Butler County’s Eighty Years  ~  1855-1935

by Jessie Perry Stratford

A History of Butler County Biographical Sketches and Portraits with Foreword by Rolla A. Clymer

PAGE 96

BUTLER COUNTY’S NINE KAFIR CORN CARNIVALS

---1911-1912-1914-1915-1924-1925-1926-1927-1929—

During the year 1911, four years before discovery of oil in the country, Butler County held its annual spring Chautauqua, its twelfth annual Butler County Fair in August, and its first Kafir Corn Carnival, in October. Each event had a record attendance.

In a column story entitled “Kafir Corn New King,” published January 11, 1911, nine months before the first carnival was held, the Kansas City Star proclaimed John Bunyan Adams one of the original boosters of kafir corn in Butler County. Mr. Adams was interviewed and quoted as saying, “I was publishing a weekly paper. I can’t recall that there was any formal meeting. In my own paper I would print the progress of kafir and interview farmers who raised it. One morning, a year after we’d been carrying on this publicity campaign, I had breakfast at Fifth Avenue Hotel in Augusta—that must have been 1895—and there was a new kind of corn-cake. I liked them and asked for further information from the cook. They were kafir cakes! The idea, you see, had spread to the kitchen in a single year.”

It was about 1886, that editors and shrewd farmers began talking of the possibilities of kafir in Butler County, Mr. Adams told The Star. Farmers experimented and found that on bottom land kafir grew as well as maize, and beat Indian corn as a chief product particularly dependable in drought seasons. This was, perhaps, one of the most important advances in Butler County’s commercial history.

In 1908, Butler County had 43, 783 acres in kafir, valued at $394,000. In 1911, the crop totaled approximately 78,000 acres, with kafir valued at $584,310. Ralph B. Ralson, present state senator, has been accredited with having suggested the idea of a carnival.

On August 26, 1911, the last day of the final county fair, Joseph C. Powell, president of the El Dorado Merchants’ Retail Association, called a meeting of public spiried citizens at which a kafir corn carnival was decided upon. J. B. Adams was chosen as chairman of the carnival and William F. Benson, Harve L. Haines, Lee Scott and J. C. Powell became members of the executive committee. Corah Adelaide Mooney was appointed chairman of a committee to entertain the carnival queen, and her maids of honor. Red, yellow and white were designated carnival colors.

October 18-19-20, 1911 were dates of the first Kafir Carnival. All townships cooperated in construction of artistic and unique booths along the first block on East Central Avenue, and this space was named Kafirville. Only county-wide cooperation could achieve the magnificent festivals that have become tradition; events so original with Butler County citizens that although numerous cities and counties have attempted to copy the idea—no carnival outside this county has achieved distinction.

Three days are devoted to each carnival. Thousands attend daily, and visitors have come from overseas and from every part of the world for the occasion. All work is suspended, and the Kingdom of Butler lays aside all cares of one great, magnificently spectacular celebration. Parades and other gorgeous events are filmed and are shown on the screen throughout the nation. Glittering pageants, dazzling floats, beautiful formal balls for inauguration of each successive queen; kafir booths that house every form of Butler County productiveness—scholastic, agricultural, mineral; parades of all school children of the towns and rural districts of the county; fraternal organizations en masse—all these are a part of this carnival. It is unlike any other carnival in the world. Loyal men and women of the county work for months in planning a method of selecting queens and attendants, in decorating the town, in building booths and displays; in originating designs for floats; in choosing and making all costumes; decorating the Municipal Auditorium for the balls; planning terrapin races, stock and farm products displays, and presenting hundreds of prizes. The queen and her attendants are entertained in private homes; luncheons, teas and dances are given in their honor every day.

Newspapers over the United States send reporters and publish columns of feature stories and dozens of pictures; also the carnival inspires numerous editorials.

THE GRAY GOLD OF EL DORADO

On October 11, 1924, Elmer T. Peterson, editor of Better Home and Gardens

PAGE 97

Magaine, then editor of The Wichita Beacon, likened kafir corn to gray gold, in this editoral:

“For nine years the black gold of the mysterious rock depths of Butler County enthralled the people of El Dorado, and the fame of it went far. One week in September, 1915, oil was struck in the Stapleton No. 1 and the fever of the liquid mystery gripped thousands. That week saw the last Kafir Corn Carnival—an institution which had been in existence for many years. Kafir was obscured by oil, and the shocks of corn gave place to huge and grotesque derricks and Gargantuan monsters in the form of tanks. The pervasive odor of gas and sulphur-like fumes of the crude overpowered the fragrance of the alfalfa blooms and the wild grass of the meadows.

“Now, nine years later, the Kafir Corn Carnival returns. The city is decked and covered with the gray clusters of kafir and the brown sorghums. Diversified farming again is being exalted. The dairy cow is coming into her own. The land is flowing with milk and honey, and this year the corn stalks were 15 feet high, bearing great golden billets of fattening richness for the butter and bacon that is to come.

“The black gold is still there, and is making wealth. But the everlasting wealth of the gray gold of kafir and the yellow gold of corn and butter again is recognized as fundamental to the prosperity of the great agricultural area of which El Dorado is the center.

“It is a good thing to look at—this intelligent celebration and recognition of fundamental things. It is proof that the greatness and wealth of Kansas is due to its shrewd ability to seize every opportunity for advancement and growth.”

EL DORADO THE GILDED

On the same date, Victor Murdock, editor and co-publisher of the Wichita Eagle wrote:

“El Dorado, capital of Butler County, oil center, gate city to the broad cattle ranges of the Flint Hills, is holding a carnival. The motif of the celebration is the lowly kafir corn, product of a far-off race brought to its ultimate fruition under the golden rays of the Kansas sun. El Dorado is rich in political and historical tradition. She has given to the state and nation many famous men and women. Butler county has ever been a miniature empire unto itself, whose people constituted an aristocracy of achievement. Before oil came to cover her prairies with towering derricks, her Percherons and her Herefords had garnered blue ribbons from the far corners of the world. Her blue stem hay graced the stables of the Belmonts and the Vanderbilts, while the wheat from her fertile valleys made bread for toiling millions. From her quarters came the stone to build schools and churches, and to ballast the tracks of transcontinental railroads. When the pioneers viewed the domain which is now incorporated within the boundaries of Butler County they must have been deeply moved by its pristine beauty, and impressed, with the wonderful possibilities of the land spread before them. ‘Gilded with gold!’ They exclaimed in unison. ‘At Last, the El Dorado!’ And so it was named, and so it will remain until the end of time.”

THE QUEENS AND MAIDS OF HONOR

Miss Geneva Houser, of Cassoday, now Mrs. Dwight Harsh, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Houser, was queen of the first Kafir Corn Carnival. Arthur Capper, later governor of Kansas and now United States Senator, was on the program to lead the grand march with Queen Geneva. Governor Walter Roscoe Stubbs and many other notables were in the first-day crown of 20,000—the largest crowd that up to that time had ever assembled in El Dorado in one day. Mrs. Harsh still is one of Butler County’s favorite daughters. She and her husband live on a ranch near Cassoday. Their small daughter, Eloise, was maid of honor to Baby Queen Roberta Barker of Whitewater in the carnival of 1927. Queen Geneva’s maids of honor were Mildred Scribner, Alida Turner, Vera Grant, Faye Shelden, Edna Covert, Fern Eldridge, Pauline Brown and Nola Babb.

Miss Lulu Frymire, now of Los Angeles, was queen of the 1912 carnival and 75,000 persons paid homage to her during the three days in which she appeared in parades on a tremendous white and yellow float, dotted with thousands of American Beauty roses, her resplendent robes of creamy satin blending with the pale gold of her hair. Harold Irwin, son of Mrs. Will Irwin and the late Mr. Irwin, won the silver cup that year for being the county’s prettiest baby. Frances Shelden, now Mrs. Keith Anderson, was queen of the first Baby Parade. Queen Lulu’s attendants were Della Boone, Hazel Norris, Nellie Joseph, Lola Widener, Clara Vincent, Zerita Holcomb, Frances Hitchcock and Hazel Viets.

PAGE 98

At the third carnival, held in 1914, Virginia Marguerite Wellwood was Queen. In that year, Eunice Winchell of Leon, was maid of honor to Queen Virginia. Miss Winchell was mounting flower-padded steps to her seat on the float, when one of her golden slippers fell to the ground. Young Willard Thompson a spectator, picked up the slipper, gallantly replaced it upon the diminutive, silk-stockinged foot—and for the first time, heard the voice of his future wife, as she thanked him for the courtesy.

But that is not all—

Her Majesty—Queen Virginia—and her first maid of honor were given a trip to two expositions in California, through the courtesy of the carnival committee, and in Santa Monica Queen Virginia met young Chester Boynton. Of course they were married and have since lived happily. Their home is in Pawtucket, R.I. Mrs. Boynton is a sister of Mrs. Basil Logan and is known as “one of the beautiful Wellwood sisters.” Her maids of honor were Della Newberry, Evelyn Stewart, Mary Tunstall, Eleanor Aikman, Genevieve Herbert, Helen Porter and Mildred Hammond.

ORGANIZE KNIGHTS OF MAPIRA

In 1915 for the first and only time, the Knights of Mapira, an organization founded by J. B. Adams, to promote interests of the carnival, chose the queen. Frances Hitchcock, now the wife of Hobart Kilgore, cashier of the Citizens State Bank, was selected. The ball given in the Ellet Opera House, to honor Queen Frances, is down in history as the gayest and most elaborate function held in Butler County up to that time. The queen’s carnival maids were Marianna Gensler, Kathryn Garnett and Edith Ralston. Frances Frazier was Baby Escort to Queen Frances.

On the heels of the 1915 carnival, the first oil well, Stapleton One, was brought in, and the subsequent boom and World War blotted out all thought of kafir corn carnivals for nine hector years.

In 1924 the Chamber of Commerce, of which Joe Davis Turner was secretary, voted to resume the annual Kafir Corn Carnival festivals. Miss Thelma Joseph—Thelma March on the legitimate stage—talented 16-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John S. Joseph of Potwin, was elected queen by popular vote. Later she graduated from Wichita High School and the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York City, and is now well toward the top of her profession as an actress on New York City, and is now well toward the top of her profession as an actress on Broadway in New York City. Her maids of honor were Freida Pulver, Carrene Haw, Pauline Ellet, Lauretta Binter, Rose Harrison and Vivian Polk.

Poise and charm were personal attributes of Miss Cleo Teter now Mrs. Joe Anderson, daughter of John Teter and Mrs. Teter, who was the selection of Butler County for queen of the 1925 Carnival. Her attendants were Ida Mae Ferrier, Cuma Tabing, Maxine Davis, Geraldine Conwell, Margaret Sturgeon and Edith Marie Norris.

As previously indicated, Cupid thrives on Butler County Kafir Corn Carnivals and romance has added charm to the reign of many a gracious queen and lovely maid who bowed smilingly from floats to the thousands of spectators in Kafirville. Although the maiden names of maids of honor were given in this brief sketch, most of the maids of honor are married now. As for romance, it was in 1925, that pretty Leona Turner was introduced at a Rotary luncheon as a candidate for Miss El Dorado and there met Roswell Clark, Rotarian. A year later they were married.

On October 20-21-22, 1926, Iva Lorene Ferrier, daughter of the late Mrs. Kate Ferrier of Clifford Township, reigned as queen. One of the talented Ferrier sisters, she was thoroughly charming. Her maids of honor were Letha Lietzke, Zeola VanWinkle, Grace Brickley, Dorothy Sames, Carrie Penner and Rhea Asmussen. Queen Iva Lorene was crowned by Fred A. Pielsticker, vice president and general manager of the Skelly Oil Company, at an impressive ceremony preceding the Queen’s Ball.

In a hotly contested race for queen of the 1927 carnival, 500,000 masculine votes were cast and the only blonde among the sixteen contestants was elected—Marie Joyce Locke, now Mrs. Mernard Keevert, daughter of Mrs. and Mrs. John S. Locke. She was crowned by William F. Benson at a magnificent Queen’s Ball. Her maids of honor were Mildred Bernice Wright, Iva Claypool, Julia Chaney, Irene Turner, Lorna Cole, Cuma Tabing Wood, Carrie Penner, Rhea Asmussen, Vivian Poulk, Lauretta Binter and Dorothy Sames.

Tom Ellsberry, Cyril Faulders, R. L. Dillenbeck, Roger Ewing, Bernard John-

PAGE 99

Ston and Ted Wilson, Clinton Wood, Dr. Brock Schreck, and Roswell Clark formed the queen’s committee.

In 1929 the people chose as Butler County’s most popular and beautiful young, woman, Miss Leoti Hartenbower of Douglass. Miss Hartenbower, whose recent death in an automobile accident saddened thousands of Butler County residents, was an ideal queen, beautiful and gracious. Later she was chosen by Mrs. J. W. Kirkpatrick as a page for Daughters of American Revolution conferences, in Washington D. C. and was the recipient of social courtesies each time she came to El Dorado. Miss Dorothy Tolle (Mrs. Ellsworth Jordan) daughter of Mrs. and Mrs. Ralph P. Tolle, was Miss El Dorado, the queen’s official hostess. The young women, exquisitely attractive, were a striking contrast, the queen a brunette, Miss El Dorado a blonde. The queen’s committee that year was Cyril Faulders, chairman; Robert Dillenbeck, Harry J. Haberlein, Dow Williams and Murray Crummer.

Young women chosen Miss El Dorado—or official hostesses to the queens, were Miss Helen Gwin (Mrs. Paul Patten) 1924; Miss Leona Turner, (Mrs. Roswell Clark) 1925; Miss Doris Armour (Mrs. Edgar Hamaker) 1926; Miss Louise Estes (Mrs. Ira Graham) 1927; Miss Dorothy Tolle (Mrs. Ellsworth Jordan) 1929.

THE BABY PARADE

The Baby Parade, inaugurated in 1912, is easily the outstanding feature of Butler County’s unique carnival. Movie photographers, who film miles of the parades each year, expend more enthusiasm and film upon the Baby Parade than other features. Thousands cheer until hoarse, as resplendently decorated miniature floats, doll buggies, cabs, ponies, perambulators, tricycles, gocarts, scooters, kiddie-cars, dogs and twins-in-costume move in enchanting pageant to the music of band. Baby queens of the carnivals, and their attendants were: Frances Shelden, queen of the Cullough (Mrs. Amos Peterson) Baby Queen in 1914. Opal Gifford (Mrs. John Catlin) Fairy Queen in1915. Her maids of honor were Alberta Peffley, Martha Lee Parker, Frances Pattison, Irene Turner and Margaret Grove. Frances Frazier was Baby Escort to Queen Frances Hitchcock that year. Ruth Elizabeth Dudley, queen in 1924. Attendants—Lucille Sluss, Billie Wallace Smith, Dorothy Jean Feder, Sarah Margaret Blair, Lottie Caroline Ewing, Virginia Lee Lathrop and Peggy Smith. Vivian Helen Clark, queen of 1925, was attended by Elsie Young, Virginia Lee Blackburn, Peggy Jean Jones, Martha Jean Kington, Marjorie Ann McKay, Harriet Gail Miller, Margaret Nancy Wiley and Jeanette Penwell. Ethel Mabel Brown, of Leon, queen of 1926, had as maids of honor—Geraldine Harmon, Alice Duke, Maxine Shuman and Joanne Aylward.

Roberta Barker, queen in 1927. Attendants: Eloise Harsh, Marian Hogue, Mabel Guyot, Barbara Ann Bragg, Helen Margaret McNeal, Lavina Clem, Mary Frances Frost, Opal Jackson, Virginia Faye Barr, Barbara Jane Baker, Roberta Sue McCluggage.

Francine Pummill, queen of 1929: Ruth Easely, Doris May Brumback, Genevieve Lipscomb, Marian Darling Schide, Barbara Jean Corey; pages—Bobby Gilkeson and Freddie Starr.

PAGE 100

SOCIETY AND CLUBS

For more than seventy-five years, women have had a vast and vital share in making Butler County. They came “West” with their venturesome young husbands in the late ‘sixties and early ‘seventies, seeking Elysian fields and a new world to conquer. They left beloved relatives and security, comfortable homes, churches and good schools, to enter a wilderness. By rail, so far as railway lines then extended—mostly in covered wagons, they traveled tediously into a primitive land. Kansas was a limitless stretch of barren prairie. There were no bridges, roads, telephones or telegraph lines.

Most of the young wives had heard fantastic tales of Kansas cyclones, Indian massacres, blizzard, devastating prairie fires and floods. They, who had known comforts and luxuries of civilization, found cruse one-room shacks in a rough frontier. Food was plain and scant. The dresses brought from “back East” had to be turned at revamped time after time. There was sickness without available medical aid; discouraging drought, uncertainty of crops, grievous loss of loved ones—and the Grasshopper year.

But the women had come joyously and the bravest and gayest of them stayed. To their daughters and granddaughters these women bequeather the priceless heritage of character and an enduring spirit that finds happiness in service.

From the days that those first dainty, pink-cheeked brides stepped firmly from covered-wagon or stage coach to virgin soil of Southern Kansas, women of Butler County have been noted for courage and accomplishment: for outstanding talents in home-making; for sportsmanship, culture and qualities of leadership.

Unerringly, these pioneer women and their feminine progeny won recognition the world over in the arts; as educators, doctors and nurses, political leaders, in national and international patriotic, charitable, church, lodge, club, farm and home-building organizations. They have been acclaimed heroines in diphtheria epidemics and as missionaries in far-off countries; have won distinction as executives, organizers, musicians, students, society leaders, cake-bakers, collectors of pitchers and antiques, needlework experts and saleswomen. They have found niches for their talents the world over. They are summoned to the earth’s far corners, as actresses on legitimate stage and screen, to paint and write, to serve on national and international boards. With radiant spirit and infinite tenderness and patience they have kept homes intact and charming; have reared valiant sons and lovely daughters; have given unstintedly of energy and resourcefulness to better the community.

Hundreds of women’s clubs flourish in Butler County and many new ones are informed every season of the year for social contact and general advancement. There are music and literary clubs, mothers’ clubs, card, luncheon, golf and 4-H clubs, study and cooking clubs. There is apparently to be no end to clubs, so long as the world moves forward. It is through social affiliations that women make lasting friendships, through contact with other minds that their lives are enriched. Many a family continues to reside in Butler County solely because the wife and mother is reluctant to break the ties of club association. Clubs occupy a more important niche in the lives of women today, the world over, than ever before.

El Dorado is, traditionally, an aristocratic town, remarked a society editor sent by her newspaper to assemble a page of photographs and personal sketches for a Sunday page. Butler county women have the most original club programs that it is my good fortune to record, commented a visiting club editor.

The late Mrs. Frances Mooney, member of the Shakespeare, W. M. B. Sr. and other local clubs, wrote for her husband’s history a sketch of society as it was in the early seventies. “One of my earliest advents into society,” she wrote, “was a dance given some miles north of us, at the home of Messrs. William Spencer and Barney Doyle. Well I remember my search for the hostesses; and remember even better the amusement that followed my asking, ‘But where are Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Doyle?’ I discovered our hosts were bachelors, keeping house on the prairies, and the proprieties of the occasion were unquestioned.”

In 1916, there were five federated clubs in Butler County—The Woman’s Mutual Benefit Club, Home Economics and Domestic Science of 1914 of El Dorado; the Outlook, Augusta, and the Mutual Helpers of Cassoday. There are now ten

Copyright © 2007 to Kansas Genealogy Trails' Butler County host & all Contributors

All rights reserved