Museum MinuteMay 6, 2021
Museum Minute Presents: This Week in History (According to Herrman’s Archives)
First week of May in the Year…
1918 – W. O. Atkeson’s “History of Bates County” is for sale in all the towns in the county.
1879 – Prairie City is really crowing that they have 3 schools: 2 Lutheran and 1 regular.
1926 – Plans are gelling for a hospital in Butler. The Commercial Club is backing Mrs. S. C. Stayton, a professional nurse, who has purchased the Mrs. Julian Dryden house at 107 South Havannah. Plans are to open June 1st.
1915 – George Falloon dies. He owned a large ranch of several thousand acres southwest of Adrian. He had built a large mansion on the highest point of his holdings, naming it “FalloonHeights.” (It was later known as Young’s Mansion)
1926 – The City of Butler announces the electric cable for the “White Way” lighting has been laid around the Courthouse lawn.
1895 – A band concert, featuring the Rich Hill, Hume, & Foster bands, is held in West Park in Rich Hill, along with an ice cream social.
1869 – Professor Snow enters Butler with a wagon load of velocipedes and is holding a week long school for anyone buying one. (Bicycles).
1889 – Rich Hill Mayor J. F. Smith gives an address and the Masons lay the cornerstone of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
1900 – The new steam laundry of Johnson & Graves, just west of the southwest corner of the Butler square, has all new equipment and is ready for your pressing business.
1864 – Lt. Ellis and 16 men leave the Union troops camp at Balltown, in Vernon County- Little Osage, to intercept a reported 18 Bushwhackers near Papinville in Bates County. They do not find them.
1895 – Colonel Billy Booker, proprietor of the Talmage House, announces 40 rooms have been repapered and the remodeling continues. Rich Hill.
1928 – The Seth Thomas clock has arrived and is being installed in the Courthouse dome.
1869 – The Bates Co Court studies which is the best place for a bridge over the Marais Des Cygne River: Burnett’s Ford or the Haymaker Mill. No decision today.
1905 – A grand jury inspects the old Bates Co Poor Farm east of Butler in Summit Township, finding it in filthy condition; they say a new one should be constructed. (The ‘new’ one built in 1915 is now home to the Bates County Museum)
1884 - The Rich Hill Sun newspaper says the back water is up to Ovid and the Gulf mine railroad track runs through ‘a lake’ three miles wide.
1885 – Butler saloon owners appear before the Butler City Council and request the annual city license be reduced from $400 to $200. No action taken.
