacific coast in 1860-1861, used the ranch house as a station, and it is unique among the few such buildings yet remaining in the United States in that it has been so little altered. Travelers knew the place as Cottonwood ranch and cottonwood trees are to be a part of the decorative planting. The property is state owned, and is managed as a state park by the Washington County Oregon Trail Association through its president, Leo E. Dieker, editor of the Hanover Democrat.

Paul W. Gates, of the American history department at Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., has spent considerable time in Washington, D. C., and in mid-Western states making a systematic investigation to determine the extent to which speculators intervened between the government and actual settlers in the disposal of the public domain. The Cornell University Press recently published his 265-page "study in land policy and absentee ownership" entitled The Wisconsin Pine Lands of Cornell University. Other work is to follow either in separate magazine articles or in books. Mr. Gates has visited this state several times in recent years studying land policies in early-day Kansas. One of his papers, "A Fragment of Kansas Land History: The Disposal of the Christian Indian Tract," was published in The Kansas Historical Quarterly, v. VI, pp. 227-240.