USA > Kansas > Reno County > History of Reno County, Kansas; its people, industries and institutions, Vol I > Part 33
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The committee that was sent to Chicago consisted of W. E. Hutchin- son, J. M. Mulkey and Charles Collins. They had settled one matter among themselves, and that was that the Fairbanks lard refinery and the Under- wood Packing Company were the ones with which they could deal. When the Hutchinson men reached Chicago they found Lord had not been able to do much in the way of selling the stock of their real estate company that had been organized and they had the additional burden of selling most of the stock as well as interesting the packing companies. At this point, Wichita got interested in getting the packing house away from Hutchinson. They sent fifteen of their leading men to Chicago to head off Hutchinson and to land the business for themselves. The Wichita committee went directly to P. L. Underwood, but they soon ruined any chances they had with Mr. Underwood. Their methods did not appeal to him. He was a man of the highest integrity and he told the Hutchinson committee that he would not go to Wichita with his plant.
In the meantime, the Hutchinson committee got suspicious of Lord. They, through Walkup, soon ascertained that Lord had agreed to help the Wichita committee and leave the Hutchinson committee to work out its own salvation. The Hutchinson people concluded not to let Lord know that they knew of his dealings with the Wichita committee, but rather to lead him to think that the Hutchinson committee were depending entirely on him. The plan worked all right. Lord thought he was winning and the Wichita com- mittee, instead of getting out on their own account, depended entirely on Lord, until the Hutchinson committee got what they wanted and had every- thing closed up beyond a chance of failure. Lord failed to accomplish any- thing for Wichita and sometime afterward sued Wichita for sixteen thou- sand dollars, which they had agreed to pay him, but which he never was able to collect.
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When the final stage was reached, the contracts were ready to sign. They were written by W. E. Hutchinson and submitted to the represen- tatives of the Fairbanks Lard Refining Company and the Underwood Packing Company. Very little change was made in the contracts. This contract provided for the creation of the Chicago Investment Company, the capital of which was stated and the corporation to be organized under the laws of Kansas. Every feature of the business was completed, the last of the sub- scriptions needed to take up the real estate side of the matter being sub- scribed by P. L. Underwood. At the same time, a deal was closed with another firm to build a stock yards in connection with the packing house. Mr. Walkup did most of the work in getting this done.
This was the work of a town of five thousand people raising four hun- dred thousand dollars for a stock yards, lard refinery and packing plant. Very much of the credit should be given to W. E. Hutchinson for his per- sistence. his sagacity and his energy. L. A. Bigger also is entitled to a great share of credit for his work. Charles Collins was almost indispensable as an outside helper. The great friend that this city had in carrying forward this enterprise was G. A. Walkup, evidenced by his intense interest in help- ing Hutchinson land this business and his faithfulness to his trust. E. R. Dreyer also was of great help, financially and personally. The Hutchinson business men who helped are numerous, but it is the intention here to speak of those who had the active management of the work of getting the money and afterwards getting the industries mentioned.
CHAPTER L.
THE SODA-ASH PLANT AND THE STRAWBOARD WORKS.
The first person in Hutchinson to talk "soda ash" was Dr. S. H. Colla- day. He was interested in it and continued to talk of its manufacture in the early years until a meeting was held and a company organization effected. S. H. Colladay was the first president. The name given the company was the Hutchinson Chemical and Alkali Company.
John Faulkner was the soda-ash expert that was employed by the com- pany. Faulkner was not a competent man; he could make soda ash, but not at a profit. John R. Watson was the construction engineer of the plant. When the company found that they could not make soda ash profitably, they called on Faulkner for an explanation. He blamed it onto Watson, declaring the latter had not properly constructed the plant. That Watson had not properly constructed the plant was shown by the reconstruction and practical rebuild- ing of the manufacturing part of the plant when an experienced and com- petent construction engineer, C. H. Humphries, was employed by the com- pany.
The plant was constructed to produce one hundred and twenty tons of soda ash daily, but it never produced that amount under Faulkner's and Wat- son's direction. So the old company threw up the job and a new organiza- tion was effected, with the following directors: C. M. Williams, L. .. Bunker, W. Meisenheimer, Walter Underwood, Frank McDermed, A. C. Hoagland, C. N. Sentney, William Peet, of Kansas City, Ed Hornbrook, of Kansas City; J. H. McNair, of Halstead: Joseph Sears, of Chicago, and Emerson Carey.
Mr. Carey was elected president and this new company began a com- plete reconstruction of the whole soda-ash plant. Mr. Carey undertook to find out what the trouble with the plant was and when he located that trouble, the company let out Watson and Faulkner and employed C. H. Humphries to rebuild the plant and put it in operation. He did this so completely that it was soon making soda ash at a profit.
The original investment in the soda-ash plant was $607,250, of which $347,250 was in stock and $250.000 in bonds. The stock subscription was at
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par, but the. bonds sold for eighty cents on the dollar. In the reorganization, a new block of stock for $167,000 was issued and sold to rehabilitate and operate the plant.
In 1910, Mr. Carey sold the entire plant to the Solvay Company, of New York. But few of the stockholders knew anything of the sale, although they all desired a sale of the plant, until they received an offer of sale for their stock at par. They would have taken a much smaller amount, but in the sale one of the conditions made by Mr. Carey was that the stockholders should have par for their holdings. These stockholders, however, did not get back all they had invested in the plant, as they had scaled down their original sub- scription of $250,000 fifty per cent., but it represented far more than what they had hopes of getting. The incompetency of the men who were supposed to be experts and who had been employed by the company to erect and oper- ate the plant cost them one-half of their original investment. So all of the stockholders received their money and all the bondholders received for their bonds eighty per cent. of their face value.
The sale of this plant to the Solvay corporation, of New York, was with- out doubt. the biggest business transaction ever made in Hutchinson, nearly six hundred thousand dollars having been involved. The sale was made with- out commission or charges of any kind. Mr. Carey had personally endorsed nearly seventy-five thousand dollars of the notes of the corporation with his individual endorsement, as well as his signature as president of the company, and he was anxious not only to get free from this liability as endorser, but was more anxious that the stockholders get their money out of the business, as it had been a long, hard pull for many of them, and the bringing of this amount of money at that time relieved a hard strain in many places in Hutchinson. The soda-ash plant has turned out to be a great business insti- tution for Hutchinson. It is a monument to the men who invested their money, and who had to deal with incompetent experts who cost them thon- sands of dollars because of their incompetency, and they were indeed glad to get a fair proportion of their investment back, but were more pleased to know that they had helped build up one of the biggest industrial concerns in the West. Since the Solvay Company purchased the plant, they have more than doubled its capacity.
The rebuilding or remodeling of the soda-aslı plant by the Solvay Com- pany, likewise the increased capacity of the plant, has made it one of the big- gest institutions in Hutchinson. It is now running full capacity, twenty-four hours a day with three shifts of hands. They now have over five hundred
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hands employed and are manufacturing over fifty tons of soda ash daily. The war greatly increased the demand for this product and at a greatly increased price and at the present time it is one of the best paying investments in the county. G. T. Lee succeeded R. B. Rutherford, who was transferred to Can- ada by the Solvay Company to construct another plant for the company.
THE STRAWBOARD WORKS.
One of the manufacturing institutions that finds most of its raw material in the county, and utilizes products that before it was built were largely wasted, is the strawboard plant. It was organized with a capital stock of one hundred thousand dollars, and the first directors of the plant were Will- iam E. Corp, A. E. Asher, B. E. Giles, W. D. Eastman and C. H. Farley. The plant had its trials and tribulations. It did not succeed very well. While it made strawboard; like the soda-ash plant it did not make a profit out of the business.
In 1915 the company was reorganized. Its present capital is three hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars. At the reorganization, Emerson Carey was made president and general manager. The market for this product was greatly increased. Strawboard from the Hutchinson plant is shipped to Chi- cago, St. Louis, Denver and many western and northern places where there is a demand for the product.
The raw material used is straw, obtained from the wheat fields of Reno county and adjoining counties. From this product is made cardboard, backs for tablets, egg-filler cases and boards used by laundries for shirts and all other places where strawboard products are used. Another product of this plant is chipboard. Waste paper is used in the manufacture of this grade of goods. This paper is gathered from all parts of the state, tons of it and baled in cities and shipped to this factory here. It affords a market for waste papers, heretofore burned up, but which the demands of the economy of resources of the country have induced this saving of papers heretofore wasted. The plant at the present time employs about two hundred hands in addition to the men who haul straw to the plant and to the hands who gather and ship the baled paper to the institution.
Another industry that has been developed as a result of the building of the strawboard plant is the Hutchinson Egg-Case Filler Company. The offi- cers of this company are Emerson Carey, president; Howard Carey, vice- president ; secretary, Charles Carey, and treasurer and manager, Fred Kaths. This company has a capital of thirty-five thousand dollars. It manufactures
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egg-case fillers out of the product of the strawboard plant. The product of this company is shipped all over the country where there are eggs to ship. It is an exceedingly profitable business and one that is constantly growing. The soda-ash plant and the strawboard plant, together with the egg-case filler plant are largely the product of the ability of Emerson Carey. He put both plants on a paying basis. In the soda-ash plant he was instrumental in reor- ganizing and selling it to a company that knew the business. The straw- board plant was not a paying institution when Mr. Carey took hold of it, but it has recently become a very profitable plant. General conditions, higher prices and the restricted competition caused by the war has been a big element in the success of both companies, but the plants had been put in a position to produce the products economically and in sufficient amount to make them profitable by Mr. Carey. They are manufacturing industries that are great places for the employment of labor and add greatly to the resources of the county.
JENNIE HODGSON. THE FIRST SCHOOL TEACHER IN HUTCHINSON.
CHAPTER LL.
THE SCHOOLS OF HUTCHINSON.
The first school in Reno county was a private school. When the first settlers reached Reno county they brought their religion with them, for they soon started a church. They likewise realized that no community could thrive without schools. At that time there were no facilities for schools. There was no property to levy taxes on and it would require nearly a year to levy and collect these taxes, so a "select school," as it was called, was started. It more properly could have been called a subscription school, because all of the chil- dren of the community were urged to attend the school, although the parents of some did not contribute toward the support of the school.
Miss Jennie Hodson was the first teacher. Rooms were used wherever they could be secured, locations being shifted as buildings thus occupied might be needed for some other purpose. Thus from place to place, wherever rooms were available, the school was held.
The second teacher to have charge of the schools was Mrs. Sanford Maulsbury. Mrs. Maulsbury was one of the women who signed the peti- tion to organize the county. She and her husband had a claim west of town, then a mile and a half distant. Now it is part of the city, known as "The Cloverdale Addition." There are no records of attendance at these schools.
In 1872 school district No. i was organized. At that time it em- braced the townsite of Hutchinson, which was but little more than the "site" of the town then, and the territory adjacent. No strict boundary lines were drawn. It was just district 1, and included everything in the county at that time. AAt the present time district i includes just the city of Hutchinson. There is no date set down for the organization of this dis- trict. It was "early in 1872"-is all that can be told now because of the lack of records, as mentioned elsewhere.
FIRST ISSUE OF BONDS FOR SCHOOL PURPOSES.
On June 10, 1873, bonds to the amount of fifteen thousand dollars were voted for a school building in Hutchinson. Judge L. Houk was
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chosen to supervise the erection of the building, which was erected on Sherman street, east, where the new junior high school building was erected a year ago. During the first year only two rooms downstairs were com- pleted. It is suspected that not only were the bonds used to erect the building, but that enough funds were kept out of that first bond issue to run the school, as the taxes that were levied were less than half paid during the first two or three years of the county's existence. and without any record being made of it the board evidently "saved" some of the pro- ceeds of the sale of the bonds for purposes other than the erection of the building.
The first teacher employed in this building was J. T. Lane, who lived in Hutchinson for years. He was a money loaner for several years and later moved to St. Louis. Mr. Lane taught in the school for one term. The total enrollment was seventy pupils. The second term of school, about six months for a term, was taught by J. R. Lindsey, who afterward was a real-estate agent, connected with the firm of Brown & Bigger. During that term there were eighty students in school. Lindsey taught three suc- cessive terms in the school. During his second and third terms he had two assistants, Miss Hattie Smith and Miss Jennie Miller, the enrollment increasing during the third term to one hundred and twenty-five students.
GRADUAL GROWTH OF THE SCHOOLS.
On April 14, 1874, Mr. DeBurn was elected principal of the school and Miss Fannie Frescoln, assistant. Only two rooms of the new building were then in use. In September, 1874, S. B. Zimmerman was chosen principal. Zimmerman afterward became a prominent lawyer in Hutchinson, and was probate judge of Reno county for two years. He remained in the school one year. He had two assistants, Miss Jennie Mckinstry and Miss Maud Zim- merman. The two rooms that were finished were not sufficient to accommo- date the students, so the hall was furnished with seats and used until early in 1875, when the two upstairs rooms were completed and ready for use. The schools of Hutchinson were generally in advance of the place to house them. It has been, and is yet, an exceedingly difficult matter for the school board of the district, in its building operations, to keep ahead of the growth of the school population. Soon after the Sherman street building was completed it was necessary to rent a building down town to accommodate the students. In 1880 two frame buildings were erected, one in the southwest corner and one in the southeast corner of the old Sherman street school grounds. The growth
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of the district has been constant and continuous, and with the city growing rapidly it will tax the resources of the members of the board to keep in advance of the increasing school population of Hutchinson. There are nine buiklings now in use. There are one hundred and nine different class rooms ; two study halls, seating two hundred and sixty; one auditorium, seating seven hundred. and two gymnasiums. There are now one hundred and sixteen teachers em- ployed, ninety in the grades and twenty-six in the high schools. The school grounds are equipped with play apparatus under the direction of a corp of paid directors. The district also owns its own athletic fields, at the corner of Fifteenth and Monroe streets.
The school district buildings are now valued at $397,500. The grounds have an additional value of $124,000, while the furniture and equipment has a value of $31,000, making a total physical valuation of the school district property of district No. 1, in 1916, of $552,500, while the assessed valuation of the district upon which a tax levy is made to support these schools is $22,681,000.
COMPLETE SYSTEM OF RECORDS.
At the present time the school board has a very elaborate and com- plete system of records that makes it an easy matter for it to compare the cost of operating the schools one year with another. At the present time they show the cost of operating the schools for the district to be $115,292.86. They further divide up the expense so that they show the cost of the grade schools to be $83,248.02 for the year, or $462.48 per day, while the high school cost $32,049.84 for the year. or $178.04 per day, a total cost per school day of $640.52. They show the cost per pupil to be thirty-six cents a day for the high school and seventeen cents a day for the grade, or an average cost per student, per day of twenty cents.
The school board has kept up the high grade of the teaching force at all times. The high school teachers' average pay is one hundred and six dollars per month. The grade principal receives on an average of one hun- dred dollars per month. The principal of the high school receives nine- teen hundred dollars a year. The schools teach all the regular academic subjects, including German and French. Industrial courses are also taught. domestic science and the art and manual training extending down to the seventh grade. The high school course also includes a manual-training course and likewise a complete course in business and stenography.
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THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION.
There have been eight hundred and thirty-six graduates for the high schools of Hutchinson since the first class completed the course in 1882. With the exception of one year, when the course was changed from a three-year to a four-year high school course, there has been a graduating ciass. These graduates are scattered all over the world. With the excep- tion of three or four. the graduates are all living, a remarkable fact con- sidering the diversity of occupations and the variety of climates into which these graduates have gone. The Alumni Association holds its annual meetings, and its membership is a constant encouragement to the boys and girls in the school to complete their high school course. As an incident of unusual occurrence : The president of the Alumni Association for the year 1917 was C. W. Oswald, a graduate of the high school in 1885. His son, Lewis Oswald, who was graduated with the class of 1917, was chosen to respond to the address of welcome given by the president of the class, a "father and son" incident seldom witnessed in schools: the father continu- ing his interest in school matters, an active member of the Alumni Asso- ciation, until his son also becomes an alumnus.
SUPERINTENDENTS OF CITY SCHOOLS.
The present superintendent of the schools is Prof. J. O. Hall. The following is a list of the men who have held the position of superintendent of the city schools, with the dates of their terms of office: J. F. Lane, 1872: J. R. Linsday, 1873: Percy DeBurn, 1874; S. B. Zimmerman, 1875: J. R. Campbell, 1876: H. Lewis, 1877; J. R. Leslie, 1878-79: J. J. McBride. 1880 to January 1. 1882; G. W. Winans, January, 1882, to December. 1883: J. R. Silver, December, 1883, and two months of 1884; F. F. Prigg, November. 1884, and 1885: John Schurr; A. P. Helm: C. H. Minch : H. S. Rogers, acting superintendent : 2. Winans, 1894 to 1902; Richard Price. 1903 to 1907: J. O. Hall. 1907 to present time.
NOTABLE RECORD OF TEACHING SERVICE.
The "constant factor" in the educational work of the schools of Hut- chinson has been Mrs. E. H. Richardson, who began teaching in the city schools in 1879. With the exception of but a few short periods she has been in the schools ever since that date. She has perhaps more boys and
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girls in Hutchinson, more men and women scattered over the country, who honor her than any other teacher that ever taught school in Kansas. Indeed hers is a record that would be hard to beat any place in the country. Mrs Richardson is just as vigorous in mind and body, just as alert in her school work as she was years ago. Her influence with the boys and girls of the high school is unbounded. While she is strict and exacting in her work, tolerating no slack work, yet that strictness is accompanied by a kindness and a personal interest in each student in her classes that commands the highest regard for their teacher.
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CHAPTER LII.
THE Y. M. C. A. AND Y. W. C. A.
The first Young Men's Christian Association was organized on August 4, 1876, with the following officers Rev. T. J. Templin, president; Rev. D. M. Moore, vice-president : R. M. Easley, recording secretary ; F. R. Chris- man, corresponding secretary. and H. W. Beatty, treasurer. The president of the Y. M. C. A. was a Methodist minister, a tall angular man, full of energy, who commanded the highest respect of all. He had the further distinction of being, at the same time, the first president of the Reno County Fair Association, which consisted largely at that time of a small agricultural display and an afternoon of horseracing. But whether judging a horse race or superintending a Y. M. C. A. meeting, Rev. Templin was equally at home, a pioneer that could adapt himself to the surroundings and retain the respect and confidence of all in whatever position he occupied. The vice-president of the Y. M. C. A. was the second resident pastor of the Presby- terian church here; and the recording secretary, then a young man, ener- getic and industrious, afterwards became postmaster of Hutchinson, and editor and manager of the News. At the time he bought the paper, it was a weekly but shortly after he purchased it, he made it a daily. F. R. Chris- man, the corresponding secretary, who spent his life in Hutchinson, where lie was identified closely with the religious activity of the day, was for ten years superintendent of the Methodist Sunday school. The treasurer remained in this county but a short time.
Little record is left of this organization. Its meetings were always held in one of the churches and it made comparatively but little impression on the community. As long as Rev. Templin lived in Hutchinson the enthusiasm of the organization was buoyed up, but after his removal, interest began to lag and the organization was maintained but little over a year.
In 1885, another attempt to maintain a Y. M. C. A. was made which was more successful than its predecessor. W. L. Upshaw was the president of the organization and Ed. Lehman, secretary. The Association occupied rooms in the second story of the building that formerly stood on the corner of Main street and First avenue, where the Farmers' National bank is now located.
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Y. M. C. A. BUILDING. HUTCHINSON
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PUBLIC LIBRARY, HUTCHINSON
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They had an assembly room, and a reading room. This organization was maintained nearly two years, but when Mr. Upshaw left town and Secre- tary Lehman obtained a position on the road selling groceries, the interest in the organization lagged and gradually died out. Soon it was discontinued.
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