USA > Iowa > O'Brien County > Past and present of O'Brien and Osceola counties, Iowa, Vol. I > Part 30
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For nearly thirty years, the Bell has been an active factor in politics and a leading paper in the county. Located at the county seat, it has had a prestige and chance to secure the news that especially interests the tax- payer of the county and it has always been keen to secure that news and disseminate to its readers the actual condition and conduct of the administra- tion of county business as well as chronicle the news of the community. Its criticisms of public officials and wrong doers has caused it to form some enemies and temporarily, at least, to suffer some financial loss, but it long ago earned the reputation for honesty and fearless publication of the news that has earned it hosts of friends.
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In December. 1879, the O'Brien Pioneer, at Primghar, met its first close competition. Cleveland J. Reynolds arrived and established the Prim- ghar Tribune, a seven-column folio. The paper was loudly heralded as an advocate for the correction of evils in the conduct of county business, an- nounced reform with a big "R" and began an expose of the crookedness and rascality of the early county officials. In its first issues it began publishing an abstract of the proceedings of the county supervisors, exposing the iniquitous contracts and devious methods that had been used in filching money from the county treasury. In April, 1880, the paper was turned over to Caleb G. Bundy, a versatile writer and experienced newspaper man. who ably conducted the paper until 1882. The policy of the paper was soon shown to be vigorously in favor of objection to the county indebted- ness that had been saddled on the actual settlers by the grafting bogus settlers who had organized the county. We believe that this is the only paper in the county outside of the Sheldon Eagle that openly advocated the defeat of the debt. In 1881 the county refunded its indebtedness and Bundy's policy was defeated and the paper passed out of existence. Bundy, however, im- mediately commenced the publication and printing of a newspaper en- titled the Primghar Times. This was not properly supported, however, and on September 28, 1882, the paper was moved to Paullina, giving the town its first paper, under the title of Paullina Times. For a time Bundy & Thomas published it and Oscar D. Hamstreet, a lawyer and graduate of the State University, who had grown tired of illy paid practice of law, secured control of the paper in September, 1883. He continued its publica- tion for about ten years, being succeeded by Frank M. Bethel and later by the present owner, A. W. McBride. Mr. Hamstreet conducted a good paper and was a thorough newspaper man. Mr. Bethel, who succeeded him, was a practical printer, a forceful writer, honest and blunt in his opinions and not always possessed of that tact in expression of opinion that might bring greater revenue to the paper. In August, 1909, he removed to Oregon, where he is engaged in newspaper work. Mr. McBride, the present owner and editor, is fearless in the discharge of his duty, rather pert and plain in the expression of his opinions, making some enemies by so doing. He has a fine literary style, witty in his comments and has good talent. Under his management the Times stands for everything clean and uplifting and for good morals, good citizenship. The experiment of start- ing an opposition paper in Paullina was tried by R. Jeff Taylor in 1912. His paper, the Paullina Star, proved a failure and was soon abandoned.
In 1893 M. H. Galer, an unsuccessful exponent of religious preaching,
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proved his incompetence in another line by attempting to publish a paper known as the Primghar Republican. It was quickly sold to E. R. Little, the compositor employed by Galer, and the new publisher gave up the effort before the end of the year.
The Democrat, established in Primghar by H. B. Waite in 1896, has been able to maintain a varied existence. Waite had formerly been a school teacher, had considerable ability as a writer, but very little business judg- ment, and had a propensity for extravagant statement. His business life in Primghar was strewn with frequent personal encounters, bitterness and bickerings and he finally moved to Seattle, where he now resides. During his conduct of the Democrat he engaged in a newspaper contest with the Sheldon Mail, in which he filed a larger list of subscribers than the Mail. The contest was before the county supervisors and was held to determine the right to publish official board proceedings and receive pay for the county printing. The Mail was unable to prove the Democrat list fraudulent and the Democrat won the contest, at a great expense to both parties. Later J. A. Graham, F. A. Vaughan and Ira Borland were successively connected with the paper. Mr. Borland, the present editor and publisher, is a good mechanic, was a resident of the county some twenty years ago and has re- turned to show his ability. He is publishing a good clean paper, typo- graphically well printed and with a good strong editorial policy and keen eye for news. He will no doubt do much to make the Democrat a paper withi a strong subscription list and of influence in the community.
The Mail was established in Sheldon by Col. L. B. Raymond, of Cherokee, in January, 1873, six months after the establishment of the village at that place and at a time, when, as its editor later stated, "Sheldon's in- habitants might be enumerated by counting your fingers." This was Colonel Raymond's second newspaper venture in the county, his previous experience having been in connection with the Pioneer at Old O'Brien. The paper at Sheldon was soon sold to D. A. W. Perkins, the pioneer attorney of the county. who later took in a partner. In September, 1874, it was sold to Frank T. Piper and in three months he sold to J. F. Glover. Glover had changed the name of the publication in January, 1875, to that of Sheldon Republic. In March it was published by Glover and a partner by name of W. B. Reed and so continued till August, 1875, when F. T. Piper re- gained ownership, restored the paper to its original name and continued the publication as the Sheldon Mail until his death in 1902.
Frank T. Piper was a thoroughly practical newspaper man, well versed
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in the technical art of printing, a good mechanic, an excellent business man and financier, a vigorous editorial writer and energetic news gatherer. In the county there have been more polished writers, deeper thinkers, men with more loveable dispositions, and many who in various single details excelled Frank Piper in their newspaper work, but during the entire history of the county there have been none who can show such a long period of continued newspaper success and so great financial returns for their efforts as this man. Active in politics, influential in the councils of his chosen political party-the Republican-he was a man to be reckoned with in every political contest and feared and loved as the life of the aspirant for political honors measured up to the Mail's standard of honesty. He was certainly in his element as a newspaper man and made the Mail a success in every way from the start. He wielded a wide influence in politics and made money. His reputation as a newspaper man was state wide, the Mail ranking with the best weekly newspapers in the state. Mr. Piper's aggressive combative- ness made him a good many enemies, but these, with his many friends, will think rather of his ability and merits. He was prominent in county politics -his support being sought after and his opposition feared. He held many offices, among them mayor of Sheldon and postmaster at the same place. He was at one time candidate for state senator and his county loyally sup- ported him, but he failed to secure the nomination. He was many times a delegate to legislative, senatorial, congressional and state conventions of the Republican party. His ability to attract business to his paper was phenomenal. While his paper was published he never lacked advertising patronage. His methods of securing business were sure and effectua !. His columns were always well patronized and his subscription lists grew. Never while he published the Mail did any paper in the county exceed it in its list of subscribers. At all times he had the best equipped printing office in the county. Prior to 1878 advertised lists of lands in this county to be sold for taxes had been set up in Des Moines or Sioux City, printed as a supplement and included in the regular editions of the paper. Clouds of doubt as to validity of these tax sales had been cast by such methods. as it was uncertain whether it was a legitimate publication under the pro- visions of the law, but the entire matter, seven columns in length, was set up in the Mail office and printed in the regular edition of the Mail for that year. By 1880 he had a one-thousand-two-hundred-dollar power printing press and that was considered a marvel of mechanics in those days. In 1881, during the continued hard winter, when for weeks at a time the rail-
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roads were blockaded and when the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul did not run a train into Sheldon for nearly three months, the paper suffered for "print" paper to get out its edition. Telegrams sent to Sioux City brought reply from Perkins Brothers: "Haven't a bundle of print in the house. God help us." St. Paul telegraphed that no express company would accept shipments for the snow bound district and in March, 1881, the paper was compelled to issue to its subscribers two editions of limited size, printed on brown paper. In January, 1898, to relieve himself of some of the burden of printing office work, Mr. Piper took into the business C. P. Miller and Win S. Ayers, who had been associated with him in the mechanical department of the paper, and the business was incorporated under the name of Piper, Miller & Ayers. Later, after the death of Mr. Piper, the business was continued by his son, R. B. Piper, with whom was associated J. E. Wyckoff and conducted under the corporate name of Mail Printing Com- pany. Enlargements of the mechanical department and addition of ex- pensive equipment did not prove a profitable investment and the business was finally disposed ot to C. M. Stearns. Later it was transferred to C. O. Button and W. A. Eddington, the former having active charge of the con- duct of the paper. By special campaigns he greatly increased the sub- scription list and sold the paper in 1913 to Paul C. Woods, who is its pres- ent publisher.
The Sanborn Journal was conducted by Warren Walker and R. F. Hiler from 1886 to 1889. Mr. Walker, referred to in the chapter on the legal profession, was a hard worker and gave some attention to the edi- torial conduct of the paper, but the mechanical work was under the super- vision of Mr. Hiler. The paper showed considerable enterprise and at one time published an elaborate sketch of the business interest of and exploited the advantages of O'Brien county, fully illustrating the edition with cuts of the court house, pictures of the county officials, etc.
B. F. McCormack, the versatile founder of the Sanborn Sun and original editor of the O'Brien Pioneer, who had been an active participant in the conduct of county business for many years during its early struggle for existence and shared with the early pioneers in the sorrows and joys and profits and losses of that early experience, made his second newspaper ven- ture in Sheldon in 1879. He had been immediately prior to that date con- ducting a hardware store in Sheldon and the new paper, denominated the News, was first published in the second story of the building occupied by his hardware store. His brother, F. M. McCormack, and Gus Satterlee, a
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former employe of the Sheldon Mail, assisted in the conduct of the paper, which was sold soon afterward to J. F. Ford, an experienced newspaper man who came from Spencer, Iowa. Later Lon F. Chapin secured an interest and he and Ford continued the conduct of the paper until 1885. Ford was a good newspaper man and Chapin a perfect gentleman, a polished writer and successful publisher. Later he was connected with a newspaper at Sibley, at Rock Rapids, and Pasadena, California, finally retiring and engaging in the raising of oranges in the Golden state.
The Sheldon Eagle, established by Creglow & Reynolds in 1889, has had several owners. B. H. Perkins was connected with the paper from 1891 to 1894 and again in 1896. George L. Nelson was in charge in 1894. Later the Eagle was owned by J. H. Oates. Col. M. B. Darnell, probably the most talented, educated and finished writer ever living in the county, was a frequent contributor and editorial writer. Colonel Darnell was later con- nected with the Sheldon Sun. He was a surviving soldier of the Civil War, had rendered valiant service in the Union army and was a resident of the county since 1883. His editorial writings raised the newspaper to its high- est level of literary worth in the history of the county and when he dropped the editorial pen the county lost one of its best writers. He was a man of broad knowledge, high ideals and a command of language and literary style that attracted attention to his paper among the newspapers of the state.
The Sheldon Gasette was established by W. H. Noyes in 1895. Noyes had formerly been in the employ of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company at Sheldon, and left there to hold the office of recorder of the county at Primghar residing there for ten years. After leaving the recorder's office lie conducted a store at Primghar and was later elected sheriff. holding that office four years. The Sheldon Gasette venture did not long endure and Noyes took the plant to Pine county, Minnesota, where he conducted a newspaper, was elected a member of the state Legislature, and later established a paper at Birchwood, Wisconsin. He is now in the newspaper business at Winter, Wisconsin, his son "Tommy" being his busi- ness partner.
The Sanborn Sun, the third paper established in the county by B. F. McCormack, first saw the light of day at Sanborn. As usual with the Mc- Cormack papers, it was erratic, caustic and sensational. McCormack had his own way of entertaining his readers each week and was not dependent upon news items to furnish entertainment. The paper was finally moved to Sheldon, its subscription price raised from ten cents a year to fifty cents per
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annum and later to standard newspaper price. The paper met with varying success under the management of H. A. Carson, J. H. Oates, H. K. Fortuin, passing through a receivership conducted by A. J. Walsmith, the Sheldon attorney, and was sold May 1, 1907, to Hamilton & Bartz. It had been published part of the time as a daily and Hamilton & Bartz conducted it so for about six months, when it was returned to a weekly edition and has proven a great financial success, taking a leading position among the papers of the county. Bert Hamilton, the senior partner, is an experienced news- paper man, having been engaged in newspaper work in this county and at Northwood, Iowa, for thirty years. Under his wise policy and careful management the paper has been established where its power as representing the broadest and best policy of a Republican newspaper is fully established. Mr. Bartz, who was associated with Mr. Hamilton for some six years, retired in 1913 and the paper is now owned by Hamilton & Son.
John Whiting for a time conducted a newspaper at Sheldon, which was later transformed into a farm journal, but, proving a financial failure, it soon succumbed to the inevitable.
An old newspaper plant owned at one time by Ira Brasheers and used for the conduct of a paper at Sanborn, was purchased at mortgage sale and later used for publication of the Cycle, by "Quad Line" Kernan. Kernan was formerly of the Okalona, Mississippi, Southern States, the famous mouthpiece of the Southern Confederacy. The Cycle contained a noisy political department and achieved a reputation for dissension and strife, but had an ephemeral existence. Kernan is said to have recently died in Kansas in a county poor house. He was brilliant in his talents, but mis- directed their application.
The first newspaper at Hartley, the Record, began publication in June, . 1884, with T. E. Cole as editor. He was a good printer and a bright editor. After about a year the paper was leased to Allen Crossan, who had pre- viously been employed as teacher in the public schools there. He con- ducted the paper for a year, purchased it and continued it for three years more and re-sold it to Mr. Cole. Will Dunn later secured a half interest in it and in 1891 C. H. Crawford, who had closed a two-year service as county superintendent of schools, took charge of the paper. In 1894 he sold to Claude Charles. The latter changed its name to the Hartley Journal. Later the paper was sold to F. M. McCormack, then leased to Ray Gleason, formerly of the Sutherland Republican, then sold to Irving A. Dove, who conducted it till 1910 when it was sold to its present owner, Eugene B. Peck.
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A second paper in Hartley, the Vewes, established by G. R. Gregg in 1895, lasted just ninety days and perished. The printing material used in its publication was purchased in July. 1896, by Allen Crossan, who sold it to George F. Robb.
C. A. Charles returned to Hartley in 1912 and began publication of the Sentinel.
Harvey Hand, the first newspaper publisher in Sutherland, commenced publication of the Courier in 1882. quickly sold to C. H. Brintnall in Novem- ber, 1882. Brintnall conducted the paper till the spring of 1884, when he sold to Bert Hamilton, who had been living at Sutherland for some time previously and connected with the paper. Hamilton was an expert printer and newspaper man and wielded a large influence in county politics, proving a forceful writer and active Republican. For many years he has been actively connected with the Republican county organization. In Septem- ber, 1893, he sold the paper to W. H. Bloom. The latter was a fine writer, a gentleman and profound thinker, but a poor business man. His health failed and he died in 1904. His wife continued the conduct of the paper with marked ability until the end of 1905, when the plant was sold to A. G. Warren. Warren conducted it for three years and it was successively sold to Mort E Nicol, G. H. Vos. Joe A. Moore and finally, in March, 1910, to Sam S. Sherman. The latter was a man who immediately made his impress on the political complexion of the county. Stubborn and persistent and positive in his opinions, he brooked no deviation from his expressed deter- minations and many are the newspaper controversies stirred up by him. A bright writer, and finally a true blue "Bull Mooser" in his political affiliations, he retired in November. 1913. leaving a fame that will not soon die.
J. N. Slick, for thirty years a merchant in Sutherland, and his son-in- law, McFarland, succeeded to the paper and are now publishing a clean sheet, all home print and full of local news.
The Review, and later the Republican, were other Sutherland papers of ephemeral exstence. Ray Gleason, Fred Pratt and G. E. Hirleman were connected with these publications.
In 1906 D. H. Murphy established the Calumet Clipper, which was of short life. The Independent, established by Lloyd Harris in 1912, was sold to M. M. Magner in 1913 and is now conducted by M. B. Royer.
The Woman's Standard, published in the interest of the political rights of women, was conducted by Roma W. Woods at Sutherland during the years 1897 and 1898. Mrs. Woods has been a frequent contributor to the
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county papers, active in the organization of woman's clubs and assisting in the conduct thereof. She is highly educated, talented, a ready writer and attractive in her newspaper style. Under her conduct the Standard attracted considerable attention and was a strong force in establishing recognition of the cause it espoused. The paper was the official organ of the Iowa Woman's Suffrage Association.
On this March 10, 1914, just as this history is ready to go to press, the first number of a daily newspaper named the Daily Sheldon Record is issued and published by the Sheldon Printing and Publishing Company and conducted by Bruce A. Truman as editor. It is Democratic in politics. It is an eight-page seven-column paper, all in ample proportions. This is not, however, the first attempt at a daily paper in the county. B. F. McCormack issued the Sheldon Sun for a short time as a daily. While it had eight pages, it was but a small folder of three columns per page. Mr. McCormack himself humorously referred to it as his "Daily Postage Stamp."
CHAPTER XXI.
MEDICAL HISTORY OF O'BRIEN COUNTY.
By W. R. Brock, M. D.
The history of any community whose civilization rises distinctly above barbarism is not complete unless there is contained within its pages a short historical chapter written upon medicine and surgery.
The first physicians who came to O'Brien county to live came in the year 1873. They came into the hardships of pioneer life with two objects in view. The first was to acquire land by homesteading, and the second was to care for the sick while they were acquiring title to their lands.
The physicians who practiced medicine in the early seventies were not the first physicians on record, for the art of treating the sick as a distinct business has been followed for about twenty-three hundred years. But nowhere does the world record greater hardships upon the practitioner of medicine than those recorded of O'Brien county's early physicians. In 1873 there was not a post nor tree and only occasionally a faint trail to act as a guide to the physician as he made distant visits to the sick in storms of rain and snow by day and by night. Dr. C. Longshore, who now resides in Sheldon, hale and hearty, and who was one of the first two physicians in O'Brien county, had, many times, to get out of his buggy at night and get down on his hands and knees to see if he could feel with his hands some faint trail of a wagon or buggy wheel that he might make a better guess as to where he was or which way he was going. When there was sickness in some far distant shack it required a brave heart to storm the weather or the darkness to go after the doctor and it required an equally brave heart upon the part of the doctor to make the professional visit. One of the greatest heroisms recorded in pioneer days was that of Dr. Edwin Hornibrook when, in the blockade of 1880, he made a visit to a patient in Sanborn from Cherokee and returned, a distance of nearly seventy miles, which he made afoot upon snow shoes, traveling over snow banks twice deeper than his own length. If those explorers who waged hazardous expeditions in quest for the North and South poles could have selected their parties from such men as the early pioneer doctors of northwestern Iowa they certainly would. not have lacked heroism for any possible undertaking. Those doctors were
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brave and true. They fought bravely many battles and lost frequently to the enemy. In those dark days of O'Brien county, when diphtheria invaded so many homes and left the father and mother without a child out of large families, the pioneer physician stood by, doing all that could be done in those days, but absolutely helpless to cure the disease or stay its contagion. Every physician had "a treatment" and every treatment was ineffectual until science gave in 1894 another of its choice gems to the world in the form of antitoxin for diphtheria. Ask any pioneer doctor what days were the dark- est to him as he looks backward upon those early times, and he will forget about his own hardship, about the blizzards and the rain storms and the nights of darkness, of wandering about the prairies unable to find the patient's house or his own way home; he will forget about all this and answer that his darkest days were those in which whole families were wiped out with diphtheria while he stood by unable to stay the hand of death. But there is a brighter side to the history of O'Brien county's pioneer physicians. If the mountains and the sea have their glories, their pre-eminence and their fascinations, so did the early prairie of O'Brien county. Prairie is a French word and means meadow. The word sounds harmoniously poetic and is filled with euphonious splendor. About all the physician was required to do to own one-fourth section or a section of this beautiful prairie was to look at it, admire it and say, "this is mine." Then he owned a "solemn mile of prairie, a four square block of God's out-of-doors with the height of the sky above it, and the depth of the world beneath it, and the radiancy of dawns and sunsets shed over it, and the dim dawn of dusks enfolding it like a blessed compassion-a mile east, a mile west, a mile north, a mile south-and all the time to be tramping on your own grass and breathing air brewed on your ground and lifting head into your own sky and gazing at your own firmament ; bless me, this is plutocracy!" These prairies were ladened with abundance of wild game, which the enterprising doctor could supply his table with dur- ing the most of the year. In early spring the black-breasted wild pigeons in millions were here. The prairie plover and long billed snipe; ducks and geese in spring and fall almost darkened the sky. But the classic game was the prairie chicken. In mid-summer and early fall the prairie of O'Brien county contained carloads of prairie chicken. There was much in the land of the prairie to brighten the life of the pioneer physician of O'Brien county. But let us hasten on, for the prairie and the pioneer physician have disap- peared ; and while the prairie has been transfigured beyond recognition into domestic gardens and fields, so also has the practice of medicine in the same
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