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Sedgwick County, Kansas

WICHITA AT 125 YEARS

On July 21, 1870, the charter that officially made Wichita a city was signed by 124 people.

Wichita's boardwalk stood where Bank IV is now.

WICHITA ANNIVERSARY WON'T GET A BIG BASH

One hundred and twenty-five years apparently isn't a big deal to Wichita.

The city celebrated its centennial 25 years ago with a party so huge that it continues every spring as the River Festival, and its sesquincentennial celebration 25 years from now will undoubtedly be as big a blow-out, but the waddayacallit 125th anniversary of Wichita's official incorporation will pass on July 21 with pomp and circumstance.

"I haven't heard anything about it on the city side, and I've only heard the county talk about it," said Joan Cole, perhaps the most historical-minded member of the Wichita City Council. "I'm unaware of any concerted celebration."

Although Old Cowtown Museum will mark the 125th anniversary on Friday with a low-key afternoon of historical re-enacting, and drew about 6,000 people to a more elaborate bash during the River Festival, few other official observances are planned. The hard-working city has a perfectly appropriate reason, however. Everybody's too busy to stop for a party.

"We've got a lot of projects going on this summer, and we just hadn't planned for (the anniversary)," said Bob Puckett, director of the Wichita Hisorical Museum, who was not surprised at the lack of anniversary events. "There are so manyu centennial celebrations going on around the state, at so many museums and counties, because we've been in that centennial cycle for the past 10 years or so, that it's drawn a lot of attention away from us."

Besides, Puckett points out, the big 125 just doesn't seem to have the same attention-grabbing significance as a 100th or 150th anniversary.

"If you're hunting for a fund-raising gimmick, or you have an event you want to focus on, you'll look for that," Puckett said. "But unless you're in the middle of something like that, it will pass unnoticed."

Because the 125th anniversary has gone largely unnoticed, many officials have only recently become aware of it.

"We've been working on the Miss Teen USA pageant full bore up here, and those kinds of things slip up on you," said Joe Boyd of the Wichita Convention and Visitors Bureau. "You say that July 21 is the 125th anniversary of the city? I'll look at that, because maybe we can put it in the pageant somewhere."

In addition to the city's work ethic, Boyd believes that a lack of interest in matters historical is also afoot in Wichita.

"That's kind of true about everything here," Boyd said. "The anniversary of Century II just slipped by, and when they put up a banner that was my first clue. At one time we were looking at a World War II observance, but I don't know of any plans for that."

Cole, who has fought for the preservation of several Wichita landmarks as an activist and a council member, noted that "I don't observe that Wichitans are that cognizant of their history."

Still, Wichita's anniversary will not go entirely uncelebrated. Cowtown's Liz Kennedy said that the museum will ackowledge Friday's significance with a large group of Girl Scouts taking part in a variety of activities common to 1875, and that a River Festival celebration birthday bash was well-attended. She said that the museum also marked the 125th anniversary of Sedgwick County in March, and that the occasion was further celebrated during the Sedgwick County Fair last week.

Several institutions that were born along with Wichita---such as the local Methodist and Episcopal churches---are also celebrating the anniversary. Katie Pott, the historian, for 125-year-old St. John's Episcopal Church, said the congregation began a yearlong observance in December on the anniversary of its first service and will renew the celebration in October on the anniversary of its official charter.

Although 125 years is sort of an in-between occasion, Pott said, it's important to take some notice.

"A lot of us won't be around for another 25 years," Pott said.

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A lot can happen in 125 years, and a lot has in Wichita.

Turning 125, as the city does on Friday, gives us a chance to recall some of those happenings.

Listed below are 125 facts, including some that even long-time Wichitans may be surprised to learn about their hometown.

1. One of Wichita's first traders was Jesse Chilholm for whom the Chisholm Trail and Chisholm Creek are named. Chisholm died in the spring of 1868 after eating rancid bear grease.

2. Wichita has 76 sites, buildings of districts that are considered historic gems. Among them are 35 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places and 41 buildings on the state register. These buildings include a 1917 house designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright at 255 N. Roosevelt and the Occidental Hotel, the city's oldest brick structure, at 300 N. Main.

3. Wichita native Lynette Woodard was the first woman to play for the Harlem Globetrotters.

4. Wichita's DeCoursey Dairy plant was established in 1919 and was the first fluid milk dairy in the city.

5. Inez Oppenheimer, a well-known Wichita prostitute and last great madam during the late 19th centruy, ran three brothels at First and Wichita.

6. In the early 1880's Wichitan David Payne led groups called "Boomers" into Oklahoma's Indian territory. When the Cherokee Land Strip was opened in September, 1893, trains from Wichita carried thousands to the territory.

7. Wichita was named for the tribe of American Indians who inhabited this area from 1864 to 1867. wichita means Tattoed Faces.

8. During the early 1870's, the town of Delano occupied a 2-1/2 block stretch of Douglas just west of the Arkansas River. Prostitutes, cowboys and gunfighters walked the streets.

9. Shortly after the turn of this last century, Wichita leaders promoted the city as the broomcorn capital of the world.

10. On July 21, 1870, one woman--Catherine McCarty, mother of future outlaw Billy the Kid--and 123 men signed a petition to create a town. Judge Reuben Riggs issued the town's articles of incorporation.

11. Wichita's fastest growing year was 1887 when the city was ranked third in the nation's volume of real estate transactions.

12. Wichita's population in 1889 was 48,000. By 1892, because of a failing economy, the count was 20,928.

13. In 1898, William "Buffalo Bill" Mathewson killed the last buffalo around Wichita---a one-ton bull that was in a pen in the Union Stock Yards.

14. Elias Hicks Durfee started his Wichita trading post in 1867. He and his brother-in-law became owners of the Great American Fur Co. and changed the company's name to Durfee and Peck, which became the largest fur and robe company in the west.

15. The heart of Wichita is Douglas and Main Streets. But the "main" street is really Douglas. Shortly after the town was started, Darius Munger developed Main Street while William Greiffenstein developed Douglas, believing Texas cattlemen would shop at the businesses they saw while driving herds east from the Arkansas River to the railroad---exactly the route Douglas Avenue took. Greiffenstein was right.

16. One of the first mass transit systems for Wichita was Andrew Greenways ferry across the Arkansas River, north of the present Douglas Avenue bridge.

17. Before the city of Wichita exited, nearly 1,500 American Indians lived in the area between what is now Murdock and 13th Street.

18. Henry McCarty, 11, arrived in Wichita during the summer of 1870. Described as a "street urchin" by the Wichita Eagle founder Marshall Murdock, McCarty later became famous as Billy The Kid.

19. During late 1871, the Chisholm Trail entering Wichita was moved south from Douglas Avenue tow hat is now Kellogg.

20. In 1872, the Douglas Avenue Bridge was constructed and a toll was charged.

21. One of the founders of Wichita was the original "Buffalo Bill," William Mathewson.

22. The fiew newspaper in Wichita was The Wichita Vidette, started in 1870.

23. William Finn organized the city's first school in an abandoned Army dugout on land that is now the southeast corner of 12th and Jackson.

24. Milo Kellogg, the city's first postmaster, each day could fit all of the city's mail in his hat or hip pockets.

25. In 1904, Sam Jones became Wichita's first black constable.

26. In 1908, A. A. Hyde, who had gained international attention with his Mentholatum salve, built the first steel re-enforced concrete building in Wichita at Douglas and Cleveland.

27. Wichita native John Noble painted a nude Cleopatra in the life-size pastel "Cleopatra at the Bath." The painting was placed in the saloon of the Carey Hotel. On Dec. 2, 1900, Carry A. Nation threw a rock at the painting, breaking its glass case.

28. It was Wichitan Sidney Toler who played Charlie Chan, the famous fictional sleuth who dazzled movie audiences in the 1930's with wuch bits of wisdom as: "Never tamper with gold fillings in a gift horse's teeth."

29. In 1935, the first year for the National Baseball Congress tournament, Wichitan Ray "Hap" Dumont brought in a star who was a big draw at the gate---Satchel Paige.

30. During World War II, the city's largest dairies--Steffen and Meadow Gold--had to revert to horse-drawn vehicles because of a shortage of gas and manpower.

31. Wichitan Charles Driscoll became one of the world's greatest authorities on pirates and buried treasure.

32. Col. Stephen Everett Jocelyn, along with Milo Kellogg, developed the leading grocery house in Wichita during the 1870's. Jocelyn's wife was the great-granddaughter of President Zachary Taylor.

33. In 1874, Wichitan Charles Cordeiro jointed a group headed for the Black Hills in search of gold---the first mining party to illegally enter the area belonging to the Sioux Indians.

34. In 1925 Tractor Row, a section of south Wichita from Douglas to Lewis, led the world in tractor and thresher distribution with nearly 50 merchants on the street.

35. On Oct. 20, 1936, the Civic Theater at 725 W. Douglas---Wichita's first "truly modern suburban theater"---opened. The theater was owned by O. F. Sullivan.

36. Wichitan Hattie McDaniel won an Academy Award for her supporting role in the 1939 motion picture classic "Gone With the Wind."

37. On Aug. 8, 1928, oil was discovered in the Wright Well in Sedgwick County. Hotel lobbies were suddenly filled with prospectors, and almost overnight, the entire county was leased for drilling.

38. McConnell Air Force Base was activated in 1951 to train crewmen assigned to fly the B-47 Stratojet. By 1955, the federal government had spent more than $37 million in developing the base.

39. The Orpheum Theatre was designed by one of the nation's leading theater architects, "Opera House John" Eberson. His theaters featured ceilings with clouds and low-wattage "stars."

40. The Jones Motor Car Co. in Wichita manufactured more than 3,000 vehicles between 1914 and 1921.

41. William Dye, known as the Chili King of the West, built an international business based on imported spices and peppers. In 1907, he began supplying peppers, spices and seasonings to venders who sold Mexican food to railroad workers.

42. One of the first pioneer doctors in Wichita was Andrew Fabique, who practiced from 1870 to 1911. He learned his skills by watching Civil War doctors.

43. Gypsy Rose Lee began her burlesque career on the stage of Wichita's Orpheum Theatre.

44. On Aug. 5, 1874, Wichitans woke to incessant buzzing, crackling, and rasping. Clouds of swarming grasshoppers had descended on the town and were piled two to three inches deep in some spots.

45. One of Wichita's first attorneys, Henry Clas Sluss, argued his clients' cases in the upper story of a livery stable.

46. Thomas and Catherine Masterson came to Wichita from Illinois in 1870 and their seven children. Three of the sons---Ed, William "Bat" and Jim---became legendary lawmen.

47. Jack Ledford's Star-Bar-Half-Moon Gang ruled the Arkansas River Valley during Wichita's earliest days. Alice Harris, the 16-year-old daugher of one of the town's prominent leaders, scandalized Wichitas by riding around town with Ledford on the back of his horse.

48. Wichita is a big, big name in college baseball. The 1989 Shockers won the College World Series. This year, WSU Coach Gene Stephenson became only the 13th college baseball coach in history to compile 1,000 career wins.

49. The Wichita State University basketball program vaulted into national prominence under the direction of Coach Ralph Miller, who came to WSU in 1951 from Wichita East High School. Under Miller, the Shockers had 12 winning seasons in 13 years.

50. Wichita's Cleo Littleton, who played high school basketball at Wichita East, is Wichita State University's all-time scoring leader with 2,164 points.

51. In fall 1960 John F. Kennedy spoke in Lawrence Stadium (now Lawrence-Dumont Stadium).

52. When a town trustee structure was formed on July 21, 1870, so that Wichita could become incorporated, C.A. Stafford, a local attorney, was appointed chairman.

53. E.B. Allen, an early pioneer doctor, was elected the city's first mayor in 1871.

54. Glen H. Thomas designed some of Wichita's most noted buildings, including Alcott Elementary School, North and West high schools, the Kansas Gas & Electric Co. office building and the Wichita airport terminal.

55. Hundreds of demonstrators flocked to Wichita in 1991 to make their opposition to abortion known in Operation Rescue's Summer of Mercy.

56. The Lassen Hotel opened Jan 1, 1919, on the southwest corner of First and Market.

57. Airplanes---Curtiss biplanes to be exact---first made an appearance in the Wichita area during a May 4, 1911, air show.

58. Wyatt Earp, a Wichita police officer in 1875, was fired when the monthly fines he was supposed to collect from the city's prostitutes, one of whom was his sister-in-law, were missing.

59. "Rowdy Joe" Lowe, a Delano saloon owner earned his nickname after he was involved in a saloon fight in Denver. Lowe is reported to have told his adversary, "Come here. I want to kiss and make up." Then he bit off the end of the man's nose.

60. William F. Cochran helped found the Byrd-Cochran Funeral Home, which opened on Sept. 1, 1929. Cochran's brother-in-law, Claude Byrd, had an undertaker license; Cochran financed the partnership.

61. Mary Elizabeth Lease, who helped form Wichita's Hypatia Club, later became a state and national leader in the Populist Party and ran for president of the United States.

62. Wichita Myra Warren McHery specialized in militant behavior. She was jailed at least 20 times and spent more than 50 years crusading against whiskey, tobacco, rising skirt lines, high-heeled shoes, and politicians and preachers that she deemed to be hypocrites.

63. In 1915, Henry Roe Cloud founded the Roe Institute, later named the American Indian Institute. Located north of what is now Wichita State University, the all-male school was one of the first American Indian high schools in the nation.

64. Thurlow Lieurance, dean of music at Wichita University from 1926 to 1945, specialized in American Indian music. He traveled to reservations shortly after the turn of the century, recording traditional songs on early-day phonographs.

65. The Carey-Eaton Hotel, finished in 1888, was billed as the most exclusive hotel between St. Louis and Denver. The face of the hotel's first owner---John Carey, Wichita's ninth mayor---is chiseled in stone near the north entrance of the old City Hall, 204 S. Main.

66. When the Central Building (now known as Century Plaza) opened in1929, it was promoted as Kansas' largest office building.

67. Nereus Baldwin, one of Wichita's first photographers, would often climb the tallest buildings in Wichita and take aerial, panoramic shots using stereoscopic photography.

68. Jim Ryun, one of the most famous distance runners in the history of track and field, attended Wichita East High School. He held for eight years the world record of 3 minutes, 51.1 seconds in the mile.

69. During the 1870's, when Johnnie Redding got ready for work, he didn't wear a suit. Instead, Wichita's first female impersonator stepped into a dress to entertain the wild and unruly.

70. "Candy Pete" Cero, a Greek sailor, was first lured to Wichita in 1883 by the promise of work with the railroads. He became a candy maker instead. Cero's, a family-owned business that specializes in chocolate, still exists off East Kellogg.

71. Physician Ada St. John who moved to Wichita in 1885 from New York City was the first woman in the city to drive an automobile---a bright red Maxwell.

72. During Wichita's cattle years, stockyards were built to hold 2,500 cattle near what is downtown Wichita today.

73. Wichita's first fair in fall 1873 featured a display of artificial teeth.

74. The 5,000-pound clock in the old City Hall was purchased from the Seth Thomas Clock Co. of Thomaston, Conn., and installed in April 1917.

75. When Union Station was under construction in 1913, the four participating rail lines agreed to an overpass that would raise their tracks over Douglas Avenue.

76. As president of the Golden Rule Oil Co., Wichitan Elbert Rule became one of the first men to establishe filling stations in Kansas---drivin-ins, no less. In 1914, Rule started building filling stations, usually on corners.

77. Billed as "The Main Street of America," U.S. 81 (today's Broadway) was to serve as a major highway stretching from Winnipeg to Acapulco. The heyday of U.S. 81, which eventually extended south to the Dallas/Fort Worth area, came to a close on Oct. 25, 1956, when the Kansas Turnpike opened.

78. In 1959, the oil industry published a list of the men who had contributed the most to the industry in its first 100 years. Among the 24 names was Wichitan J.A. (Jack) Vickers (1890-1940) of Vickers Petroleum Co.

79. Vickers' first refinery had a 500-barrel-a-day capacity. At the time of his death in 1940, the refinery was producing nearly 4,500 barrels a day.

80. Beginning in 1938 and for nearly three decades after, thousands of diners were mass-produced by Valentine Manufacturing in Wichita. The most popular model was the Little Chef, a 10-stool restaurant. Two of the larger Valentine buildings are still in Wichita--Brint's Diner at Lincoln and Oliver and Dyne-Quik at 1202 N. Broadway.

81. Wesley Hospital got its start as a sanitarium, known as the Martha Washington Home. It was located at the corner of 11th and St. Francis.

82. The saitarium became Wesley Hospital in fall 1912 when a group of Wichita physicians remodeled it. It had room for only 30 patients.

83. O.A. Sutton was perhaps best known for being the original manufacturer of Vornado fans from 1945 to 1959.

84. Without a doubt, the best advertising Frank Xavier Busch ever did was when he customized a Model-T Ford into the shape of a shoe. Who could forget a fire-engine red shoe-car that traveled Wichita's streets on behalf of Busch's Shoe Repair Company, 120 S. Topeka.

85. After World War I, Busch developed the Rock Motor Court and the Rock Castle Country Club, later known as the Coyote Club, on North Broadway.

86. In 1928, Wichita J. F. Shanklin promoted his grocery store on one basic principle: "Don't blame your wife if the steak is tough, the bread a little stale, or the canned peaches too sour. Possibly your grocery is not as interested in your meal as he should be."

87. The Shanklin Mercantile Store was located on what was originally the corner of Fannie and Douglas Avenue. The name of Fannie Street was changed to Greenwood in the 1950's because the City Commission thought it improper to have a street called "Fannie." The building still stands at 1601 E. Douglas.

88. Ted Wells made a name for himself in the airplane industry and in competitive selling. He was the designed and engineer behind the Beech Model 18, the Staggerwing and Beech's legendary Bonanza. In 1932 he helped Walter Beech establish Beech Aircraft. In 1939, Wells started sailing Snipes as a hobby and won the world championship in 1947 and 1949.

89. Grace Wilkie spent 41 years at Wichita State University, first as head of the home economics department and then as dean of women.

90. In 1906, Theodore Lindberg, an accomplished violinist opened the Wichita College of Music at 351 N. Topeka. He later moved the school to 217-219 N. Lawrence.

91. The Wichita & Western Railway was built in 1883 to link western Sedgwick County and Kingman with Wichita. The railroad ran straight west, running parallel with Kellogg.

92. Before 1883, Wichita leaders believed western Sedgwick County was only good for cattle grazing. As the area became more popular, the land proved to be some of the county's most fertile ground.

93. In 1929, Wichita got a new art deco Federal Building on Third Street between Main and Market. When the building opened April 1, 932, thousands of Wichitans turned out for a huge parade.

94. Wichita Judge "Tiger Bill" Campbell, who held his first court in Wichita in a room in the Occidental Hotel in the early 1870's, once announced in his courtroom that he knew of a plot to murder him. He said that if any man wanted to fight it out with a six-shooter, he was ready. The would-be killer never appeared.

95. For nearly half a century, George Bellis helped put pizazz into national circuses. He settled in Wichita in the 1930's and lived at 1506 N. Market until he died at age 90. In the barn behind his home, he painted banners for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circuses.

96. On June 9, 1929, the day the Commodore Apartment Hotel opened, 5,000 Wichitans came to inspect the building. "From the beautiful Italian lobby, which is a delight in itself that invites one to remain there instead of seeking more beauty, the guests were guided to the upper stories and into the tea room, where still more splendor was revealed," the Wichita Eagle reported.

97. For more than 25 years, the grass lodge built in Mead Island in spring 1927 withstood countless windstorms and floods. Built as a goodwill gesture from the Wichita Indians to the residens of Wichita, the lodge was designed and blessed by Suck-eh, a 75-year-old Wichita Indian woman who had lived as a girl near the banks of the Arkansas River during the Civil War. In the early 1950's, the lodge was burned in less than 10 minuetes by a couple of school boys.

98. From 1940 until 1960, the Blue Moon Ballroom was one place Wichitans could count on for good music, a little dancing and a lot of socializing. Five miles from downtown Wichita at 3401 S. Oliver, the ballroom, which later changed its name to the Blue Note, featured entertainers wuch as Bob Hope, Benny Goodman, Lawrence Welk and Tommy Dorsey.

99. For more than 70 years, the C. C. McCollister family worked, owned or managed Wichita theaters. With the Star, Normar, Kansas, West, State, Wichita Marple and the Airport Drive-In theaters, the McCollisters enabled area residents to watch current movies in their own neighborhoods. The family's empire began with the Star, which opened in 1910.

100. For several decades, the Nomar Theater was the pride of the north end. Built in 65 days at a cost of $125,000, it opened April 3, 1929, in the 2100 block of North Market and boasted the largest marquee in town.

101. Razed in 1993, the United Sash and Door Co. was once the largest millwork plant of its kind. For nearly a century, it was best known as the building that crossed Waterman at Rock Island.

102. From 1914 to 1918, the Teitzel-Jones Boot Co. at Main and pine made military boots.

103. Booth Memorial Hospital at 2050 W. 11th was a place where teenage girls and women would go when they were pregnant out of wedlock. The building, which opened in 1925, is today the Booth Youth Home for at-risk youth.

104. For almost a decade, until his death in 1981, Robert Charles "Charlie" Clampitt used a sign on Manning-Clampitt Meat Co. to share humorous messages with drivers on Douglas near East High School. One of the more famous ones: "Back to School Special---Brains 89 Cents."

105. For years, the Wichita Vinegar Works was an aromatic landmark for people traveling through Wichita. Founded in the 1870's by Hermann Benscheidt, the company began in a small shop on East Douglas. It was moved twice and went through several owners before landing at Central and Sheridan, where the business remained until it was destroyed by fire in 1970.

106. In 1933, the Vinegar Works began operating the state's first legal distillery. It made wines that were used to make vinegar.

107. J. H. Downing, who founded Downing Mortuary in 1923 and worked there until his death in 1972, helped bury nearly 20,000 area residents.

108. Friendly Gables, which operated at 1900 E. Gilbert for almost 50 years, provided housing and care for wayward girls. It closed in March 1972 but the building is still used as offices for the county's exploited and missing children's unit and the district attorney's juvenile office.

109. For more than half a century, starting in the early 1900's, Wichitans looked forward to Sunday mornings for cartoon "Hoots and Quacks," created by Ben Hammond, an artist who endeared himself to generations of Eagle readers and lsiteners of KFH Radio.

110. Eddie Adams, a gangster who terrorized the Midwest for almost four years, was gunned down in a Wichita garage on Nov. 23, 1921. During his heyday, Adams and his gang were credited with robbing 23 banks.

111. A. G. Walden became Wichita's first fire chief in 1886.

112. Between 1929 and 1939, Wichita was the site of the Amateur Athletic Union national basketball championships. In 1931, the local Thurston Girls came within two points of winning the national title.

113. Naturalist Charles Payne made a living in the 1890's by catching jack rabbits and shipping them all over the world in alfalfa-stocked homemade crates for coursing meets.

114. In 1924, Daniel Sauder and Aaron Greenleaf started the Southern Kansas Stage Lines, a bus company. The original line ran between Kingman and Wichita over old U.S. 54.

115. During his 31 years as superintendent of Wichita public schools, Lawrence Walker Mayberry introduced intermediate schools, summer school and the idea of scientific testing for school subjects.

116. Molly Warren Wilcox, owner and publisher of The Democrat, a Sedgwick County legal publication, was considered one of the nation's most notable women based on her editorials.

117. The members of the Arkansas Valley Lodge No. 21, Prince Hall Masons, were leaders along Wichita's Main Street black business district, which thrived until the 1950's when urban renewal forced its relocation. The lodge is located at 615 N. Main.

118. Twenty-six people gathered in a Main Street store on May 26, 1872, to start working on building a Baptist Church for Wichita.

119. In 1929, C. W. Kress, president of Kress Stores Co., built a five-story building with 20-foot ceilings and marble columns and walls in Wichita to offer his department store customers top-notch decor. Until 1974, the Kress Store, which still stands on the northwest corner of Broadway and Douglas, remained a major business in downtown Wichita.

120. The Crawford Theater, built in 1911and razed in 1956 to make room for a downtown parking lot, was a gathering place for Wichitans for almost half a century. Located on the corner of Topeka and William, it replaced the Crawford Opera House.

121. A Spanish cannon, weighing 725 pounds and built in 1794, was placed in Central Riverside Park in September 1900 to honor men who fought in the Spanish American War.

122. Early accounts say that Presbyterians built the first church in Wichita in 1869, completing the job in the 200 block of West Second only a short time before the Episcopal church in the 400 block of North Main was finished.

123. In the 1920's, W. B. Dunlap earned fame in Hollywood through peepy, shoot-'em-up Westerns like "West of the Pecos." Dunlap often appeared in gambling scenes, border fights or ranch wars. He came to Wichita in 1878.

124. The man most instrumental in starting Wichita radio was Charles A. Stanley, on electrical engineer from Emporia. In 1915, while working for Kansas Gas and Electric Co., he established an amateur radio station at his home at 1725 Fairmount.

125. The Arkansas Valley Interurban line provided daily trolley service from Wichita to Newton and on to Hutchinson. The idea for the Interurban was born in 1903 when George Theis, a Wichita capitalist, envisioned an electric trolley line. The line began operation in 1910 and ended in 1938.

WICHITA ~ Through The Years

Significant events in world history are in italics

1750: Frechmen navigate the Arkansas River, rob a Spanish pack train loaded with gold in Colorado, escape by boat and reportedly bury the gold on an island at the confluence of the Little Arkansas and Arkansas rivers.

1757: A French map of the Louisiana Territory labels the area now Wichita as "Gold Mine."

July 4, 1776: The United States becomes a nation.

1830 to early 1870's: Methodical destruction of more than 60 million buffalo for sport, bone and hides, reducing the number to fewer than 1,000.

1836: Jesse Chisholm is hired by a group of men and leads an expedition to find the gold. They don't find it.

1857: Edmond H. Mosley constructs a trading post near where the Osage Trail crossed the Arkansas River, now southwest of the intersection at 61st North and Seneca.

1859: Charles Darwin publishes "The Origin of Species."

1861-1865: Civil War

1863: Jesse Chisholm returns to area and establishes two trading posts.

1863: J. R. Mead started trading posts near Towanda and near what is now 17th Street and the Little Arkansas River.

1864 to 1867: A total of 1,500 Wichita Indians and members of affiliated tribesare brought to the Wichita area through a government relocation project.

April 14, 1865: President Abraham Lincoln assassinated

Oct. 14-18, 1865: Indian Treaty of the Little Arkansas signed.

1868-1869: Wichita's military outpost is established, eventually known as Camp Beecher, at what is now the Dillons parking lot at 13th and Waco.

1868: Eli Waterman became Wichita's first landowner, homesteading a quarter section bounded by the Arkansas River and what is now Waco, Central and Douglas.

1868-1878: Cattle herds begin traveling the Chisholm Trail from Texas to Kansas.

1868: the name "Wichita" first appears in print on an advertising circular distributed to cattlemen moving their herds on the Chisholm Trail to northern markets.

Fall 1869: Sedgwick County is organized.

July 21, 1870: Wichita is incorporated.

Early 1870's: Lawman Bat Masterson called Sedgwick County home. Outlaw Jack Ledford is gunned down in a Wichita outhouse.

1871: J. R. Mead organized a company to construct the Wichita & Southwestern Railroad, the first railroad in Wichita.

1872: First cattle herd is shipped by train from Wichita.

1872: The Wichita Eagle is started. The paper reports dance hall girls from Delano were seen bathing in the river with nothing on except the moles on their backs.

August 1874: Grasshopper invasion leaves Sedgwick County one of the hardest hit counties in the state.

1874: The Occidental Hotel, Wichita oldest brick structure, is built.

June 25, 1876: Battle of the Little Big Horn.

1876: the Texas cattle drives to Wichita end when the state quarantine laws over Texas cattle fever were enforced.

1878: First gas street lights installed.

1879: A second railroad, the St. Louis, Kansas & Wichita -- later known as the Frisco -- agreed to come to Wichita. The rails did not reach Wichita until May 1880.

1870's and 1880's: European crop failures boost U.S. food exports, which encouraged people to settle lands previously occupied by American indians.

Dec. 17, 1885: Electric lights come to Wichita.

1885: George Eastman markets his first box camera for $25.

1885: First gasoline-powered automobile invented.

1886: Mary Elizabeth Lease takes out an ad in The Wichita Eagle encouraging women to join her in forming a group to discuss the arts, music, literature. The group, called the Hypatia Club, today is the oldest women's club in the state.

1887: Wichita ranked third in the nation in volume of real estate transactions. New York City was first, Kansas City second, and Chicago, Philadephia and Brooklyn, N.Y., rounded out the top six.

1887: Six railroads linked the city to the rest of the nation. Six colleges and universities were built, and two more were proposed for Wichita. The City Council on Feb. 21, 1887, created 288 real estate additions.

1887: During winter 1887, The Eagle's editor Marshall Murdock began to feel uneasy with the boom and urged residents to 'call a halt."

1887: First electric trolley introduced.

1888: Campbell Castle built.

1889: The bottom falls out of the economy and land values. Wichita is devastated.

1889: The Fairmount Female College was proposed as an academy for girls ages 12 and older. The first eight students graduating from the Fairmount Institute in 1899. Fairmount became Wichita's first municipal university in 1926. Its name was changed to Wichita Sate University in 1964.

1889: The Oklahoma Territory is opened in 1889 for settlement with the first of several land runs. The biggest and most dramatic was the Cherokee Strip in 1893.

Early 1890's: The Coronado Club and Commercial Clubs, forerunners of the Wichita Chamber of Commerce, are formed.

1892: Lorenzo D. Lewelling is the first Wichitan to become governor of Kansas.

1890: A. A. Hyde, a Wichita banker and real estate owner, recovered from the economic bust by experimenting with a menthol-based salve he prepared on his family stove. It was called Mentholatum.

1898: Spanish-American Wr

Dec. 27, 1900: Carry A. Nation marches into Wichita's Hotel Carey, now the Eaton Hotel, and wrecks its bar.

1901: W. C. Coleman moves to Wichita and opens a small lamp factory at 128 E. Second.

Dec. 17, 1903: Wilbur and Orville Wright invent and test the first successfully flown airplane at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

1904: Flood waters enter downtown Wichita. Enterprising city photographers superimpose pictures of ships floating on Wichita's streets.

1905: Colemand Arc Lamps provide light for the first night-time college football game.

1908: Henry Ford produces the first Model T Ford.

May 4, 1911: First plane arrives in Wichita.

1912: President Teddy Roosevelt visits Wichita and speaks at the Forum.

1914-1918: World War I takes 20 million lives.

1914: Coleman gas lantern is invented and developed.

1914: J. J. Jones begins manufacturing the Jones Six cars, known for bright colors, soundness and ability to go 60 mph.

1915: F. W. "Woody" Hockaday, a pioneer mapmaker marks 60,000 miles across the nation and hands out Hockaday Road Maps.

1916: Clyde Cessna moves to Wichita to make airplanes.

1917-1918: United States involvement in World War I.

1919: Wichita builds a victory arch at the intersection of Broadway and Douglas to welcome home the troops from World War I.

1920: Walt Anderson and Edgar Waldo "Billy" Ingram open the first White Castle hamburer stand at 110 W. First.

1917: Lenin leads the Bolshevik rebellion.

1917: Calvary Baptist Church built at 601 N. Water.

1918: Flu Epidemic of 1918 sweeps nation.

Sept. 26, 1919: More than 100,000 Kansans gather to hear President Woodrow Wilson speak at the Forum. But they never hear him. On his way to Wichita, Wilson suffers a stroke from which he never recovered. He served the remainder of his term as an invalid.

1920's: Ku Klux Klan expands rapidly in Kansas and other midwestern states as well as in the South.

1920's: The airplane industry gains momentum in Wichita with people such as Walter Beech and Clyde Cessna creating an industry that marked Wichita as the "Aircraft Capital of the World."

1927: The nation's first Phillips 66 station opens at 805 E. Central in Wichita.

1927: Charles Lindbergh visits Wichita.

Aug. 8, 1928: Oil discovered in Sedgwick County.

1929: Amelia Earhart visits Wichita.

1929 - 1930's: The Great Depression

1930's: Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado exprience the Dust Bowl years when drought and wind eroded millions of acres of farmland.

1930 - 1931: Allis Hotel built.

1933: Ackerman Island, between Douglas and Second Street, is filled in as part of Works Progress Administration project.

1936 and 1940: Wichitan Earl Browder runs for president, representing the U.S. Communist Party. He fails to get a single vote from Wichita. He ran again in 1940.

1936: President Franklin D. Roosevelt visits Wichita.

Dec. 7, 1941: Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor.

1940's: Wichita's three main airplane plants -- Cessna, Boeing and Beechcraft -- receive government contracts to build planes for the war effort. Those contracts brought in thousands of workers to the city and boosted the population.

1944: The flood of 1944 was the impetus for a comprehensive flood control program in Wichita.

1944 - 1945: Buckminster Fuller designs the Dymaxion House for Beech Aircraft. It was intended for mass production but only two proto-types were ever made.

1945: Atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

1945: The 1,000th B-29 bomber was completed at Boeing.

1950: Discoery of a field of saltwater southwest of Wichita brings new chemical industries to Wichita.

1957: Two brothers, Frank and Dan Carney, borrow $600 from their mother and open a pizza place on South Bluff. Their restaurant known as Pizza Hut evolved into a worldwide enterprise.

April 1, 1958: City Commissioner A. E. Howse is knocked off his chair by Commissioner John Stevens with a punch that put Wichita on the front pages of newspapers around the world. The frequent arguments between the commissioners were soon nicknamed the "Tuesday Night Flights."

1958: Urban Renewal comes to Wichita, changing the city's landscape.

1959: The Big Ditch, Wichita's flood control project, is completed west of Wichita.

1961: City Council approves $15 million for the Century II complex.

1962: Look magazine and National Municipal League name Wichita an All-American City.

1962: Learjet Corp. organized; factory constructed in Wichita.

Nov. 22, 1963: President John F. Kennedy assassinated.

Jan. 16, 1965: A KC-135 airplane, loaded with fuel, crahses into the 2100 block of North Piatt killing 23 residents and seven crewmen.

1966: Study shows that Wichita is the most segregated of 211 major cities in the nation.

1967: A. Price Woodard becomes Wichita's first black mayor.

Summer 1967: Violent race riot erupt.

April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr., is shot and killed in Memphis.

June 6, 1968: Robert Kennedy assassinated.

July 20, 1969: Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin walk on the moon.

1970's: Vern Miller, district attorney and former county sheriff, moves against X-rated movies, massage parlors, displays of pornography in bookstores and a gay rights ordinance.

Oct. 2, 1970: A twin-engine Martin 404 carrying Wichita State football players, athletic officials and fans smashes into a Colorado mountain side en route to a game with Utah State. Thirty-one died.

1975: Citizens Participation Organization councils are formed, giving grassroots input to local government.

Aug. 11, 1976: Michael Soles stood on a 26th-floor balcony at the Holiday Inn Plaza in Wichita, firing a rifle. Seven people were shot; three died.

1980's: Koch Industries, Inc., is ranked among the top 25 firms in the United States in sales.

Late 1980's: Old Town development in what was once the warehouse or jobbing district begins to take off.

1989: Berlin Wall comes down.

1989: Ronald Perelman, owner of MacAndrews & Forbes, acquires the Coleman Co.

Jan. through April 1991: Gulf War

1991: Breakup of the Soviet Union

June 1992: Russian leader Boris Yelstin visits Wichita.

1993: All-American city.

1994: Coleman announced its corporate headquarters would move to Denver.

1994: The City Council votes to demolish the Allis Hotel and is taken to court by local preservationists.

1994: Sedgwick County officials announce they want to move Calvary Baptist Church, the home of First National Black Historical Society of Kansas, to the 600 block of N. Main.

1994: Paul and Terry Lowry buy Campbell Castle from Maye Crumm and announce they will turn it into a bed and breakfast inn.

1995: Pizza Hut corporate headquarters move to Dallas

(Wichita Eagle~ Sunday ~ 16 July 1995)