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Southwestern College
[Started by Winfield Enterprise Association.]
WINFIELD COURIER.
FRANK H. GREER, Local Editor.
AN IMPORTANT MEETING.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, February 19, 1885.
Let every man who has the interests of our City and County at heart be present at the meeting of the Winfield Enterprise Association at the Court House tonight. Matters will be sprung of great importance to every citizen.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, February 19, 1885.
Our citizens will not lack for places of entertainment tonight. The revival meetings at the Baptist and Methodist churches, the meeting of the Winfield Enterprise Association at the Court House, the Jolly Pathfinders at the Opera House, the masquerade skate at the Rink, and the hop at McDougall Hall will make things lively indeed.
UNITED WE STAND!
AN ENTHUSIASTIC MEETING OF CITIZENS
IN THE INTERESTS OF WINFIELD.
The Queen City of Southern Kansas to Make Still Greater Strides
in Material Advancement—The D. M. & A. and K. C. & S. Are Coming.
Other New Enterprises.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, February 19, 1885.
That Winfield and Cowley County are bound to march onward and upward during 1886, and even outdistance her former successes, was splendidly evidence in the rousing meeting of prominent businessmen at the Court House Thursday evening last. It showed that our citizens are on the alert and ready to embrace anything that will conduce to the prosperity of our city, and make her the metropolis that situation and natural advantages insure, if concerted action is brought to bear. The Court House was “chock full” and an interest shown in harmony with the energetic, rustling character of our businessmen.
Judge T. H. Soward called the meeting to order in a brief outline of its import—to stimulate immigration and public improvements, and to formulate plans for the general advancement of the Queen City and Cowley County.
D. L. Kretsinger, always prominent on such occasions, was made chairman, and George C. Rembaugh, the fat man of the Telegram, was chosen secretary. J. C. Long, A. T. Spotswood, H. B. Schuler, M. L. Robinson, and Col. Whiting were appointed a committee on plan of action, and after consideration they recommended that a permanent organization be formed to be known as the “Winfield Enterprise Association,” and that a committee of seven be appointed to draft by-laws, rules, etc., and report to a meeting at the Court House on this (Thursday) evening. The gentlemen composing the temporary committee were continued, with the addition of J. B. Lynn and M. G. Troup.
Chas. C. Black, secretary of the Denver, Memphis & Atlantic Railway Company, then addressed the meeting on the prospects of that line. He explained that the road would have reached Winfield ere this if the financial panic, beginning with May last, hadn’t made progress impossible. With the loosening of the money market, he said the road would be pushed right through. The company have decided to make it a broad gauge, connecting at Baxter Springs with the Fort Scott & Gulf railroad. The contract for twenty-five miles of track has been let to John Fitzgerald, of Lincoln, Nebraska, a contractor of reliability and capital of half a million, who will begin to throw dirt as soon as the frost is out of the ground. With the twenty-five miles begun on the east end, the company will re-solicit aid along the proposed line (the bonds formerly voted being all void, owing to the road’s procrastination). The proposition having carried by so small a majority before in this county, Mr. Black thought it likely that aid would be asked by townships, Winfield being solicited for $40,000. M. L. Robinson also spoke flattering of the prospects for the D. M. & A., as well as the Kansas City and Southwestern, together with other projects conducive to Winfield’s prosperity. There seems no doubt that both these roads will be traversing the fair fields of Cowley before this year is ended. The officers of the K. C. & S. have everything arranged to commence operations as soon as the money market will permit. The meeting, by a unanimous vote, signified its willingness to vote forty thousand dollars to the D. M. & A., and, if needs be, vote the same amount again to the K. C. & W.
John C. Long, Col. Whiting, and others spoke enthusiastically of Winfield’s prospects, and urged the necessity for concerted action. Mr. Long said that the Street Railway Company would build its line, and not a dollar’s worth of aid would be asked. Our street railway will make us metropolitan indeed.
Spencer Bliss suggested the feasibility and possibility of offering sufficient inducements to the A., T. & S. F. and S. K. railroads to build a union depot and joint shops in this city, and stated that the prospect of navigating the Arkansas river, and other influences, pointed forcibly to the necessity of the Santa Fe moving through the Territory soon, to a southern market, in which case they must have shops about this location. Winfield being ninety-five miles from Cherryvale and about the same distance from Newton, offers a very advantageous situation for joint shops and a round house, and if our businessmen push the feasibility of the matter, there seems no doubt that this result can be obtained. When the D. M. & A. and K. C. & S. strike us, now anticipated before the summer rolls by, this scheme will be all the more probable. With four railroads radiating from Winfield, with their shops here, we will have a town that will lay all others in Kansas in the shade—hardly excepting the State Capital.
This was the most enthusiastic meeting our city has witnessed in many a day, and shows a determination on the part of everybody to make the Queen City “git up and dust.” With the advent of spring, immigration will pour in from the panic-stricken east—immigration of a substantial character, men seeking profitable investment for capital, and with unison of effort, the extensive advertisement we are getting, etc., Winfield and Cowley County will get a large share. This organization is what is needed. New enterprises will be sprung and an era of prosperity dawn that will surprise “old-timers.” With the prettiest city, the best county, and the best people on the globe, Winfield’s beacon light will be followed by many an easterner in quest of a pleasant home and safe investment. Let us all put our shoulders to the wheel and keep our city in the first ranks of leading, prosperous cities—where her natural advantages entitle her. Every businessman in the city should give the meeting tonight his presence. What we need is a hard pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether.
THE SECOND MEETING OF THE WINFIELD ENTERPRISE ASSOCIATION.
UNITY AND ENTHUSIASM.
By-Laws Adopted for a Permanent Organization.
The Queen City’s Prospective College.
Machine Shops And Foundry.
Startling Figures From Judge Soward in Favor of More Railroads.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, February 26, 1885.
When such rustling, wide-awake businessmen as those of Winfield pull together for the advancement of any cause, it is bound to win. What has been needed in the past was unity of action, and no greater evidence could be given that this has been accomplished than was shown in the second rousing meeting of the Winfield Enterprise Association, Thursday evening last. The attendance was even larger than at the first meeting and the interest and harmony exhibited means that the Queen City and Cowley County will develop more magically during the next year than ever before—not a wild boom, to be followed by a collapse; but a solid, substantial development that will stand “the wreck of matter and the crash of worlds.”
M. G. Troup was called to the chair. J. C. Long and H. B. Schuler, chairman and secretary of the committee on organization, submitted a report which was discussed and adopted, as follows.
At a meeting of the citizens of Winfield and Cowley County, Kansas, held in the Court House, in Winfield, Feb. 12th, 1885, for the purpose of considering what action should be taken to encourage enterprises for the general good and benefit of Winfield and Cowley County, it was
Resolved, That the citizens of Winfield and Cowley County be associated together for the purpose above stated, and that such Association be called the Winfield Enterprise Association.
A committee of seven was appointed to draft such by-laws as in their judgment are necessary. The said Committee reported as follows.
First. The officers of the Association shall consist of President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Board of Directors.
Second. The Board of Directors shall consist of thirteen members.
Third. The President, Vice-President, and Secretary shall be members of the Board of Directors.
Fourth. The Board of Directors to appoint from their number the President, Vice-President, and Secretary.
Fifth. It shall be the duty of the President to preside at all meetings of the Board.
Sixth. The duties of the Vice-President shall be the same as the President, when, from any cause, the President shall be absent.
Seventh. It shall be the duty of the Secretary to keep a full record of all meetings, and by direction of the Board, to answer all correspondence and communications that may come up for consideration. He may also act as Treasurer, and as such shall account to the Board, with vouchers, for all disbursements, from time to time as they may direct.
Eighth. A majority of the Board shall constitute a quorum to do business.
Ninth. The meetings of the Board shall be called by the President or Vice-President, and in their absence, any three members of the Board may call a meeting, naming the time and place of such meeting.
Tenth. The annual meeting for the election of directors of this Association shall be held annually at seven p.m. on the first Thursday in March.
Eleventh. The officers and Board of directors to hold their positions for the term of one year, or until their successors are elected and enter upon the discharge of their duties.
Twelfth. Any vacancy occurring in the Board, the remaining members to fill same by appointment for the unexpired term of the retiring member or members. And the secretary to notify such person or persons of their appointment.
Thirteenth. All business matters or action of the Board shall be for the public good and not in any way or manner directly or indirectly for private or personal gain.
Fourteenth. No member of the Board shall use in any manner the Association to subserve or further his private affairs.
Fifteenth. These by-laws may be added to, amended, or altered by the Board of Directors at any meeting called by the Board for such purpose.
Sixteenth. Citizens of Winfield and Cowley County may become members of this Association by subscribing their names to these by-laws and paying a membership fee of two dollars.
Seventeenth. It shall be the duty of the Board at all times to take action and to make every effort to induce settlers of Cowley County, giving so far as they can such information as may be required by strangers and those seeking homes in the glorious great west. And to encourage enterprises that will add to the prosperity of Winfield, its surroundings, and its social advancements.
J. P. Baden, A. T. Spotswood, J. C. Long, Col. Whiting, J. A. McGuire, C. A. Bliss, M. L. Robinson, H. B. Schuler, and John A. Eaton were appointed a committee to solicit memberships to the Association.
Judge T. H. Soward presented some startling and convincing facts and figures in favor of the D. M. & A. and K. C. & S. railroads, which we give below. Their truth is self-evident and no man who gives them a careful perusal will ever again sit down on his little tail and howl against the city and county “burdening” themselves by aiding railroad corporations to build their lines. Here are the Judge’s figures.
An estimate on the reasonable effects of the proposed lines of railroad when built upon values and taxation in Cowley County.
Bonds asked for the D. M. & A. R. R. 50 miles of road bed will be about $180,000.00
Interest on $180,000 at 6 percent: $10,800.00
Average value of Southern Kansas railroad through Cowley per mile is $6,217.75
Average Wichita and Southwestern per mile is $7,090.25
Average of both roads: $6,602.50
Take this as a basis for the D. M. & A., and it will give 50 miles of road bed $6,602.50
Total: $330,125.00
Bonds asked for the Southwestern R. R.: $130,000.00
Miles of road bed 44, value of Road in county: $290,510.00
Interest on $130,000 at 6 percent: $7,800.00
County tax independent of State tax on valuation of 50 miles of road bed D. M. & A.:
$830,123 at .0355: $11,719.44
County tax independent of State tax on valuation of 44 miles of road bed Kansas
Southern $290,510 at .0355: $9,313.10
Total bonds to be asked for both roads: $310,000.00
Total miles of road bed 94, total value of road bed, etc.: $620,635,00
Total annual interest on bonds: $18,600.00
Total annual tax paid into County treasury independent of State tax: $21,032.54
Excess of tax over annual interest on bonds: $2,432.54
I think it safe to assert that the building of these railroads would add 3 cents per bushel to all grain raised in the county. They will open up a new market and put us 40 miles closer to the ones we now have, but say it adds two cents per bushel:
Winter wheat, 1,000,000 bu. at 2 cents: $20,000
Corn, 4,500,000 bu. at 2 cents: $90,000
Rye, oats, barley, and spring wheat, 1,000,000 bu. at 2 cents: $20,000
All other products: $5,000
Cattle: $10,000
Hogs: $10,000
Horses and mules: $5,000
Sheep: $5,000
Coal: $20,000
Lumber: $20,000
Add Dry Goods, groceries, hardware: [No price given]
Grand Total: $205,000
Now you who can estimate the amount of additional capital and population that would follow these enterprises, the additional amount of increase in tillage of soil and proportionate increase of yield it is simply wonderful and yet it is all practicable and can and will be done if we but do our simple duty.
The total taxation of Cowley County for all purposes for the year 1884 is $186,000 in round numbers. The increase in price of our products and our decrease in articles consumed would pay our taxes and leave a large balance in the hands of our producers. Every dollar of this money would stay in the pocket that earned it.
A. H. Jennings made an interesting address and sprung the matter of a college in Winfield. He cited the great advantages derived by his former home, Delaware, Ohio, through such an institution and allowed the feasibility of a college here. In all Southern Kansas there is not an institution of higher learning; no better field can be found. This would be an adjunct that would not only give one town a standing in the State, but greatly increase our population, our business patronage, and our educational conveniences. Cowley County is now sending abroad an average of fifty students annually at a cost of several hundred dollars each. And a great many more would seek classical education if the facilities were at home and the expense reduced. This college would also draw from a large territory surrounding us. It was proposed to organize a stock company, every man putting in one hundred or two hundred dollars being entitled to a twenty-year scholarship. Mr. Jennings’ scheme met with great favor, and now that the ball is rolling there is no doubt that fifty thousand dollars can be raised to boost the enterprise. Like every institution of the kind, it will have to grow from a small beginning. A. H. Jennings, Prof. Gridley, County Superintendent Limerick, Dr. Graham, Rev. Reider, and Dr. Kirkwood were appointed a committee to devise plans for the establishment of this college. The committee has been wisely selected and we have no doubt that they will put this important matter on foot and that it will reach an early fruition.
M. G. Troup also addressed the meeting at length, urging the establishment of this proposed institution of learning and showed its feasibility and importance to the Queen City. He spoke of the vast resources of Cowley County. Though she has advanced magically in her short existence, her domain is as yet but half developed. She has room and maintenance for sixty thousand people, which number she will soon have if her citizens show enterprise and grit. She not only wants more tillers of the soil, but more mechanics, manufacturers, and tradesmen. These must come if our advantages are properly shown up and the requisite encouragement shown.
J. E. Conklin introduced, with commendatory remarks, his old friend, J. M. Stayman, of Champaign City, Illinois, who is an experienced machinist and a man of ability and capital. Mr. Stayman stated that he was here on a prospecting tour and after being shown around the city and county by Mr. Conklin, had determined to locate with a foundry and machine shops in the stone building on north Main. James Ostrander, a machinist of equal experience will accompany him from the East soon and together they will establish this enterprise. Mr. Conklin gives these men the highest recommendation and Winfield will no doubt have reason to congratulate herself on their advent.
At the close of the meeting, a large number attached their signatures as members of the Association, and through the soliciting committee nearly every enterprising man has joined. A fund will be created that will enable the Association to send representatives in quest of any enterprise that may point in this direction. The members of the Association, in compliance with the by-laws, will meet the first Thursday in March for the election of officers and directors for the year, when many enterprises that are now developing will be presented.
[Note: They had “Stayman” and “Staymen” in article above.]
ENTERPRISE ASSOCIATION TONIGHT.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, March 5, 1885.
The meeting of the Winfield Enterprise Association at the Court House tonight promises to be very interesting and develop many things that will conduce to the upbuilding of the Queen City and Cowley County. A report as to the feasibility of the canal scheme, a canning factory, our prospective college, a Farmers’ Co-operative Milling Association, and many other matters will come up. Let every member of the Association be present.
THE WINFIELD ENTERPRISE ASSOCIATION.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, March 12, 1885.
The Winfield Enterprise Association is now thoroughly organized and is bringing its power to bear on various schemes whose success will set Winfield several rounds up the ladder of prosperity. Its third meeting was held on Thursday evening last, when the membership was found to have reached over two hundred of our prominent businessmen, most of whom were present and have since put two dollars each into a sinking fund. J. C. Long was chosen chairman and D. L. Kretsinger secretary. A committee consisting of G. H. Allen, T. H. Soward, Walter Denning, C. M. Leavitt, and Frank H. Greer was appointed to report a list of names for directors of the Association. The following were reported and unanimously elected: Wm. Whiting, J. B. Lynn, M. L. Robinson, J. C. Long. H. B. Schuler, J. L. Horning, D. A. Millington, T. H. Soward, A. H. Doane, W. P. Hackney, J. E. Conklin, J. P. Baden, and W. G. Graham. No better men could have been chosen as directors. They are all men of enterprise and energy: men who have the interests of our city and county at heart and the necessary nerve and ability to secure every enterprise possible for our advancement. The committee previously appointed to devise a plan for the establishment of a college in Winfield, composed of W. R. Kirkwood, J. H. Reider, A. H. Gridley, and A. H. Jennings, reported as follows.
Your committee, appointed to consider and report upon the subject of an educational institution of a higher grade, beg leave to present the following, viz:
1st. We believe it to be eminently desirable that such an institution should be located in Winfield, and at the same time entirely feasible.
2nd. We are informed that the South Western Kansas Conference, of the M. E. Church is about to locate a College in the southern central portion of the State.
3rd. We therefore recommend that a committee of businessmen be appointed who shall make a canvass of the city and county, soliciting subscriptions to a fund to be used for the purpose of securing the location of said College in Winfield; and we recommend that the work be done at once, inasmuch as the conference above named, meets on the 16th inst.
4th. Inasmuch as it is proposed at an early day to vote bonds to the amount of $15,000 for the purpose of erecting another school building, we beg to suggest whether it be possible legally to vote for the erection of such building—to build it on plans suitable for College purposes, and, if the College can be secured, to be turned over to the board of trustees of the College for their use, while the high school should be merged in the preparatory department of the College, it being understood that, in case the College is located here, it shall be properly endowed and equipped by the Conference.
The Directors held their first meeting on Friday evening last and permanently officered the Association as follows: President, H. B. Schuler; Vice-President, D. A. Millington; Secretary and Treasurer, T. H. Soward. Committees were appointed to sift and develop certain enterprises that have been sprung. This organization means much for Winfield and Cowley County. It is composed of the most harmonious and enterprising lot of businessmen that any city was ever blessed with—men who are determined to make Winfield the metropolis of Southern Kansas and Cowley the most populous, prosperous, and popular county in the State. With natural advantages unexcelled, citizens a unit for advancement, substantial immigration pouring in, and public and private improvements all around, the future of Cowley looks bright indeed.
OUR PROSPECTIVE COLLEGE.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, April 2, 1885.
The Methodist Conference for this district, at its meeting at El Dorado last week, appointed a committee of seven to locate a college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church at some point in this section. Winfield, Wichita, Wellington, and El Dorado are the places in competition for its location. The committee meets on the 12th of May, at Wichita, to receive and consider propositions from these towns. The conditions are that not less than twenty acres of land suitable for the college site and campus, and not less than fifteen thousand dollars for building fund be donated by the citizens or corporation of the community offering the best inducements and advantages for the location of such school. An eligible site, ample grounds, healthfulness of location, convenience of access as regards the population and territory of the conference, the amount contributed toward the buildings and equipments of the school and the local patronage and support, will be chief among advantages having weight with the committee, under the instruction of the conference. That Winfield offers superior advantages is evident—the prettiest city in the West, people whose morality, enterprise, and intelligence is unsurpassed, unexcelled building material, and a climate whose healthfulness is renowned. The Winfield Enterprise Association has the matter in hand and will see that Winfield’s advantages are made prominent and that her pecuniary inducements are such as will secure this institution of learning.
THE METHODIST COLLEGE.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, April 23, 1885.
What is being done in Wellington to secure the location of the Methodist college? We made note some days ago that it had been decided at the session of the Southwest Conference at El Dorado last month to locate such an institution at an early day. The competing points will probably be El Dorado, Wichita, Winfield, and Wellington. We understand the other points are at work, and it is now time for Wellington to be up and doing. It seems useless to urge the importance and benefit this college would be to our city. The remarkable thing about all the institutions of learning in Kansas is the surprising rapidity with which they have grown. Baldwin City today has about 500 students, notwithstanding all difficulties, and notwithstanding it is located in a small and out-of-the-way village. The State Normal school at Emporia, fighting for years against many obstacles, has over 500 students. The fact is, you cannot hinder the growth of a well conducted institution of learning in Kansas. The proposed college would have the patronage and help of a million people who are rapidly growing wealthy. In two years it would certainly have 200 students. At the lowest possible estimate, those would spend in Wellington $40,000 a year. This is making no calculation for the families who would be brought here directly in connection with the school. Neither is the incalculable moral benefit taken into the consideration. The fact is that the benefits to result can hardly be estimated.
Now we want to say that this college cannot be had without work and money. We can make up our minds to do this. If we succeed in securing the prize, we shall be repaid for all effort. The question for our citizens to decide is shall we have the college?
Wellington Press.
Wellington is a nice town and ought to have the college; but Wellington can’t get it. In the first place the preachers would not encourage Methodism in such an un-Godly town. In the next place your people want to run the whole Methodist church, including the Bishop. They kick when the cream of the conference is given them, and elevate their noses at an ex P. E. This does not tend to warm the heart of the average itinerant Methodist minister. They are brave and spirited men, but their itinerancy breeds with them a love for open-hearted hospitality and tolerant brethrenship, and a hatred for the snobbery and selfishness which brooks nothing less than a fulfillment of its own demands. No, the Methodist College will not go to Wellington.
GIVE US AN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, May 14, 1885. Front Page.
The writer located in Winfield some few months past, and has come to stay. There is no subject before the public mind dealing with the future of this city which more deeply impresses nor should receive the serious attention of the people so much as the matter of establishing an Educational Institution in our midst at this time. While it is true that most of the citizens of this country have not located here for their health entirely, but have come for the purpose of satisfying their natural and legitimate desires for wealth and competence, yet the man who lives for the mere accumulation of “precious bane,” or the community which irrationally worships at the shrine of gold, will ultimately suffer the moral doom of the most despicable thing on earth—the miser. Our object in writing this article is to fan and encourage the idea of planting a college here which we think will prove of more permanent value to our county, which will shed more lustre over our community and enwreathe it with brighter laurels than all the railroads or spasmodic and financial schemes the most sagacious speculator can set forth; schemes which by reason of their uncertainty and the necessary evils they carry with them make their event doubtful, and sometimes very undesirable. A college in the city of Winfield, well endowed, sustained by a healthy growth, and as our wealthy men grow more wealthy, supported by their liberal contributions, would be a memorial worthy of this generation aside from the constant financial benefit which would accrue to our merchants, tailors, liverymen, grocers, and those engaged in all other lines of business. We want a college for the object of a college, viz: to develop the brain of this county and to keep apace with the spirit of the age, not to be dragged by it, but to guide. The object of education is the full and symmetrical development of all our faculties. That is the best education which approaches the nearest to this. The college course gives this training. It not only furnishes knowledge but it does something better: it brings out, it develops, it trains, it educates the man himself. It not only gives facts but shows how to reason upon these facts, and how to use them. A man’s mind, it has been well said, is a logic-engine. Education teaches how to run this engine—knowledge furnishes the material. The great aim of mechanics is to obtain the greatest power with the least expenditure of force, and so the aim of education is to do the hardest and best thinking with the least exertion. A college course affords this training, therefore we want the college. A second reason why we desire such an institution is because it gives culture. A college is not the place to get a merely practical education—a bread and butter education. He who estimates the value of his college course by the number of dollars and cents he makes from it had better stay at home. Education is culture. It recognizes a higher aim than money. If money is all that is desired, the common school is the best possible. The three “R’s” are of more importance to the businessman than the whole Latin or Greek language or all the scientific principles known. The studies of a college course are chiefly of two kinds, classical and scientific, and the particular advantage which these afford in the matter of culture cannot be overlooked by a discreet people. In this age and country there is a good deal of human nature in the rough. Classical studies refine and polish. They inspire a love for literature and that which is best among men, exhibiting incomparable models of style and at the same time calling into play and improvement memory, judgment, reflection, patience, taste, and imagination. The analytic and synthetic faculties, too, are constantly exercised and strengthened by the studies of the ancient languages. Scientific education is also one of great value. The scientist of today is one of the great benefactors of the human race. Our knowledge is so intimately connected with the universe that knowledge of the latter implies happiness in the former. A knowledge of natural forces is the foundation of invention, and the inventor is the true benefactor. A thousand years ago Latin was the language of business and science, but now men no longer dive for knowledge in the misty records of the past. They shy into the future. The old motto, “Recovery,” has been replaced by the “Discovery.” Therefore give us a college. If we are to have an imbecile asylum, for the sake of humanity give us something to counteract and parry off its grosh upon any of our citizens. Unite the two courses of training and the deficiencies of the one, which some men complain of and object to, will be supplied by the excellences of the other, and then we shall have greater strength, more refinement, broader comprehension in the intellectual faculties, and as a people prudent and powerful in all the relations and offices of life. Upon the education of your youth depends much. Let it be hoped that our citizens will work upon the true principle that they will plant and foster an institution of learning which, though it may not prove a successful financial speculation, will yet redound to the honor of this city. Give your children something which will nourish their youth, delight their old age, adorn their fortunes, and elevate their society; and you will do an act which will fall in blessings from the lips of a high-hearted and generous people and bloom in the memory of your children for many years. P. S. H.
[Note: Article had the word “grosh.” There is no such word.]
Winfield Courier, Thursday, May 14, 1885.
The Board on the location of the Methodist College met at Wichita last evening, and after consulting, decided to visit the different towns, get their propositions in writing, and meet again at Wichita on June 9th. We will publish their proceedings in full tomorrow.
METHODIST COLLEGE.
Meeting at Wichita.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, May 21, 1885.
The board of conference college location of the Southwest Kansas Conference met yesterday in the new Methodist church. About fifty visiting ministers and leading laymen were present. The following were the members present belonging to the board: D. D. Akin, N. Asher, N. S. Buckner, W. H. Cline, A. P. George, and H. Waitt. The meeting was called to order by N. S. Buckner, who was elected permanent chairman. A. P. George was chosen secretary. After a friendly interchange of opinion in regard to the subject before the board, the following resolutions were adopted.
Resolved, That any locality preparing to make a responsible bid, in harmony with the resolutions of the annual conference by which this committee is appointed, (not less than twenty acres of land and $15,000 in money) will be visited by this committee for the purpose of examining sites and hearing representations; Provided, that the expenses of the committee be paid by the visited community.
Resolved, That this committee will meet at Wichita, Kansas, on June 9, 1885, to receive and open bids and to decide on the place of location of the Southwest Kansas college.
Resolved, That each bid shall state the number of acres of land and the amount of money, notes, and securities to be subscribed; and to be accompanied by sufficient guarantee of payment and that the money shall be available to the trustees of said college as follows: One- third sixty days after location; one-third when the building is enclosed, and one-third when the building is completed or one year from the date of location.
Resolved, That the committee will commence its tour of visitation on Tuesday next, and all communities desiring visitations shall notify the secretary at once.
Invitations were received from El Dorado, by Judge Redden; Newton, by Judge Peters; Winfield, by M. L. Robinson; Wichita, by J. C. Rutan; Harper, by L. J. Van Landingham; Peabody, by Dr. Buck.
Rev. A. P. George, the secretary of the committee on college location, may be addressed by any one interested at Nickerson, Kansas.
COLLEGE MEETING.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, May 21, 1885.
Pursuant to call the citizens met in mass meeting at the Court House Tuesday evening, with J. C. Long presiding and Ed. P. Greer as secretary, for the purpose of considering the question of securing the Methodist College. Senator Hackney, of the visiting committee, explained the situation. M. L. Robinson then proposed a plan whereby the twenty acres and fifteen thousand dollars necessary might be raised. He proposed to be one of eight to organize the College Hill Addition Company, secure land in some available location, set aside twenty acres thereof for the college site and guarantee ten thousand dollars to the fund. This suggestion was immediately adopted, and the following gentlemen subscribed to the shares at once: M. L. Robinson, W. P. Hackney, Chas. F. Bahntge, John W. Curns, W. R. McDonald, T. H. Soward, A. J. Thompson, and S. H. Myton. After some further discussion on the matter by Judge Gans, Mayor Graham, J. E. Conklin, and others, the meeting adjourned to meet again this evening. Messrs. Baden, Millington, Spotswood, Wallis, Conklin, F. S. Jennings, Bedilion, and Whiting were appointed as a committee to confer with the members of the College Hill and Highland Park Association and report proceedings. Mayor Graham, H. B. Schuler, and Senator Hackney were appointed to attend to the reception and entertainment of the College Commission. The railroad questions was also discussed at some length, and a committee of seven consisting of Messrs. Farnsworth, Bowen, M. M. Scott, Siverd, Chas. Schmidt, and J. E. Conklin were appointed to see that the registration was fully made. An assessment of $1.00 was levied upon the members of the Enterprise Association to defray the expenses of the railroad canvass. The solution of the college problem seems to be at hand. If this association furnishes the twenty acres and ten thousand dollars, certainly our citizens will furnish the other five thousand. Now is the time to act in this matter, and when the committee calls, be ready to put down liberally.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, May 28, 1885.
From information received from McPherson, we learn that the people of that city are making a determined effort to secure the location at that place of the proposed Methodist college. It is a laudable ambition. Such colleges not only tend to give a more refined atmosphere and a higher scale of civilization to the place where located, but they also increase the value of property, so much so, as to make an investment to secure them, a paying one. Commonwealth.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, May 28, 1885.
The company organized to purchase the land west of town for a college site has been continued. They will lay off the land into lots and proceed to sell them at very low rates.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, May 28, 1885.
The Eagle says: “As a pointer for the gentlemen composing the locating committee of the Methodist college, it might be well to take into consideration the relative growth of the competing points for the institution. They are all as old and some older than Wichita, yet this city is as large as any three of them, which fact ought to weigh, looking to the prominence and success of the college.”
Yes, a great many cankerous things grow very fast. A mushroom will spring up in a barn lot in one night, but what earthly good does it do? Thistles, if given a chance, will soon hold undisputed reign over t he best field that ever adorned the world, but the effect is only loathsome and disastrous to human prosperity and that of better things. The great and good develop gradually, throwing out all the benign influences that point onward and upward to a prosperity elevating and enduring. Wichita must sit long and tearfully on the stool of repentance—get a thorough regeneration and exhibit some good fruits before it can stand any show for recognition from our Methodist brethren.
THE PRESBYTERIAN SOCIAL.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, May 28, 1885.
The weather has been an unruly thing recently. It does about as it pleases—grows cold, wet, dry, medium, or lovely in doses greatly mixed. But the weather takes too big a job on its hands when it undertakes, in an unsettled way, to interfere with a Presbyterian social. The one given by the ladies of the Presbyterian church last night was a splendid success. The room was crowded with a jolly throng of “youth and beauty” subdued by a nice sprinkling of age and reason. The tables were beautifully spread, and the floral decorations very artistic. Creams, ices, cakes, etc., with vivacious, pretty ladies and handsome gentlemen were the very attractive attractions. As entertainers, the ladies of the Presbyterian church have no superiors, a fact attested by their every festival. The clergymen comprising the College Committee were present, forming the acquaintance of many of our people.
BRIEF OF THE CITIZENS OF WINFIELD.
To the Reverend Gentlemen of the Commission to Locate and Build the College
of the Kansas Southwestern Conference of the M. E. Church.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 11, 1885.
The citizens of Winfield would respectfully call your attention to some of the advantages favoring the location of your college on the site proposed at Winfield.
1. SAVINGS IN COST OF BUILDING.
It will cost many thousand dollars less to construct the required buildings on this site than on any other site that will be proposed, for within one-half to three-fourths of a mile are several of the finest stone quarries in the State, those from which the government ordered the stone for constructing the government building at Topeka, after having subjected them to the most rigid tests. The proprietors donate to you the best of these quarries to the extent of all the stone wanted for your buildings on this site, and the Winfield Water Company donates to you all the water wanted for the construction. Sand and lime are close by, abundant and cheap, and the rock is easily and rapidly cut and shaped with the saw and chisel.
2. A BEACON LIGHT.
The site proposed is an eminence one hundred feet above the surrounding valleys and a building thereon will be seen from afar, from the city of Burden 16 miles east, from Arkansas City 15 miles south, from Wellington 24 miles west, from the Flint Hills 30 to 40 miles away, from points near Wichita and El Dorado and possibly from points near all the other competitors for the college location.
3. EASILY ACCESSIBLE.
The A. T. & S. F. railroad passes through Winfield and Cowley County from the north to the south, the Kansas Southern railroad passes through from the east to the west, the Kansas City and Southwestern railroad, now in process of construction within the county will pass through from the northeast to the southwest, and the Denver Memphis and Atlantic railroad now in process of construction, will pass through from the northwest to the southeast.
4. LOCATION.
No point can be considered more central to the probable patrons of the school so far as the east and west are concerned and the probable early settlement of the Indian Territory will place Winfield in the center north and south of the large district which will be tributary to this institution.
5. BEAUTY OF LOCATION.
The site offered is considered the most beautiful in the State and will in itself be a valuable educator in the study of the beautiful in nature and art, opening before the student a wide chart of circling hills and green valleys, of gentle undulations and bold bluffs, of high and shapely mounds, of flowering meadows, of winding streams lined by forest belts, of woodland parks and groves, of orchards and fields of corn and waiving grain, while at your feet nestles the fairest city of our fair State. Situated near one hundred feet higher than the main part of the city in a notch of a line of bluffs which rise thirty feet higher, surrounded by a fine young grove, it combines many charms which may be seen and felt, but language fails to describe.
6. OBSERVATORY.
Into the northeast corner of the twenty acre tract designed for the college grounds and campus, extends a beautiful mound which rises some thirty-five feet above the campus, and presents a most commanding site for an observatory.
7. LOCAL ACCESSIBILITY.
The grounds are just outside of the present city limits, but inside of the proposed limits, and approached by a very easy grade. It is less than a mile from the present business center of the city, the corner of Main street and 9th avenue being about three fourths of a mile east and one-fourth of a mile north, and it is less than three-fourths of a mile from the center of population of the city. A street railroad system is organized and will be built and operated to the college grounds before the college is completed.
8. LOCAL POPULATION FOR SUPPORT.
According to the late official census, the city of Winfield has within its present limits 5,151 inhabitants, an increase of 1,234 for the past year. Its immediate suburbs contain about 1,000, which will soon be included within the city limits and the population of the city and immediate suburbs is over 6,000. Having just obtained three new and important elements of increase, viz: The State Institute for the feeble minded and the immediate prospect of two more railroads, it is safe to predict that the increase of population for the present year will be three times as great as that of the past year. Already the second city in population in your conference, it promises to rival the first in the future and to give a great number of students to a collegiate institution.
9. CONTINUOUS SUPPORT.
By the census just taken, Cowley County has a population of 30,790, an increase of 4,341 over last year. It is now the most populous county in your conference; and with the new elements of increase, bids fair to keep pace with the most populous county in the State and furnish collegiate students far in excess of other counties of the conference, for there is no county in the State whose population ranks higher in enterprise and love of learning.
10. FAVORABLE MORAL CONDITION.
The population of the city and county rank high not only in wealth, intelligence, and industry, but in moral and religious character. This was the banner prohibition county in 1880, giving 3,243 votes for the prohibitory amendment to 870 against, and it seems evident that the large increase of population since then is in sympathy with that majority, and that the prohibition sentiment has become the settled sentiment of the county. In the city of Winfield the laws and ordinances against dram selling, gambling, and prostitution are obeyed and strictly enforced, and it is probable that no other town in the State of Kansas presents so healthy a moral atmosphere with so little temptation to vicious and immoral practices and habits as the city of Winfield. Therefore parents all over Kansas can send their sons and daughters to your school at Winfield in full confidence that they will not be exposed to moral contagion.
11. OTHER CONVENIENCES.
Winfield has complete systems of water works and gas works in operation, and a system of street railroad in progress; it has large and commodious churches, a public library, telephone service, and many other conveniences usually found only in much larger cities.
12. PREPARATORY.
Educationally, Cowley County stands high. The district schools are well organized and have generally adopted a course of study and graduating system, and most of them are doing high grade preparatory work while the nine graded schools throughout the county will prepare an army of students for admission each year to a school of higher learning, so that Cowley alone would supply sufficient students to your college, if located in its midst, to make it a success. The estimate that two hundred a year will be prepared in this county to enter your school, does not seem extravagant. This county has 160 school districts, and ranks among the counties of the State, third in population of school age, first in average attendance at school, and second in average wages paid teachers.
These are some of the advantages which Winfield presents: advantages large in an economic point of view and in promise of future support and success of the institution, valuable in the aesthetic point of view and in its local conveniences, and inestimable in point of moral and religious influences. Winfield pledges you land sufficient and money sufficient to build and equip a most commodious and magnificent building, and sufficient for your purposes. And in the interested judgment of her citizens, adding this sufficient sum to the other advantages above enumerated, they should outweigh any sum, however great, that will be offered by her competitors; and commending these circumstances to your careful consideration, they leave their offer in your hands in full confidence that you will decide wisely and well.
D. A. MILLINGTON, GEO. C. REMBAUGH, BUELL T. DAVIS,
Citizens Committee.
Excerpts from article giving details about activities of Winfield churches.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 11, 1885.
THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
The announcements embraced a citizen’s meeting at the Opera House Monday evening, the ladies presence solicited, for the purpose of further considering the college question; and the regular weekly services of the church.
UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH.
The announcements for the week: the Mass meeting at the Opera House Monday evening to enlist more interest in the movement to secure the Methodist college, and the usual weekly meetings of the church.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 11, 1885.
Rev. B. Kelly and Judge T. H. Soward went to Wichita Tuesday to present before the committee Winfield’s inducement for the Methodist College. They took two grip sacks in which to bring home the college. Our bid is big and will get it, you bet—if the ardent desire of our citizens is desired and our bid is big enough. All feel confident.
HURRAH!
Winfield Gets There With Both Feet!
THE METHODIST COLLEGE COMES HERE!
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 11, 1885.
Winfield has downed them all!! She is the victor!!! Judge T. H. Soward returned today jubilant over our flattering prospects. Rev. Kelly remained to the final, and at 3:15 sent this:
WICHITA, June 10.—M. L. Robinson, Winfield: Winfield selected! B. KELLY.
Other confirming telegrams have since been received. Our people are on tip-toe with joy, and will probably have the biggest jollification tomorrow night ever Winfield saw. Rev. Kelly and Judge Soward did noble work before the committee.
A GRAND OVATION!
The Citizens of Winfield Gather En Masse to Welcome the College Committee.
WINFIELD LEADS THEM ALL.
Honor to Whom Honor is Due—Some Happy and Forcible Speeches.
A BIG TIME AND GLORIOUS ENTHUSIASM.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
Thursday was the occasion of much joy to the people of Winfield and vicinity. The Opera House was filled with rejoicing people. Early in the evening the House commenced to fill, and impatiently waited for the gentlemen to put in an appearance for whom they had gathered to welcome. The Courier Cornet Band discoursed sweet music, sufficient to charm a God of olden times. Everybody felt happy. On motion of W. C. Robinson, John C. Long was unanimously elected chairman of the meeting. Mr. Long was heartily cheered upon taking the platform. The following is in substance Mr. Long’s address.
Fellow Citizens: We do not meet here tonight to raise funds, but to jollify over what has been accomplished. (Cheers.) For the past three months we have been successful in every enterprise undertaken. (Cheers.) Through the noble leadership of a gentleman, who is in our presence, and his assistants, we have been successful. (Cheers.) We have a gentleman in our midst earnest in the cause in which he is enlisted, of serving the Lord. A gentleman who has just put forth his best endeavors and zeal in working up this enterprise. A gentleman without whose aid, I believe, we would have failed. The Conference at first had engrafted in the articles determining to erect this college, that it be centrally located. This gentleman advocated the partiality of this clause, and the men composing the conference, in their fair-mindedness and good judgment, made the location at any place of easy access. The seven members of this committee were from other towns, yet they at once saw the superior offers and natural advantages of Winfield and through the efforts of this gentleman, of whom I have been speaking, and his co-worker, we have gained the victory. Fellow citizens, I refer to Rev. B. Kelly and Judge T. H. Soward.”
Cheer upon cheer and cries of “Bro. Kelly!” nearly lifted the roof off the house, which were only quieted by he gentleman coming forward and, though tired, made a happy speech to his admiring listeners, substantially as follows.
Dear Friends: I hesitated about coming here at all tonight. I was about ready to go to bed when I was urged to come up here awhile. I do not take any credit in performing my duty in regard to this college. I believe we have an excellent people. They know what we wanted and had the grit to go and capture it. (Cheers.) I think we have the most beautiful city in Kansas and among the most intelligent people in Kansas. We are on the eve of great prosperity. I don’t know whether we have railroads enough or not; if we haven’t, let us get some more. (Cheers.) I believe we can make ourselves second to no place in Kansas if we can get two more railroads and a few other things, we can soon be first in Kansas. We can get there, my friends. (Cheers.) We had a good committee at Wichita. Some of our sister cities underrated us. I don’t think Wellington did. Every fellow from Hutchinson that was at Wichita was a real estate man, with the exception of two or three Methodists. All of our sister cities had many representatives. My friends, your representative went in alone, and, in a five minutes speech, which was one of the most concise and business like speeches ever put before a committee, captured this college. (Cheers.) The committee saw at once that your representative, Judge T. H. Soward, (Cheers.) knew what he was talking about and had that something ready and willing to offer. We offered the committee everything they wanted. We forgot one thing—our sand. (Laughter.) We have many good things in Winfield. We have the grandest band I ever heard. My friends, I’m too tired to say much tonight. I wish to say right here, we are entitled to all we have and we expect to get more. (Cheers.) I have been a Methodist minister for eighteen years. I never have gone into any speculations, but I know of no people I would help quicker than the people of Winfield. God bless you.
At the close of Bro. Kelly’s speech, he was cheered time after time, when cries of “Soward” filled the room. Finally Judge Soward made his appearance and after some little time contrived to gain a hearing, and in his usual happy vein spoke substantially as follows.
Fellow Citizens: In 1879 Kansas was pretty dry in more ways than one. About this time I landed in your city and took a drive out east; coming back I strayed into the Presbyterian Sunday School. I made up my mind if the Lord did not make this city and country for the blessed and happy, I couldn’t tell where I could find that country. I have been working pretty hard for the past few days and feel too tired tonight to say much. When I came back from Wichita the other day, and before I left, Bro. Kelly was of the opinion we had the college; I felt assured it would be so. I came home and would have slept in peace, but my baby had the colic. (Laughter.) This county is the most beautiful county that God’s sun shines upon. I took some of my Kentucky friends out yesterday down about Arkansas City and Geuda Springs, and every place they come by they would say, “I’m going to have that place!” They are coming here to locate; they have capital, and many more will follow. (Cheers.) I have been proud of Cowley ever since I came here. We have the most enterprising people on the face of the globe. My expectations have been fully realized within the last three or four weeks. My friends, taking into consideration the hard times of the past winter, it is wonderful, the success that has been accomplished in raising funds for this College and other enterprises. It shows the enterprise of the people of Winfield. But, my friends, we want more projects. These railroads and College won’t make our city alone; we must encourage manufactories and men of capital to come here. We can get them. We want the Orphan’s Home for the soldiers. I believe Cowley County can capture it. (Cheers.) By all means we want to locate individuals, and are going to do it. (Cheers.) We must not stop; there is no stopping place in this country. We want a little more smoke from manufactories, no matter if it does cause us to paint our houses a little oftener. But a short time ago, a friend of mine, traveling through California, the so-called garden spot of the world, said he believed Southern Kansas was destined to be the center of the horticultural district. We want men here with enterprise enough to scrape the hair off and cut the throats of our hogs instead of shipping them to Kansas City. (Cheers.) I would like to see a big pork-packing establishment—not too close to town, but just a little ways off, you know. (Laughter.) I wouldn’t give this M. E. college for sixteen imbecile colleges. I would like for this to be a city of colleges. (Cheers.) I would like to see that old Baptist college at Ottawa move down here and fired up with our enterprise. (Cheers.) I would like to see other denominations establish colleges here. Now my friends, we are not through with our work, or you won’t do what I said you would. There are some men here that have not given as much as they ought to do. They will have to give more. Next Tuesday the committee will be here. We want all the pretty girls and pretty wives to turn out and welcome this committee and completely capture them. The gentleman sitting over there with white hair (Mr. Kelly) engineered this through. I would have been like a drop of water in the ocean without him with me at Wichita. We owe it all to him—to his zeal and work in the cause. God bless him and the men and women of this town who have worked for this college, that my little boy and yours may grow up under the shadow of its influence and grow up a good man. I would almost as soon trust a boy to an army as to trust a boy away from home’s protecting influence. Already applications are coming in for homes here. Men are crying I am coming to a town where I can educate my boy and my girl and watch over them. I am going to pitch my tent under the shadow of this college. My friends, do your own work. Do it well, but give a little thought to the future of this country.
At the conclusion of the Judge’s speech, he was applauded again and again.
A vote of thanks was given to Bro. Kelly and Judge Soward for the noble work they have done. Long may the people of Winfield remember them. After the Courier Band had rendered several pieces, the meeting adjourned to dream of Winfield’s future prosperity.
Among the more potent factors in obtaining this great enterprise for Winfield were the soliciting committees who circulated the sub-papers with wonderful energy and success. They raised nearly twenty thousand dollars in this way—almost every man, young and old, in the city made good subscriptions, with many donations from the ladies. Nothing could more plainly demonstrate the great liberality and public spirit of our citizens. There is no doubt that without such assiduous labor on the part of these soliciting committees, Winfield would never have got the college. The committee for Winfield city were: Capt. J. B. Nipp, Judge T. H. Soward, Judge H. D. Gans, Capt. T. B. Myers, Prof. A. Gridley, J. E. Conklin, Frank Bowen, and J. E. Farnsworth. Those soliciting in adjacent territory, as near as we can ascertain, were: Rev. B. Kelly, Col. Wm. Whiting, Rev. S. S. Holloway, Rev. J. H. Snyder, A. H. Limerick, J. A. Rinker, T. J. Johnson, Dr. S. R. Marsh, J. W. Browning, J. A. McGuire, George Gale, D. W. P. Rothrock, D. A. Sherrard, D. Gramme [?Graham],W. E. Martin, A. Staggers, W. D. Roberts, E. M. Reynolds, J. C. Roberts, and C. Hewitt.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
Rev. B. Kelly returned from Wichita Friday, accompanied by N. S. Buckner and M. L. Gates, of the College Committee, who are at the Central.
THE METHODIST COLLEGE.
Wichita’s Sorrow and Winfield’s Glory.
What It Cost To Get It, With the Other Bids.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
The Wichita Eagle is sore about the location of the Methodist college because it was not located at Wichita and says: “But from a business point of view, the Methodists have simply left the great field for such an enterprise unoccupied and open to some other denomination. Nobody but a body of preachers destitute of business ideas would have made such a mistake. No member of that committee was appointed from this city or even from this county, the largest city and the most populous county in the conference.” The Eagle commanded them to locate it at Wichita, and threatened them if they didn’t, and is now chastising them for their disobedience. We observed that the Methodist preachers are not “so destitute of business ideas” that they ever fail “to get there.” We think they have shown good business sense in the location as they always do in such matters. We do not complain of what it says about Winfield, viz: “Winfield is a most eligible place for a school, probably the best town among all those competing so far as moral environments are concerned. The location of a college adjoining that town will not embarrass the local or city administration or government, which would have been the case with Wichita. Winfield is a quiet, peaceful, contented, law-abiding community of people who are taking care of what they have already got and ready to spread only in spiritual or educational directions. It is the most radical prohibition town probably in the State, at least that’s its reputation.”
It might have added that Winfield had enough “get up and get” to get away with Wichita in this matter. It adds:
“The following bids were made by the towns respectively.
Newton, $35,000 and twenty acres of land.
Peabody, $31,000 and one hundred and thirty acres of land.
Hutchinson, $24,000, a cabinet of minerals valued at $4,000, and one hundred acres of land.
Wellington, $51,000 and forty acres of land.
Wichita, $30,000 and twenty acres of land.
El Dorado, $35,000 and two quarter sections of land and one hundred lots in Riverside addition.
Winfield, $40,000, twenty acres of land and an annuity of $2,000 per annum for ten years, and forty acres of land, or in lieu of the twenty acres, $40,000.
[Note: Various newspapers carried various details about “dollar amounts” proposed by Winfield to get college. MAW]
WINFIELD COURIER.
D. A. MILLINGTON, Editor.
THE METHODIST UNIVERSITY.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
We have been told, “You, with your liberal views on religious matters, do not want a sectarian college in Winfield. If we can raise money enough to build a college, why not make it non-sectarian where people of all sects and no sect will have a voice in its management?”
Our answer is: The history of non-sectarian colleges is that they invariably fail and die out unless they are supported by the State, or an endowment of hundreds of thousands of dollars by the founder or some other liberal millionaire. To run a University worth having successfully, will cost thirty to fifty thousand dollars a year. Our State appropriates some such sum every year to support the State University at Lawrence. A University which has a half million endowment fund can raise such necessary expenses from the income of its endowment. Give us the State to back it or the half million endowment and we are in favor of a non-sectarian institution in Winfield. Lacking in these essential supports, we must have something in their stead or we cannot have a college of any account in our midst.
Aside from the schools endowed as above, by State or endowment fund, the only other high institutions of learning which are a success are backed and supported by some religious sect or denomination, and among these the Methodist Colleges are bright examples of success. The Methodists work together as a unit under the most complete organization. They love their church and its institutions, and their number is legion. Their contributions to their schools, though small individually, are large in the aggregate of money, and every Methodist wants to send his sons and daughters to a Methodist school. Every Methodist in Southern Kansas will be an annual contributor to the support of the college at Winfield. Every Methodist minister will be an efficient and working agent for the institution. The fund raised by Winfield is sufficient to build a magnificent building to accommodate a thousand students and the Methodists of Southern Kansas will see that these students are furnished and that the necessary funds are raised annually to keep it running with a full head of steam. We consider the Methodist church of Southern Kansas behind this institution better than half a million endowment fund.
We are not afraid of the sectarian ideas which the Methodists will inculcate. Though we do not endorse some of the religious tenets, we fail to see where any of them do any hurt and do plainly see where they are doing an immense amount of good, so we have no quarrel with anything they teach. We do endorse their lofty patriotism, their sturdy prohibitionism, their vigorous fight on evils and corrupting influences of every kind, their united energy and perseverance in good works, and while we are ready to give a similar meed of praise to other churches, we consider the M. E. Church one of the most powerful civilizing influences of the age, and, with the late lamented Lincoln, we unite in benedictions on the Methodist Church.
EVIDENCE OF ITS TRUTH.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885. Editorial.
In the brief submitted by Winfield and signed by three of its citizens, the bare-faced and unqualified statement is made that Cowley County is the most populous county in the conference and that Winfield is the second city in population. From all we have since learned, it was not necessary to resort to lying to secure the vote of that locating committee, one of whom, at least, has since claimed that in the face of statistics and sworn returns, he believed that representation of the brief. We hope, for the sake of the conference, that Winfield’s subscription is more reliable than the statistics of the men who signed that showing. Wichita Eagle.
We suppose that wherever the Eagle is well known, the above will be taken as evidence of the entire truthfulness of the Winfield brief. If there is a citizen of Winfield whose word will not be believed against the sworn statement of the Eagle, he ought to go and hang himself. We suppose that Wichita would have stood a good chance to get the Methodist college if it had not been for the Eagle. It has used all its ability and influence to support saloons and in effect has encouraged the lawlessness, church-burning, and crime which have given Wichita a reputation unsavory to the Methodist people. This is what defeated Wichita, and the Eagle was a factor in the defeat, not Winfield lies.
CONCERNING SPILLED MILK.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
Nobody wins every time. Occasionally defeat comes to every individual and to every community. Spilled milk may be expected sometimes even in the best regulated dairies. Just now a fine pail of milk that our people hoped would be delivered to them has been upset so far as we are concerned. There is no possible way to pick it up. It is lost to us.
The milk maid rendered famous by the spelling book story was disposed to mourn over the mishap to her luckless pail. We believe the people of Newton have too much sense to do anything of the kind. The Methodist college was not an essential to our continued growth and prosperity. Its location here would have been a great thing for us. It would have attracted to us many very fine people. It would have given a tone to our society that cannot be found elsewhere than in a college town. Some of us saw these advantages from the beginning, and, seeing them, did our best to secure the institution. As a rule the men who would have reaped the greatest pecuniary benefit from the location of the college at Newton offered the least to secure it. If anybody should feel chagrin over our defeat, they are the ones, not we who did our best.
We think the people of Newton have learned a lesson in this contest. They have learned that we have strong competitors in southern Kansas, and that it takes all of us to win a battle. At the same time a large number of us have learned how to work together and thus have largely increased the chance for co-operation in future contests.
We congratulate the people of Winfield on their securing this prize. They deserve it. They have one of the finest towns in the State. They are as liberal and public spirited people as can be found anywhere. They are worthy of the institution that has been located in their midst, and hope, yes, we know, it will prosper there.
But what will the people of Newton do? Shall we continue to send our sons and daughters to Topeka, Emporia, Lawrence, and other places to be educated? This educational problem cannot be put aside. We must meet it in some way and meet it soon. If we cannot get a college at once, we can very soon have as good a public high school as can be found in the State. We have it in our power to do this, and the earnest endeavors of every member of the community should be bent in that direction. Instead of mourning over the milk that has been spilled, let us go to work to make the best possible use of what is left.
Newton Republican.
DEVIL AND ANGEL.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
The Wichita Beacon gives vent to its gladness (?) thusly: “We are glad Winfield got the college. We were pleased when she got the imbecile asylum, and we regret that her location debars her from contesting for—and no doubt she would get—the reformatory. She ought to have the reformatory for from the number of horrible crimes committed in and around her she cannot have too many of these reform schools.” Yes, we can stand all these enterprises. But the modern hades—the city of saloons, dead beats, loafers, and tramps, commonly known as Wichita, must go on without these reformatories—must keep going down! down!! Until its moral, law-abiding element all drift into the Queen City of Southern Kansas—the most moral, peaceable, enterprising, and public spirited city in all the west. In the meantime Winfield will continue to scoop in everything that comes along worth having, keeping a watch on the left eye of Wichita as it sheds its silvery tears.
A MIXTURE.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
The Arkansas City Republican thusly remarks: “The county seat pays a good price for the college, but it will be of great benefit to the town. With her increased railroad facilities, Winfield is a desirable place. The morality of the town is good except the ladies wear the non-belted mother hubbard. The Republican extends to the county seat the warmest congratulations at her success.”
Your congratulations are appreciated, Dick, but your cruel thrust at our fair ones must be avenged. Accuse our ladies of a composition of cotton, creoline [?crinoline], or ruse [?ruche], if you must lie, but when it comes to accusing them of wearing the horrid, despicable Mother Hubbard, your days are bound to be few in this land. Repent ye, for the avenging rod and bald-headed broom are at hand. Our girls have long ago buried the Mother Hubbard in its last, long sleep—turned up its toes to the daisies never to be resurrected—we hope.
THE COLLEGE COMMITTEE HERE.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
The following College Committee and Trustees arrived Tuesday, and were taken to the homes of our citizens. The Committee consists of gentlemen of well known ability and reputation: Revs. H. Waite, of Peabody; Rev. N. Asher, Belle Plaine; W. H. Cline, Wellington; T. C. Miller, Lyons; D. D. Aiken, Hutchinson; N. S. Buckner, Arkansas City; A. P. George, Nickerson; M. L. Gates, Wichita. The Trustees are Revs. T. Audas, Wichita; C. A. King, Newton; B. C. Swarts, Anthony; J. D. Botkin, McPherson; B. Kelly, Winfield; Hon. A. L. Redden, El Dorado; Hon. D. J. Chatfield, Wichita. These gentlemen, with several of our citizens, were viewing College Hill this afternoon and were well pleased with the beautiful location. County Surveyor, Haight, run off forty acres for the proposed site. Full arrangements will be made for the erection of the college before the gentlemen leave, of which the COURIER will publish in due time.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
Rev. Mr. Cline returned Friday from Wichita, where he had been as a member of the committee appointed to locate the M. E. college. Mr. Cline very loyally voted for Wellington until he saw there was no chance and then went to Winfield. The vote stood some time, one for Wellington, one for Newton, two for Hutchinson, and one for Peabody. Mr. Cline was the first one to break and go to Winfield, after which the Newton man followed, giving Winfield the necessary majority. Winfield’s bid was $70,000 cash and twenty acres of ground. Wellingtonian.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
The Wellington Standard, with a tenacity becoming Democrats, has not lost all hope! “Now that the college question is settled, would it not be well for our citizens to turn their attention to securing the reformatory, and the division station and machine shops of the S. K. R. R.? This city can’t afford to lose any more of these proposed enterprises. ‘If you don’t at first succeed, try, try again.’ Never give up but buckle on the armor for the next fight.”
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
Bill Hackney thinks that the Wellingtonian didn’t treat Winfield right in its announcement of the result of the M. E. college contest. A simple difference of opinion, that. They have the grapes. They are out of our reach, hence they are sour, and we wouldn’t have them under any consideration. We’ll make faces at them and Winfield just as much as we want to. Wellingtonian.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
N. S. Buckner, Arkansas City, was here Tuesday attending the college meeting, accompanied by his wife.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
Judge Beck returned Tuesday from several days’ visit with his son, Charley, at Wichita. He says “sick” doesn’t begin to express the remorse of Wichita in losing the M. E. College.
SQUARE AND MANLY.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
The Wellington Standard, though a Democratic sheet, shows magnanimity at once appreciated. “Our neighboring town of Winfield is to be congratulated on securing the location of the M. E. college. They went in to win and put up the amount of cash that knocked the persimmon. Our citizens did nobly and all are to be commended for their faithful work, but it don’t pay to underrate the ability and enterprise of a neighbor. ‘The Lord helps those who help themselves.’ Below we give the cash bids of the competing towns as copied from Rev. Cline’s list.
“El Dorado, $20,000; Wellington, $51,000; Winfield, $50,000 cash down as required by the locating committee and $20,000 to be paid in ten annual installments, making in all $70,000; Newton, $35,000; Wichita, $30,000; Hutchinson, $24,000; and Peabody, $34,000. In addition to cash, Winfield also donated stone for the foundation of the building and is to furnish the college with free water.”
ALL IN A RAGE.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
Wellington is mad—awfully mad! What she was tearing her shirt to get, she now declares a fraud and a snare. They now look out of their cross eye, while Winfield looks on, in an atmosphere chock full of prosperity, present and future, and laughs at Wellington’s snarls. Between her scowls, she gets such stuff as this off, through the Wellingtonian: “Winfield pays $90,000 cash, scrip, and land for the Methodist College. Well, she pays dear enough for the Institution and no doubt expects it to make a city of that half-mired village. Of course it will. Methodist Colleges always build cities around them. Cities like Baldwin City, for instance, where the only Methodist College in the State, has been located for twenty years or more. Baldwin, when we saw it last, some two years ago, was fully as large as Milan. Oh, yes! The College will boom Winfield big!”
IT’S THE POOR PREACHERS, NOW.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
Poor Wellington! How mad she is! Here is one of her wails, from the Wellingtonian. She is now venting her spleen on the preachers. They can stand it. “The college committee—the poor misguided men who preach for a living—concluded that Winfield stone was worth more than Wellington silver and land, and located the college at that city. We can forgive them, but think that their families ought to take immediate steps to have them located in the lunatic asylum for some months. A thorough treatment by some good ‘crazy’ doctors might cure them of their hallucination, but we doubt it. We think this case so serious that their friends might as well lock them up at once for life. Poor men!”
SOME ENCOURAGEMENT.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
Mr. A. H. Jennings, who is visiting with his family in Licking Valley, Ohio, writes: “It is cold for the time of year and very dry here and times are hard. The grasshoppers are eating the meadows and pastures all up! Farmers seem to be very much discouraged, and they have a right to fear the wheat crop is an entire failure with but little prospect for anything else. I think that the Cowley County farmers should be happy and contented with their prospects. I hope Winfield will secure the college and we will be happy. I receive THE DAILY COURIER all right.”
THE COLLEGE SITE.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 18, 1885.
The college committee and trustees returned to their homes Wednesday. The grounds for the college were surveyed and the stakes set for the building site. The building will be located on the five acres of table land, on the mound just north of the Davis residence—the prettiest site imaginable. The college can be seen from there for miles around. The trustees elected Senator A. L. Redden, of El Dorado, chairman. A building committee was appointed with instructions to have a first-class architect draw up plans for a building to cost about fifty thousand dollars. On July 8th the trustees meet here to accept plans and make arrangements for the immediate construction of the college. Everything between the college committee and the representatives of our city was perfectly harmonious. All were charmed with our city and highly satisfied with their choice of location.
EASILY EXPLAINED.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 25, 1885.
The Wichita Eagle’s slings always fly back to diff its sender on the proboscis. Listen: “THE COURIER, published at Winfield, the scene of the terrible tragedy wherein an innocent and loving wife was found in her bed murdered and horribly mutilated, says that the women and more gentle-hearted men go to bed early and cover up their heads, and that half of the women won’t stay at home alone at night. We don’t blame them. It strikes us that a place of such terrible outrages and consequent frenzy is a nice place for the idiot school, but as for it being just the place for a college—well, everybody to their tastes.”
Winfield is the most peaceable, law-abiding, christian-like city in the west—a paradise compared to Wichita. She has a tragedy only once every three or four years. It is then the talk of the town—unusual things always excite and frighten women. In Wichita a murder is no surprise and house-breakers, dead-beats, and loafers compose a large part of the population. The women are perambulating arsenals—must always be prepared to meet chaos on every hand. Our women seldom have occasion to use other than their everyday armor of beauty, intelligence, and model womanliness—the greatest endowment of a college community.
[I substituted “chaos” for “choal” in article above. Choal is a bark.]
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 25, 1885.
We clip the following from the Wichita Eagle. We sympathize with the “Deacon” in his afflictions, but must inform him that Winfield likes the elephant and will hold on to him. He will graze on the Winfield “College Hill” where the feed is so much better than in the “Deacon’s” pasture.
COLLEGE (C)HILL.
A SONG.
BY POLAR WAVE.
Tune: “A cold day when we get left.”
Brilliant and round rose the full-orbed moon,
On a warm summer’s night, in the early June;
And with radiant rays of silvery light,
Was the emerald landscape all benight.
Looming up to the east of this city of mud,
Serenely beyond the Chisholm’s dark flood,
Where the waters in tumult roll down from the mill,
Stood the mountain of knowledge men called “College Hill.”
Its fame has spread far and its name was known wide,
And many a Wichitan pointed with pride,
To the high-rising walls of the temple of learning,
That already this eminence proud were adorning.
And the deep, sacred soil that covered this hill,
Had been bisected, cut up, and divided, until
Each lamb of the flock, that abjures worldly pelt,
Had a small little slice, “all alone to himself.”
And the soft moon rose high, and high up in the sky,
And the breezes of midnight gently whispered a sigh,
For a conclave of preachers, assembled in state,
Were preparing an edict for College Hill’s fate.
The sun brightly rose, as ever before,
But College Hill smiled in his glances no more:
The preachers, ere morn, had “sat down” upon it,
And sunk it beneath the reach of a plummet.
When the fiat went forth that leveled the hill,
It came to the flock like a dumb-ague chill;
And some of the brethren were taken so sick,
They squandered a quarter to ride home in a hack!
When asked by their friends what made them so ill,
They replied with a chatter and gasp, College (c)hill!
Today, as you wander the city about,
If you don’t wish your sanity taken in doubt,
When asked by a stranger about College Hill,
Point downward and tell him to go to—the deal!
LATER.
The deacon is happy and his visage is up,
Revealing a face shining like a tin cup,
For the word comes from Winfield this evening by mail
That an elephant there, is held by the tail,
And they’ll gladly let go, if the people here still,
Will take him to graze on our own College Hill.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 25, 1885.
Wichita is badly broken up over the location of the Methodist College at Winfield. Hutchinson is also in the same boat and claims that she would have been selected as the location, only for the failure of the Nickerson committeeman to support that town.
Pratt County Press.
WE WILL CELEBRATE WITH THE TERMINUS.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 25, 1885.
It is now firmly settled that Winfield will have no celebration this year of the glorious Fourth. Our citizens have contributed so much recently to the college fund and other public enterprises that all former ardor in contributing a thousand or two dollars to fly the Bird of Liberty was dampened. The Fourth of July is a day hallowed by the most sacred traditions of the Nation’s history. The heart of no true American citizen can fail to thrill with a new patriotic purpose with each recurrence of this anniversary of American Independence, whether the day is spent at home, in the active merits of business, or amid the din of patriotic display. But the yearly observance of the day as a National holiday and the general disposition among the people to “go somewhere” on that day raises an important question. Where shall we celebrate? Oxford has sent us an invitation to join Wellington in a grand celebration at the little city on the Arkansas. But Arkansas City sent us an earlier invitation, and is arranging for the biggest time in the history of that city. Robert T. Lincoln, Senator Plumb, and others are expected as speakers. Winfield is strictly a home town and of course will join Arkansas City in spreading the eagle. The facilities of the Terminus for a big celebration are unexcelled. The Terminus has frequently celebrated with us and now we have an opportunity to return the compliment. An excursion train will be arranged for. Though appreciating Oxford’s kind invitation, our people will swing to their old motto of Cowley County, first, last, and all the time.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 25, 1885.
Last Friday two interesting charters were filed with the Secretary of State in Topeka. The College Hill Town Company, of Winfield, and the Southwest Kansas Conference College.
HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 25, 1885.
Mr. W. H. Jones, editor of the Reece, Greenwood County, Sunflower, visited Winfield last week to counsel with the K. C. & S. W. railroad regarding the prospects of his county for obtaining this line. Like all visitors, he was charmed with our city, and gives us this handsome send off.
“In company with Mrs. W. S. Reece, we made a trip to Winfield, the county seat of Cowley County, the first of the week. As some of our readers, who have never been there, may wish to know something of the city that will undoubtedly soon be connected with Reece by bands of iron, we will briefly state that Winfield is one of the cleanest, fairest, handsomest cities in Kansas. It has a population of about 6,000; there are forty-five miles of stone sidewalk in the city; they have extensive store buildings and manufactories, almost every trade and profession being represented; they have one of the largest and best flouring mills in the world; and their hotels are not excelled by any of those in the largest cities of the State. The people of Winfield are enterprising and progressive, and are all actuated by the desire to see their beautiful city become one of the leading metropolises of the “Garden of the World.” And now we will give the Winfieldites a pointer: Cut down at least half the trees around your dwellings, so that the sunshine can reach them, and you will have one of the handsomest and healthiest cities in the Great West. Winfield has just voted $100,000 in aid of the Kansas City & Southwestern Railway; $100,000 in aid of the Denver, Memphis & Atlantic Railway; and has secured the establishment of the Methodist State College there, successfully competing with Wichita, Newton, El Dorado, Wellington, and several other points.”
WHAT OUR NEIGHBORS ARE DOING.
Newsy Notes Gathered by The “Courier’s” Corps of Neighborhood Correspondents.
DEXTER. “MOSS ROSE.”
Winfield Courier, Thursday, June 25, 1885.
We congratulate Winfield on having secured the college, as we feel confident we can trust our children there to get an education. How much better the location and surroundings at Winfield than Wichita. No doubt the good and moral name that Winfield has, helped to get so valuable an institution. Great credit is due the gentlemen who labored so faithfully for our future good. May good health, peace, and happiness attend them, wherever they abide, is the earnest wish of the writer.
[I believe the following excerpt, taken from real estate sales listing, might pertain to the future Southwestern College. MAW]
LAND SLIDES.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 2, 1885.
The following are the real estate transfers filed in the office of Register of Deeds yesterday.
Chas F Bahntge to The College Hill Town Company, se qr 22-32-s-4-e: $22,400
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 2, 1885.
It is learned that the college grounds at Winfield are located on what has been known as the Dr. Davis farm, east of the city, and a very beautiful situation. It was a question with the locating committee, at first, whether to accept the twenty acres of land offered or the $10,000 in money offered in lieu of the land. The question was referred to the college trustees, but they referred the decision back to the locating committee, and they finally elected to take the land. Wichita Beacon.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 2, 1885.
Real estate at Winfield has gone away up out of sight on account of the Methodist college. Just wait until the students arrive; then board will go down to two dollars a week and the livery stables will bust up, and town lots will be cheaper. Harper Graphic.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 2, 1885.
Wellington, having lost in the contest for the Methodist college, consoles herself with the fact that she has one of the fastest horses on record, as demonstrated at the recent Wichita races. Well, this kind of stock suits some people better than a Methodist college.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 2, 1885.
The Grenola Hornet remarks: “Winfield is truly becoming great. Last winter the legislature gave her the asylum for the feeble minded, last week the committee selected for that purpose voted to locate the Methodist college there; now she comes to the front with a genuine case of elopement, and the people, as well as the newspapers, are yelling at their rival towns, ‘How do you like us now?’”
You bet you! We take no back seat for any metropolis this side of London, Abe. We are a full fledged city, with every adjunct—standing on the pinnacle of fame and prosperity, with our finger on our nose slyly winking at those who would feign to rival us.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 2, 1885.
The incorporators of the Winfield Methodist college are Thomas Audas, of Wichita; C. A. King, of El Dorado; B. C. Swarts, of Anthony; B. Kelly, of Winfield; M. Y. Gates, of Wichita; J. G. Botkin, of McPherson; A. L. Redden, of El Dorado; D. J. Chatfield, of Wichita. The value of the corporation property is $95,000.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 2, 1885.
The Burden Eagle remarks: “THE COURIER has estimated that the locating of the M. E. College at Winfield will increase the population of that city at least 5,000 in five years. One thousand souls a year! Say, COURIER, a Methodist college may add to your city’s prolificness, but we think you soar a little too high in your mathematical calculation.”
The figures are all right, good, straight Methodist figures that always balance. Some have put the increase much higher, but we are charitable and prefer a sure basis.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 9, 1885.
The executive committee of the Methodist college trustees held a meeting in the Methodist Church yesterday, to look over the plans and get things in readiness for the commencement of the College. Hon. A. L. Redden, of El Dorado, chairman of the Board, and Revs. J. D. Bodkin, of McPherson; Thos. Audas, of Wichita; and B. Kelly, of this city, were present.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 9, 1885.
Senator A. L. Redden, of El Dorado, was accompanied by Miss Bessie Cannon, a cousin, to the meeting of the college trustees here Tuesday. They have quarters at the Brettun.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 16, 1885.
Rev. Thos. Audas, of Wichita, who was here Wednesday attending the meeting of the college trustees, was accompanied by his wife. Rev. N. S. Buckner and wife, of Arkansas City, were also here. Mr. Buckner was a member of the college locating committee, but is not a trustee.
COLLEGE TRUSTEES.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 30, 1885.
The trustees of the new M. E. College met, Tuesday, at the Methodist parsonage in this city. There were present: Revs. C. A. King, Wichita; B. C. Swarts, Kingman; M. L. Gates, Winfield; Thos. Audas, Wichita; D. J. Chatfield, Wichita; J. D. Botkin, McPherson; B. Kelly, Winfield. At the meeting yesterday evening the deed and subscriptions of the College Hill Company and the subscription of the Highland Park Company were accepted, and the deed is now filed for record. The Highland Park Company deed will stand in reserve till the college is completed. At the meeting today the plans and bids of various architects and superintendents were being examined and discussed, and the contract will likely be let this evening when work will commence in August. Everything between the trustees and our citizens is perfectly harmonious, and the selection of the site seems to be taken with even more ardor than at first, and the gentlemen see more of our city and people.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 30, 1885.
J. C. Holland, Topeka architect, was before the college trustees Tuesday with a bid to erect the college building.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 30, 1885.
John Barton, an Independence architect, was before the college trustees Tuesday with a bid for constructing the college.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 30, 1885.
George Ropes, the Topeka architect who has the construction of the Imbecile Asylum, came in Tuesday to enter a bid to construct the M. E. college.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, July 30, 1885.
W. R. Parsons & Son, of Columbus, Missouri, architects and superintendents, were among those before the college trustees Tuesday with a bid for the construction of the college.
THE WINFIELD COURIER.
WINFIELD, COWLEY COUNTY, KANSAS, THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 1885.
THE METHODIST COLLEGE.
Some Sickening Emetic for the Wichita Kicker.
His Lies Hurled Back.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, August 6, 1885.
“The strange, sad rumor reaches us that our dear but over-ambitious friends at Winfield, in the matter of the Methodist college business, bit off more than they can chew. It was awful funny to sail in and outbid the biggest town in the state, but it wasn’t business, all the same. Wichita talked business, Winfield highfly. Highfly caught the impracticable, vain-glorious preacher’s committee, but the trustees seem to be insisting upon business, a kind of talk that Winfield is not well up in, apparently. At least so unsatisfactory has their talk and action become that one of the trustees has resigned and another threatens to. A portion of the preacher committee accepted, with ill-grace, the assertion made before them by the editor of this paper, that from the absence of business sense and business action their college would fail, we citing the failures of Blue Mount College and the Baker University of this state, both Methodist institutions, one of which the church presented to the state, and which is now the State Agricultural college. Wichita don’t want the college now, nor did she ever particularly hanker after it. It would be better to be a college town than to be nothing, and we hope Winfield will brace up to the demand that she make good her promise. That this hope is sincere, we have only to say that Wichita has had two college propositions of late, either of them more favorable than the Methodist proposition. And we don’t think that the trustees, either, should weaken so easily, but brace up also and make the best of a bad bargain.
Wichita Eagle.
The over-anxiety manifested in the above article only evidences the deep and bitter disappointment still rankling in the breast of the Eagleman on account of Wichita’s defeat and humiliation in a contest for the College in which they had put their job up and in which they were sure they had a clean walk-away. It’s sore, isn’t it? Poor Marsh! Winfield is sorry that you will persist in parading the soreness left by your blasted hopes. You shouldn’t have gone into the College business. You are evidently not adapted to such work; you are better fitted as a base bulldozer to control the rabble and things of your commercially thrifty town, rather than to dictate to a committee of level headed, competent preachers. It brings the blush to the face of every intelligent reader of your paper who knows you when you parade what you told the preacher committee, and, we will add, you said many other equally foolish and prejudiced things that had as well not be repeated. Your story of having two other propositions offered you sounds thin and boyish on the heels of your M. E. College and Reformatory School efforts. You needn’t be so apprehensive about the trustees and Winfield failing of their duty in this college matter, as they will live up fully to the letter and spirit of the bid from Winfield that secured the location of the College—the result so mourned—and this is what makes the Eagle man so strangely sad and jealous. Wichita’s member of the board of trustees, it is true, did resign, but it came about in this way: At the first meeting of the board, this same gentleman offered a resolution to postpone action until the next meeting of the conference. His motion did not receive a second, yet the worthy president of the board ruled that he would entertain the motion without a second. The animus of the motion, on reflection, became so apparent that its author withdrew it with an apology. This same member was elected treasurer of the board, by the way—a fine scheme to have the treasurer of the Winfield College a resident of Wichita; but while this job was being put up in the interests of Wichita down here the officers of the law were levying attachments on the would-be treasurer’s goods in Wichita. So at the next meeting of the board, a by-law was adopted that the treasurer should be a layman, not a member of the board of trustees. The Wichita treasurer at once appeared upon the scene and tendered his resignation as trustee, but he was promptly informed that unless his resignation of treasurer was also tendered, his resignation as trustee would not be accepted, so the only thing left for him to do was to resign both positions. And it occurs to us, for the credit of the Eagle’s position, the less said about this College business, the better.
Now as to the facts:
The board of M. E. College trustees closed a three days’ meeting in this city Thursday, and returned to their homes. It was the most important and satisfactory they have yet held. The warranty deeds to the two beautiful and valuable tracts of land, forty acres, donated by the College Hill Town Company and the Highland Park Town Company and the twenty thousand dollar subscriptions of these companies were accepted and the deeds placed on record. Various plans were examined and discussed, and the board adjourned to meet August 19th, to give the contractors time to mature and complete their bids, when the contract for the building will be closed and the work of construction commenced. In the meantime several model college buildings will be visited and carefully studied by a committee from the trustees for the purpose of confirming their judgment as to the very best plans. The trustees are availing themselves of the results as to plans and furniture of some of the best institutions of the kind in the land, and the ability and patience they are putting into the work assures for Winfield a University second to none in the west.
Will the Wichita Eagle please copy?
THE COLLEGE FUNDS.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, August 6, 1885.
The following notice made to our local college committee has the true business ring and betokens progress. All should read it and comply with the request of the Board of Trustees as to putting all matters pertaining to the college in an acceptable business shape. The Trustees are working with zeal and ability and what started in hesitancy and doubt is now assuming shape that will gratify the most enthusiastic and sanguine. Now let all come up to their part of the work and our hopes of a great university on College Hill will be fully realized. The following is the notice: “Winfield, Kansas, July 30th, 1885. To W. G. Graham, T. H. Soward, W. P. Hackney, B. Kelly, and M. L. Robinson. Gentlemen: Having accepted the deeds from the College Hill Association and the Highland Park Association, and having made the necessary arrangements to begin at an early day the construction of our college building, we hereby give you notice that we desire the payment to the treasurer of the Southwest Kansas Conference College, M. L. Read, within sixty days, the one-third of the $40,000 as mentioned in your proposition to the committee of location. We also request that you put the remaining two-thirds of the $20,000 of subscription in the shape of acceptable obligations according to contract. B. C. SWARTS, Prs. Protem. J. D. BOTKIN, Sec’y, Board.”
Excerpt...
LAND SLIDES.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, August 6, 1885.
College Hill Town Company to Southwest Kansas Conference College, pt of se qr 22-32-4 e, 20 acres, for College site.
WINFIELD ON TOP AGAIN.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, August 27, 1885.
The Board of Trustees of the Methodist College met in this city Thursday to adopt plans and employ an architect and superintendent of the new college building to be erected immediately, on College Hill, this city. Plans and sketches, according to the propositions of the Trustees, were submitted by Willis A. Ritchie, Winfield; George Ropes, State Architect, Topeka; and S. A. Cook, Winfield; Hopkins & Holland, Topeka; W. R. Parsons & Son, St. Louis; E. M. Hale, Denver; Willis Proudfoot, Wichita; and John Barton, Independence. On the first presentation of plans, none were accepted. On the second, most of the architects came up with new sketches. Willis A. Ritchie retained his first sketches and again presented them, carrying off the contract. His plans and bid were accepted over the others, and he employed as architect and superintendent of the construction of the building. His money consideration was not as small as some others, but his plans and location were considered better. This is a bright plume in Mr. Ritchie’s cap—beating some of the best architects of the west. He came here but a short time ago from Lima, Ohio, to plan and superintend the construction of John A. Eaton’s residence and bank building. His ability as an architect was at once recognized and such encouragement given as has secured his permanent residence. He has planned the new school building and has the superintendency of its construction, with other prominent buildings. He is a young man, but a thorough architect, with the pluck and energy that always win. The College building, as now planned, will cost $60,000. The contract for excavation and foundation will be let during the first of September, work to begin at once. Its superintendency by a Winfield architect will be a big card for home contractors and home laborers. Mr. Ritchie is retained on much other work that will be done this fall and next spring.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, September 10, 1885.
Willis A. Ritchie went up to Newton Tuesday with the plans of the new Methodist college under his left wing. He meets with a committee of the College Trustees to finally determine on the plans of the college building, and various things regarding its construction.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, September 17, 1885.
The plans of the new Methodist College are about completed, in W. A. Ritchie’s architectural rooms, and give a good view of the building. It has four stories, a gothic roof, adorned with three towers. It will be one of the finest buildings of the kind in the west, costing over $60,000 to start on.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, October 8, 1885.
The ground for the new Methodist college will be broken next week.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, October 8, 1885.
Rev. B. C. Swarts, of Anthony, and Rev. Thomas Audas, of Wichita, members of the board of M. E. College Trustees, are in the city.
THE METHODIST COLLEGE.
It Materializes At Last and Will Now Boom Ahead.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, October 8, 1885.
The trustees of the M. E. College held their last meeting Tuesday and have left the building committee and Architect in full power to proceed at once with the work on the building, and they have begun as may be seen by the “Notice to Contractors” in another column. The building was located by the committee and architect yesterday and tomorrow it will be staked off. The contract for the excavation for the basement will be let next Saturday at 4 p.m., and Monday morning will see a busy life around the College Hill, which will end only when the building is completed, which will be in time for the opening of the first term in September, 1886. Architect Ritchie will have the complete superintendency of the building and is now well prepared, with his new rig, to go to the building on short notice and watch it closely, which will insure a building second to none in the west, so far as convenience, stability, and handsome appearance is concerned.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, October 15, 1885.
The contract was awarded Saturday to Paris & Harrod for the excavation of the Methodist college building. They took it for twenty cents a yard, ten cents below the estimated and regulation price. Several foreigners were here for competition and got nicely downed by our house men. It will take twelve days to throw the dirt out. It began to fly today, and will have no let up, till finished, when the foundation walls will go up at once.
LAND SLIDES.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, October 15, 1885.
The following are the real estate transfers filed in the office of Register of Deeds since our last issue.
Highland Park Town Co. to Southwest Kansas Conference, 20 acres in Highland Park, for College purposes. [No dollar amount given.]
Excerpt...
SOME RAMBLING FABERISMS.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, October 22, 1885.
Chaperoned by Architect Ritchie, behind his bay flyer, our reporter enjoyed a spin to College Hill, the “Phool school,” and other places Wednesday. Paris & Harrod are throwing dirt lively from the college excavation and will have it done next week. Every time you visit this location, you are more forcibly imbued with the grandeur of its views. A prettier location for such an institution couldn’t be found in the land. Winfield, as it nestles in this lovely valley, embowered in leafy verdure and skirted by the meandering wood of the Walnut river and Timber creek, presents an entrancing sight. Then an ascension of the mound gives a grand view for miles and miles around. The excavation for the Imbecile Asylum is about done. The charm of this location is almost equal to that of College Hill.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, October 22, 1885.
The Courier Cornet Band were the first to pay their subscription of fifty dollars to the college fund. Tally one for the boys. They always get there first in everything.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, October 29, 1885.
The first instalments of the subscriptions to the M. E. College of the Southwest Kansas Conference has been called for by the treasurer, M. L. Read, and is being paid in with a promptness always the result of such enterprise as Winfield contains. The College trustees have fully complied with their share of the contract.
Excerpt from lengthy article...
Winfield Courier, Thursday, October 29, 1885.
The reporter mounting a steed sallied forth early Friday morning to take an inventory of the improvements and new buildings which have gone up since the season opened, and the ones under construction at the present time. Being rushed, we are satisfied many have been overlooked. The valuation given is below the market value rather than above. The following list we know will surprise our own citizens.
M. E. College $100,000
Winfield Courier, Thursday, November 5, 1885.
The College foundation began to go up Saturday. G. W. Yount is furnishing the stone and putting the foundations in.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, November 19, 1885.
The foundation for the College is up to the surface and will be finished in a few weeks. It is as smooth, solid, and pretty as ever constructed. The fine proportions of the building are well indicated in the foundation. The Imbecile Asylum walls begin to loom up nicely, and by January first the building will be well along toward completion. These sites are visited daily by many sightseers. Nobody takes a drive around the city without taking in both Imbecile and College Hills. And who could find a better place to view our beautiful city and its immediate surroundings! With these splendid public buildings completed, with a street car line running to them, no stranger will ever come to our city without taking in the magnificent views from these locations. Our street car line will be a reality with the completion of these buildings—must be; we can’t do without it.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, November 19, 1885.
Messrs. Warner & McIntire, the contractors, have under contract sixteen residence and business buildings—over sixteen thousand dollars worth in carpentry, planing, and scroll work. Their planing mill is turning out the frame and fancy work for Eaton’s buildings, the business blocks of Short, Wallis, and Curns & Manser; the Imbecile Asylum and College buildings; Charley Fuller’s residence, and numerous others, with more to follow. Their mill is full of work, clear to the brim.
Winfield Courier, December 3, 1885.
At a meeting of the College Hill Co., held at Curns & Manser’s office yesterday, the treasurer was instructed to pay to the treasurer of the South Western Kansas Conference College the first installment on its subscription of $10,000 to the College building, amounting to $3,333.35, which has been done and receipted for. The subscriptions made by the citizens of Winfield to this College are being paid promptly and satisfactorily, and there is nothing to prevent its completion for the fall term of 1886.
Winfield Courier, December 3, 1885.
Architect W. A. Ritchie, of the firm of W. A. Ritchie & Co., whose offices are located at Winfield, Kansas, and Lima, Ohio, was in the city Monday looking after building interests. The firm has prepared plans for the M. E. College, a $60,000 building, at Winfield; the school building, St. James Hotel, City Hall, and Bank building, which are to be the finest in the state, and a number of other buildings in that city, so that any further recommendation as to their ability as architects is unnecessary. Harper Sentinel.
SNEAKING SCOUNDRELS.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, December 10, 1885.
Winfield, notwithstanding her name for superiority in everything that goes to make the best citizenship, has some low, sneaking scoundrels. We are chagrined to chronicle so contemptible a trick as the breaking with a hatchet or other instrument of several of the large cut stone pilasters of the M. E. College, which were beautifully dressed and awaiting their places. The corners and edges were knocked off and the stones generally haggled: completely ruined. This shows a spirit that ought to be reciprocated with a horse-whip or cat-o-nine-tails. The contributors or college trustees could not suffer from such vandalism—no spite could be vented against them in such an act—it all falls on the contractor, who scratches his head in vain to place the damnable trick. There must have been some motive. The trick was deliberate. Whoever did it are unworthy of recognition as American citizens. They are as groveling and hellish as the lowest heathen.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, December 24, 1885.
Bids were opened Monday on the city building. The two lowest bids were $8,580, one from Winfield parties and the other from a Cleveland, Ohio, contractor. The contract was not awarded, but will likely be let to Winfield parties this evening. This contract will be let at a price much below Architect Ritchie’s estimate of the cost of the building, as also was the contract for the basement of the M. E. College building a couple of months ago, which with his designs, is the best recommendation an architect can receive.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, January 7, 1886.
The foundation for the College is about complete, and it is a beauty. The water tables, almost all on, are of blue limestone, handsomely trimmed, and as decorative as marble. The dimensions of the building are finely exhibited in the foundation. And a glance at the pencil sketch of Architect Ritchie shows that it will be a magnificent structure when completed, one an honor not only to Winfield but the whole Southwest M. E. Conference. The State will not afford a better educational institution. A lot has been selected and plans are being drawn for a neat church on the college grounds, which will accommodate the college pupils and the residents of College Hill and vicinity.
“GRAND VIEW.”
A. J. Thompson’s New Addition.—Beautiful Sites for Homes.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, March 18, 1886.
What man hasn’t looked with admiring eyes on the A. J. Thompson tract of land, including about everything vacant between the city limits and the mounds. Preempting this “claim” in the pioneer days of Winfield, when everything lay entirely in the uncertain and unfathomable lap of the future, the city has gradually spread until now it has reached this tract on every side. Though just platted and placed in the hands of Harris, Clark & Thompson, under the very pretty and appropriate name of “Grand View,” it is already going rapidly. No part of the city affords such desirable residence property. Embracing eighty acres between the city and the mounds and Fifth and Twelfth avenues, it certainly affords a “Grand View” of the city and must become permanently the most valuable residence portion. With a gradual slope to the business portion of The Queen City, lying on the city’s principal boulevards, adjacent to the Methodist College, all in a good state of cultivation, with splendid drainage and agreeable surroundings, only ten blocks from Main street and on the street railway routes, it will at once become popular for homes. It will locate, before the summer is past, at least four hundred people, the number it will comfortably accommodate. And the residences will be of the best, those that will rapidly popularize “Grand View.” In addition to “Grand View,” the Southwestern Land Office still has on sale many desirable lots in Highland Park, which abuts the Methodist College grounds, and extends from there to Main street and from Fifth to Cemetery avenues. Already this tract contains many fine homes, and others are rapidly going up. Its view is commanding and very desirable for “villa” homes. We might as well remark right here, parenthetically, that the firm of Harris, Clark & Thompson stands in the van of real estate firms of Winfield and Cowley County. One of the oldest firms in the city, with a few variations in the name, and by honorable dealing, strict integrity, a watchful vision for both buyer and seller, together with a keen appreciation of judicious advertising—as their half page ad in THE COURIER attests—they have thoroughly established themselves in the public confidence. Their list of farm and city property is very large and their sales reach enviable proportions.
ASK FOR $3.50.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, March 18, 1886.
The stone and brick masons on the Imbecile Asylum and Methodist College, twenty or more, laid off Monday, with the request that their wages be raised from $3 to $3.50 per day—the regulation price all over the country and paid by Jim Connor and the rest of our contractors. Our laboring men are worth as much as laborers are anywhere and should have as good wages. The Asylum and College workmen are not vindictive, ask simply justice in a gentlemanly way. Contractor J. Q. Ashton was absent today, and as the request of his masons seems within the bonds of equity, he will likely grant it readily on his return.
GAIN THEIR POINT.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, March 18, 1886.
The “lay off” only applied to the College building masons. The fine weather and the necessity for keeping things going on the Imbecile Asylum, changed the plans of Contractor Ashton and his employees, and today a dozen or more of the best masons were at work on the Asylum at $3.50 per day. Mr. Ashton, during the winter when laborers were with little employment and little opportunity for work, treated his force very liberally and the best feeling exists between himself and men. Some of his poorer mechanics he refuses to pay $3.50, but will accede this price to all first-class men: enough to keep the Asylum going until April 1st, and then his full force on both the Asylum and College. The weather will then be sufficiently settled to allow full time, with no morning delay for freeze ups.
HOME FROM CONFERENCE.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, March 18, 1886.
Rev. B. Kelly returned today from the annual meeting of the Southwest Kansas Conference, just closed at McPherson. Of course, as was unanimously desired and expected, Rev. Kelly returns here for another year, the Methodist limit. His return is a source of gratification to every citizen. The conference was one of great interest and harmony. Specially marked was the harmony shown in reference to the location here of the Southwest Conference M. E. College. The report of the educational committee locating it here was adopted without a dissent, and immediate building operations ordered, to be finished in September. The College trustees are Rev. B. Kelly and W. C. Robinson, of Winfield; Rev. T. S. Hodgson, of Wichita; Dr. Phillips, of El Dorado; Rev. J. D. Botkin, presiding Elder of the Wichita District; H. Waitt, of McPherson; Rev. W. H. Cline, of Arkansas City; Hon. M. Simpson, of McPherson, and Hon. W. H. McAdams, of Newton. The trustees meet here next Wednesday, to let the contract for the entire building, excepting the basement and first story, which have already been let to J. Q. Ashton. This conference made a Winfield District embracing Cowley, Sedgwick, Harper, and Barbour Counties, with one appointment in Comanche, with the Presiding Elder, Rev. M. L. Gates, residing here. Through the efforts of Rev. Kelly, the Conference selected Winfield as the next place of meeting. We will give the appointments and other pointers tomorrow.
ANOTHER ADDITION.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, March 25, 1886.
Another addition in the city of Winfield will be placed on the market in ten days. Col. J. M. Alexander is having his twenty acres just this side and just across the mounds, extending from 6th to 12th avenues, platted. He will call it “The Alexander Mound Addition” and will sell it out in blocks for fine suburban residences. A street will run clear around the base of the mounds, the mounds themselves to be graded and parked. A more beautiful sight of the city and surroundings than this location affords couldn’t be found. The street railway, which will certainly be built on Ninth avenue, then north to the College and Imbecile Asylum, this summer, will make the Colonel’s addition very desirable for suburban homes.
Winfield Courier, Thursday, March 25, 1886.
Work will be resumed on the College building April first, to have no let up until it is finished, in September. It will be as beautiful and roomy a university as the west affords.
