Firsts in Butler County, Kansas

Surnames in the articles below are:  Aikman, Hildebrande, Omstead, Rider, & Wells

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FIRST WOMAN TO HOLD A COUNTY OFFICE INBUTLER COUNTY

Mrs. Florence Olmsted, 1890-92, was the first woman to hold a county office inButler. She secured the adoption of county uniformity of text-books, and organized the teachers' reading circle. She died from a hemorrhage of the lungs, before the expiration of her term of office, December 24, 1892.

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Bert C. Wells,El Dorado’sFirstCity Manager

This was taken from an article published something between 1963-1965 in the El Dorado Times

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FIRST ALL-WOMAN JURY

The first all-woman jury to sit on a District Court case inKansas serviced in El Dorado onNovember 27, 1912.Judge G.P. Aikman appointed Mrs. Eva Rider as the first woman baliff in Kansas in a trial which dealt with land purchase misrepresentation.

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FIRST WHITE SETTLER INBUTLERCOUNTY

The man long credited with being the first white settler inButlerCounty was William Hildebrande, who arrived in May 1857, and built a cabin in what is nowEl DoradoTownship. The neighbors said that Hildebrande harbored horse thieves. In 1859, a party of neighbors surrounded the Hildebrande home, seized and beat him and warned him to leave the county within 24 hours. He did so.

(Taken from the book "ButlerCounty's Eighty Years" ~ Transcribed by Peggy Luce)