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If the historian were asked to tell in a single sentence the history of Gove county, he would say that it is a tale of ups and downs. It is a record of progress and improvement, but this progress instead of being regularly and orderly has been subject to some rather violent fluctuations. In a previous chapter of this history, the story was related of the first settlement of the county in 18 78-80 and the subsequent desolation and ruin of that settlement by drouth. Since that time our history has been an irregular alteration of good times and bad, of gains and losses in population, production and wealth, and these changes have tallied roughly with the annual fluctuations in rainfall. Let me invite the reader's attention to the table given below. These figures, which are taken from the reports of the State Board of Agriculture and the United States Weather Bureau, are perhaps not as dry as they seem; they date back to about the time of the organization of the county, and a study of them will tell, better than words, the nature of the progress or retrogression our county has made since that date. From the table a very fair chronicle can be made. Using the table as a guide, a history of the county, year by year, could be constructed, about as follows: 1886 The newly organized county started off with a population of 3,032; most of the settlers were poor, living on homesteads and having little property to assess; the cattle in the county were worth far more than the crops produced. The Union Pacific railroad was by far the largest taxpayer. 1887 Population increased more than a third; production tripled; value of live stock doubled; the country was booming. 1888 Population still on the increase, live stock increasing, the assessed valuation of the county has nearly tripled in two years, but the farms produced less than last year; not so good. 1889 This year the rainfall record begins. There is a six-fold increase in wheat production, but the value of farm products is only doubled. Corn crop is poor. Probably also a year of poor prices. Fourteen inches of rain is not enough to make a farming country. The settlers sell some of their cattle, and the population falls off seven hundred. 1890 Only ten inches of rain. Crop production smallest ever known. Six hundred leave the county. Valuation decreased fifteen per cent in two years. 1891 Population still fast decreasing, but those who remained have a pretty good crop. Twice as much rain this year as last. 1892 Another year of good rains and a good crop. The exodus from the county has slowed down. 1893 The county begins to gain in population once more, but it is another dry year and crops are poor. 1894 Driest year since 1890. All the discourageable ones leave; only the stayers remain; population reaches the irreducible minimum. The rainfall was heavy in June, too late to save the wheat, nearly half the year's supply of rain coming in that month, but October had no rain at all, and six other months had less than an inch of rain each. 1895 and 1896 Twenty three inches of rain each year. The survivors are producing something from their farms, but cattle have decreased in number and are worth less than half what they were worth eight years before. These are years of low prices, following the financial panic of 1893. 1897 Look who's here. Gove county had the biggest rainfall in its history, and its first big wheat crop. Now for the first time the produce of the fields was worth more than the live stock. 1898 The country shows signs of recovery. Cattle nearly double in numbers and value since last year. It is becoming a cattleman's country. 1899 and following On the upgrade, in population,
crop production, live stock and everything. These are years of good rainfall.
proaches the million dollar mark. In the value
of live stock increased four 1901 they go over it, to stay there 1903 was a phenomenal wheat year. This year's crop deserves special mention, which will be given it later in another chapter. The population of the county doubled between 1896 and 1906, and the value of live stock increased four and one-half times. In 1908 the value of farm products passed the million mark. It has been above that mark every year since except three. The live stock valuation crossed the mark in 1909. In 1910 the U.S. Census takers enumerated 6,044 people in Gove county, while the local assessors reported only 5,599. This is our high water mark for population. It will be noted that the assessed valuation was more than five times as great in 1908 as in 1906. This is due to a change in methods of assessment. Property was formerly assessed at about one-fifth of its value all over the state; since the adoption of the present system in 1908 all property is supposed to be assessed at its actual value. Gove county had now been prospering for so many years that it seemed to have become a habit. The calamitous days and the busted boom of the early Nineties were forgotten; indeed about two thirds of the population had come into the county since those disastrous days and knew nothing of them. Land had acquired a value, the homestead lands and school lands were taken up, and the Union Pacific disposed of the last remnants of the land grant it had received in the Sixties and had been holding all these years till it could find purchasers. Settlers were acquiring more cattle and better horses and moving out of the old sod houses into substantial frame dwellings, and furnishing the same with pianos and steel ranges and telephones and that popular new invention, the automobile. Perhaps ours was the pride which goeth before destruction, and perhaps we needed some punishment to teach us humility. And the punishment was now at hand. Note, on the table given above, the rainfall of 1910 and 1911. For the. first time in its history Gove county had a total failure of its wheat crop, and nearly everything else. In 1912 there was a small yield of wheat, and other crops were good, but this was the year of the "horse disease" which swept away the farmers* work animals. The next year, 1913, was another total failure. In these years nearly two thousand people left the county and the taxable valuation of the county fell off more than two million dollars. This, in a few words, is the history of three disastrous years. But, once more, it was demonstrated that the man who can hold on is the winner. The rains came again, and the Desert of 1913 produced more than a million bushels of wheat in 1914; more than that, we had another wheat crop in 1915, and again in 1916. For three successive years Gove county was in the million bushel class. We gain back some of our lost population. We have no record of the rainfall in these years -the local weather man had quit the job. Then came the World War. Farmers did not profit greatly by wartime prices, for the yield was light (note that ten inch rainfall in 1917), but the stockman made money; live stock values went over the two million mark, to stay there for four years. 1919 was a good year. Nineteen twenty was the most glorious year in the
history of the county. The wheat crop was worth five million dollars. The yield was the largest ever known, and
most of it was marketed before the break in prices. This was the year when the great United States government put
into operation its policy of deflating the farmer. This was a year of land speculation, and land sold at unheard-of
prices. Late in the year prices broke sharply, and those who had held their wheat or speculated suffered severely. Since its first settlement Gove county has had several waves of population, increasing and diminishing, and there has been a considerable shifting about of the settlement within the boundary. And this forms an interesting study. Here is one way of writing history without mentioning any individuals we can construct from the census returns the story of how our population has shifted, and why. The northern part of Gove county is, in general, a beautiful plain, well fitted for agriculture, with no outcrop of rock, and through it runs our only railroad, following the divide between the Saline river and the Smoky Hill. The central part is rougher, for through it flows the Hackberry and its branches and there are outcrops of rock in places. (Also, the best alfalfa lands are on the Hackberry bottoms.) South of the Hackberry is another beautiful plain which soon shades off into the valley of the Smoky Hill and its tributary Plum Creek. The roughest land in the county is along the Smoky, and this part of the county is also farthest from the railroad and market. The first permanent settlements were along the railroad; the first homesteads taken were adjoining the townsite of Buffalo Park; but before the day of the settlements the cattlemen with their organization, the Smoky Hill Cattle Pool, had squatted with their herds along the Smoky where they could get water without digging for it. The county when organized was laid off into eight townships in what looks like a very arbitrary fashion. Probably because each and every ambitious little town in the county had to have a township carved out to fit it. Baker and Payne townships each got seven miles of the railroad, but ran south eighteen miles into the Hackberry country. Gove township was carved out of the central part or the county. Grinnell township got the northwest part of the county and a panhandle down along the west side. Grainfield, smallest of all townships, got what was left in the north part of the county. The south was divided into Larrabee. Jerome and Lewis, each twelve miles square. And such the arrangement has remained, except that in 1903 Gaeland township was formed out of the west part of Gove and the south part of Grinnell. I have not been able to find the roll of the census
of 1886, taken at the time the county was organized. The oldest we have is the census of 1887, taken the year after
organization. On this roll I find the names of about forty adult male citizens who were residents of the county
at that time, forty two years ago, and who are still with us. The list may not be complete but here it is: The first settlers were homesteaders. For twenty
miles north and south of the railroad the even-numbered sections, except the school lands, were government land,
open for settlement to the first comer. The odd-numbered sections were part of the U. P. land grant. But south
of the "railroad limit" the whole country, except the school lands, was homestead land. The first wave
of settlement passed by the railroad and school lands to take up home-steads in the remote parts of the county;
and the first census after the organization shows the population spread fairly evenly over the county, with Grinnell
township leading in population and Jerome second. It seems strange that Jerome should have more population than
Baker, or Larrabee more than Payne, but such was for a time the case. For several years Jerome township had two
voting precincts, Jerome and Goodwater. The people of Gove county have come from nearly every state in the rnirn and from the older parts of our own state. Knud Knudsen. a native of Norway, was the first foreign born citizen to take out naturalization papers in the district court of Gove county. The foreign born element is not large. The census of 1925, our latest authority, gives the number of foreign born as 341; of these 197 were born in Russia, 30 in Germany, 30 in Canada, 27 in Sweden, 25 in England, the balance scattering. The number of colored people was 37. Most settlers have come without any special inducement or influence. There have been few attempts savoring of colonization or organized effort; but this chapter would not be complete without reference to some such "settlements" which were made. In a previous chapter dealing with the settlement in 1880, before the organization of the county, reference was made to the Holland Dutch settlement south and west of the town of Grainfield. These families would no doubt have had an important in-fluence upon the county if they had stayed, but they left in a body as they came; the Verhoeff and Van Marter families were the only ones which remained. The Boom of '86 brought to the county many Swedish
families, most of which settled in Lewis and Jerome townships, in such numbers that that part of the county was
popularly known as "Sweden" for many years. These settlers brought to the county such names as Johnson,
Nelson, Hanson, Larson, Danielson, Swanson, Peterson, Pierson, Anderson, Bredson. Olson, Velen, Thoren, Soderstrom,
Youngdahl, Lofgren, Moller, Norell, Nordell, Lillia, Lundgren and others. The "Old Swede Church" still
stands in Lewis township with the date "1887" carved in stone on its front, but the congregation is long
since dissolved and most of the Swedish families are gone. The church is now a dwelling house, occupied by an up
to date citizen who has equipped his home with that latest great invention and can sit in the old church and listen
to a sermon every Sunday by radio. Beginning with about 1900 a "Russian" settlement has grown up around the town of Park in Payne and Grainfield townships. These people are not Russians, except that they came from Russia they are Catholics in religion and Germans in race and language, who having good cause for dissatisfaction with life in Russia under the Czars left that country to seek new homes in America. A few of them are still so new in this country that they have not yet learned the language, but most of them are of the second or third generation, born in America. They take to American ways so readily that there seems to be nothing foreign about them but their names, which are as yet a trifle hard to get used to. Here are a few of the family names they brought with them: Depperschmidt, Walschmidt, Linneberger, Schwarzenberger, Kinderknecht, Waldman, Wildeman, Leiker, Heier, Ochs, Goetz, Selensky, Rueschhoff, Kaiser and Zerr. Their settlement contains some of the best wheat land in Gove county, as they have abundantly demonstrated. Before the coming of the Russians Buffalo Park was a deserted village and its vicinity an empty waste, but these settlers have brought Payne township to the front and made it second only to Baker in population and productiveness. (The writer is reluctant to close this chapter with such a brief and utterly inadequate account of these two excellent communities, at Quinter and Park. They deserve much fuller treatment, but I will leave this duty to some future historian. After all, this chapter was not written to teil of individual or community achievement but of The Shifting Population.) Figures may be dull reading, but the reader's attention is invited to the following table which shows the shift in our county's population by five year periods, beginning with the first year after the organization of the county. Note how the population of the river townships fell and rose and fell again, and how in recent years the population has gravitated to the railroad townships. Note how the total fell away one half in the first five year period. The figures for 1911 are placed alongside those of 1912 to show how the county lost twenty per cent of its settlers in one calamitous year, and where the loss fell.
It would be the merest commonplace to brag about our schools. Of course Gove county has schools, and they are our joy and pride. Gove county has always been a leader in maintaining schools and in enforcing compulsory attendance. The first report we have was for 1889 when there were 1108 pupils enrolled in the common schools, forty seven teachers employed and school property valued at $33,025. The percentage of enrollment was probably as large then as now, (and who shall say that the schools did not do as good work then as now), but the value of school property was not great. The country was too poor in those pioneer days to afford fine school houses and expensive equipment; these had to wait till more prosperous times. There are some still living in Gove county who can remember going to school in a sod house or a dugout. The report of the county superintendent for 1928 shows an enrollment in the common schools of Gove county of 1277, with eighty nine teachers employed and school property valued at $355,010. There are seven "Standard" schools and one "Superior" school-the latter being at Quinter. As might be expected, this tenfold increase in the value of school property has been accompanied by a rising debt. The old school houses were paid for; but Gove county school districts now carry a bonded debt of $83,300 (most of which is on the grade schools, in the towns). Even so, this is not bad. compared with some of our neighboring counties. Sixty one school districts have been organized
in the county. Of these about a dozen were laid out before the county itself was organized in 188 6, and while
we were still a part of Ellis or Trego county. The others have been formed since, as the need arose. Eleven of
these districts have been disorganized or joined to others. One district was included in the Oakley consolidation,
and several in the Quinter Consolidated School. The Quinter people are very proud of their school, but for some
reason the other parts of the county have not taken to the idea of consolidation,-probably because they fear the
expense. In this list the valedictorian is named first, salutatorian second: 1894-C. L. Cook, W. S. Kriegh.
1895-Mabel Munns, Evelyn Bentley.
1896-E. L. Wickizer, W. S. Harper.
1897-Etta McKinney, B. B. Bacon.
1898-Annie Harrington, Verna Cook.
1899-Sybil Wilson, Lucy Wilson.
1900-L. G. Peirce, J. L. Mendenhall.
1901-E. D. Samson, Ruby Darnall.
1902-Moyne Jones, Annie Williams.
1903-John Borah, Annie Ritchie.
1904-Blanche Mendenhall, Gaye Iden.
1905-Edna Rundberg, Olive Steck.
1906-Newton E. Terrill, Stella Houser.
1907-Ella Holaday, Chas. L. Caldwell.
1908-Pauline Pritchard, Joseph Bowman.
1909-Eric Cummings, Lela Songer.
1910-Emma Haldeman, Martha Mc-Knight.
1911-Clara Jamison, Minnie Smith.
1912-Charles Harvey, Orpha Hinchslitf.
1913-Pansy Turman, Faye Smith.
1914-Elva Bowers, Lennie Nelson.
1915-Geo. D. Rover, Jr., Floyd Cooper.
1916-Myrtle Crist, Velma Anderson.
1917-Cecil Walt first; Marie Hall and Rosa Suter tie for second.
1918-Frank Phelps, Robert E. James.
1919-Bryonia Pearce, Cynthia Cooper.
1920-Elsie Albin, Nancy Beesley.
1921-Ella May Cooper, Iver Tokoi.
1922-Mary Marshall, Bertha Marshall.
1923-J. Wayne Lansdowne, Ivan Walt.
1924-Lloyd Sheard, Merlyn Grecian.
1925-Dorothy Pittinger, Grace Bees-ley.
1926-Edna Mann, Lucille Thompson.
1927-Fred Benson, Jr., Jennie Sterrett.
1928-Nadine Calvert, Clyde Coulter.
1929-Joseph Mohler, Jr., Pearl Doxon.
The agitation for high schools began in 1895. In the election of that year a proposition was submitted to the voters to establish a county high school. The proposition was not very strongly supported, and received only 97 votes as against 231 in opposition. It carried only a single township, Gove township, where the school would have been located if established. At length the idea gained enough favor that in the legislature of 1903 the representative from Gove county (Jones) got a special bill passed providing for a county high school in Gove county. The act created much dissatisfaction, it did not submit the matter to a vote of the people but provided that the school could be established upon a petition signed by a majority of the voters of the county. The petition was secured, and the Gove County High School was opened at Gove City in the fall of 1903. The Gove County High School had a short and troubled
existence. It started out with nine students, and the student body never grew to be a very large one. Certain parts
of the county never were enthusiastic about it and were always fighting it. Jt might be said, too, that its supporters
were not always wise, and the institution lost support on account of their actions. As the opposition grew Representative
Dennis introduced in the legislature of 1907 a.bill to submit the fate of the school to a vote of the people of
the county. If this election had been held the school would probably have been sus-tained, but the supporters of
the G. C. H. S. were unwilling to allow the matter to come to a vote. The principal of the school and a delegation
of its friends went to Topeka and "lobbied" against the Dennis bill and secured its defeat. This was
hailed as a great victory for the G. C. H. S., but it was the beginning of its downfall. The fight was taken to
the courts; a taxpayer was found who protested against the tax levied to support the school and brought suit to
test the legality of its establishment. It was a matter of a technicality, the law creating the school had not
been properly complied with, the petitions had not been published the required number of times; and so the district
court and the supreme court put an end to the Gove County High School, the final decision being rendered in May,
1909. "About forty teachers received full or partial training at this high school. Most of them taught or are teaching in Gove county. Four of this number have become teachers in other high schools. "Among this high school's former students and graduates may be numbered one lawyer, one law student, two holding clerical positions, one graduate nurse, one evangelistic worker, one merchant, and two young men who have been of inestimable value to their father in assisting him in the editorship of a newspaper. Not a bad record for a small high school in existence only six years and whose average enrollment was about thirty." The Gove County High School was never a very heavy financial burden. It carried on in the grade school building at Gove City (since torn down) and never had a building of its own; and the taxpayers of Gove county at this date would be tickled pink if they could bring their present high school tax down to the figure which sufficed to maintain the old county high school. But those days are gone, probably forever. The property of the G. C. H. S. was sold at auction and bought in for $500 by School District No. 8, the district in which Gove City is located, and this district bravely proceeded to carry on a high school,-a heavy load for so small a unit. But at last came a time when the country was ripe to take advantage of the rural high school law passed by the legislature. Then a rural high school district was carved out for each town in the county. Gove and Grinnell districts organized in 1915, Quinter, Grainfield and Park in 1916. The Quinter, Grainfield and Gove districts have erected handsome buildings for their high schools. Park high school is still using the grade school building. It took three bond elections in one year before the Grinnell district could start on its high school building. Since its organization the school has been conducted in the grade school building. In January, 1929, an election was called to vote $60,-000 in bonds to construct a high school building. The opposition contended that the amount was too large, as the Quinter and Gove districts had issued but $30,000 each and the Grainfield district $20,000. The bond issue was beaten at the January election by a majority of five votes. The friends of the $60,-000 proposition alleged that illegal votes had been cast, and caused another election to be called in Marcli, at which time the proposition carried by about the same majority by which it had been beaten at the first election. The opposition now brought suit and had the second election set aside for irregularities of procedure. Then the two factions got together on a proposition to vote $40,000 and called a third election. And so the Grinnell Rural High School will have a $40,000 building which is in course of construction at this writing. The enrollment in our five rural high schools at last report was Gove 5 9, Grainfield 32, Grinnell 5 7, Park 13, Quinter 128, a total of 289. These five institutions are a trifle expensive; but when you come to think of it, it is a very nice arrangement each ambitious town in the county can have its own high school, and the way is made eas.v for every bright boy and girl in the county to get an education. And one out of every twenty of the entire population of Gove county, big or little, is enrolled in high school. Think of it a moment. The writer claims that no other county in the state can equal this record. Having treated of our grad^ schools and our high schools, let us now consider our college. How many know that Gove county once had a college? In 188 9 the G. A. R. Memorial College of Buffalo Park was chartered by the state, its object being, as stated in the charter, "to build and maintain a college for the free education of the children of the union soldiers of the late rebellion in the United States." The incorporators of the college are Mrs. Mary J. Whiting of Oakley, Miss L. A. Mints of Buffalo Park, and Mrs. Carrie Chase Davis, Mrs. Agnes Frick and Mrs. Sarah J. Johnston of Wakeeney. I find but one newspaper reference to this Gove county college. The Gove County Republican under data of Sept. 20, 1889, says: "The G. A. R. Memorial College at Buffalo Park opened Sept. 11 with an enrollment of 21. The College occupies elegant and commodious rooms in the new school building. Miss Clara Davis, president of the College, has charge of Preparatory and Normal courses; Mr. Griffith has charge of the Commercial course, Mrs. D. A. Woodford the Musical department and Mrs. N. Saum the Art department. A library of about 300 volumes has been established and additions will be made as rapidly as possible. The students are doing thorough good work and all are ambitious and enthusiastic. On the evening of the 10th a concert was given in honor of the opening of the school by the Woodford orchestra which was a complete success. It was the first concert given in Gove county and won the appreciation of all present." And that seems to be all. Buffalo Park had no newspaper, the Pioneer having suspended two years before, and no other mention of the G. A. R. Memorial College appears. And who the incorporators and the teachers are whose names are given, I have never been able to find out except one. Evidently the sponsors of this Gove county college soon found out that running a higher institution of learning is a financial proposition and the country was not able to sustain it so it died an early death. In the year 1922 Miss Lucille A. Mints, who is the same person mentioned as one of the incorporators of the college, came to Quinter for a short time to conduct a class in painting and drawing. This old lady, whose home was then at Seattle, Wash., told the writer of this history that the G. A. R. Memorial College was soon removed from Buffalo Park to Oberlin. That city wanted it and promised to maintain it. Inquiry at Oberlin brought the information that a tract of 640 acres (I think) was set aside on which to erect the college buildings, which same were never erected. And what became of the G. A. R. Memorial College at Oberlin or how long it lasted there is no part of the history of Gove county. Our neighboring city of Oberlin is said to be getting
ambitious again, and to be dreaming dreams of expanding her fine community high school ino a college. It is to
be hoped those good people will have better luck with it than they had with the G. A. R. Memorial College which
they took away from Gove county. |
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