This Day in Kansas History - May

These entries are taken from The Annals of Kansas, 1541-1885 by D.W. Wilder, The Annals of Kansas, 1886-1925 edited by Kirke Mechem, and contributed by staff members of the Kansas State Historical Society (these entries are marked with an *). Other sources used will be noted. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of events in Kansas history.

May

1 - [1919] - Fifteen airplanes performed at Wichita in the Victory loan campaign. It was the first time Kansans had seen the "flying circus."

2 - [1911] - Dr. S.J. Crumbine, secretary of the State Board of Health, crusaded for clean sheets daily on hotel beds.

3 - [1875] - T.C. Henry, near Abilene, has a wheat field of thirteen hundred acres.

4 - [1873] - The remains of Dr. Wm. H. York, and other murdered men, found on the farm of the Bender family, in the northwest corner of Labette county, about ten miles from Thayer, and five miles from Cherryvale, on the road from Independence (where Dr. York resided) to Osage Mission. Among the victims were Benj. M. Brown, of Howard county, John Greary, W.F. McCrotty, H.F. McKegzie, G.W. Langchor, and a little girl. Three bodies were found beneath the house, and four graves in different parts of the field. All were killed by blows on the back of the head, and had their throats cut. Two hammers were found in the house. The Bender family consisted of Wm. Bender, sixty years old; his wife, fifty-five; their daughter Kate, twenty-three, and son, John, twenty-five. They came to Kansas in December, 1870, and moved to this slaughter-pen in February, 1871. There were Germans, and kept a small stock of groceries and liquors. Kate was a "medium," and advertised her skill as a spiritual doctor. The family fled about three weeks ago, leaving their stock behind. At Thayer they bought tickets for Humboldt. The Independence Republican says:

"The generally accepted theory of the manner of the killing is, that travelers were seated in such a manner that their heads would lean against and indent the cloth partition, which crossed the room. Some one stationed behind the curtain would then strike them with a hammer, and some one in the front room was ready to finish the job. After that they were taken to the trap-door, where they were thrown in, their throats cut, and they were left until night, when they were carried out, and buried in the field."

5 - [1917] - The annual interscholastic track and field meet was held at Lawrence. Wichita High School won Class A; Pratt, Class B, and Eskridge, Class C.

6 - [1889] - Journeymen plumbers at Topeka struck. They asked for a nine-hour work day with ten hours pay, for an agreement that master plumbers would hire only union men, and for regulation of employment and wages of apprentices.

7 - [1895] - Mrs. Lilla Day Monroe, Wakeeney, was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court.

8 - [1935] - Amelia Earhart made first non-stop flight from City of Mexico to Newark, N.J., in 14 hours and 22 minutes. [Ives, Footprints on the Sands of Time]

9 - [1800] - John Brown born in Torrington, Connecticut. [1856] - After the attempt of Deputy United States Marshal W.P. Fain to arrest Reeder failed, Governor Reeder hastened to Kansas City. Col. S.W. Eldridge, of the American Hotel, secreted Reeder till night. The Governor was then shaved and his clothes changed to those of a laborer. Thomas B. And Edward Eldridge then rowed him in a skiff to Liberty, Missouri. Governor Reeder took a deck passage, with the laborers, on the first boat that came down, in due time landed safely at St. Charles, and then made his away across country to Illinois.

10 - [1916] - Western Kansas was getting ready to plant wheat. A dispatch from Hutchinson said: "Gas tractors are tearing the whole country upside down in western Kansas, and at the present rate the famous short-grass pasturage will be at thing of the past. Trainloads of tractors have been shipped into that part of the state and are turning the sod and getting the ground ready for cultivation . . . One ranch in Morton county is plowing up 3,000 acres. Another in Ford county has eleven outfits plowing on the Sherman ranch. Ten tractor outfits were unloaded at Satanta in Haskell county in two days. Montezuma, in Gray county, received five in one day."

11 - [1888] -An irrigation system was in operation on the Pawnee river near Larned. A large wheel turned by the current lifted eight troughs each holding eight gallons of water.

12 - [1920] - Sarah Martin was hired to teach in the Elmdale Rural High School for $1,750, the highest salary ever paid a woman teacher from Emporia Normal.

13 - [1899] - The State Charter Board ruled that literary, musical and social organizations desiring charters must insert a clause stating there would be no liquor at club meetings. The Free Thinkers Club of Wichita, chartered as a "literary organization," had turned out to be "a plain every-day drinking resort.

14 - [1913] - Walter Johnson, Coffeyville, set a major league record which still stands (1956) by pitching 56 consecutive scoreless innings. Johnson was a native of Humboldt.

15 - [1900] - Newton's new Harvey House and Arcade Hotel were opened.

16 - [1923] - Amelia Earhart, native of Atchison, became the first woman to be granted a pilot's license by the National Aeronautic Assn.

17 - [1979] - The twenty-fifth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education was celebrated. A coalition filed a suit asking that the Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education case be reopened.*

18 - [1858] - The Leavenworth Constitution adopted. [This was the third of four such documents proposed.]

19 - [1858] - The Marais des Cygnes massacre. Tomlinson says Hamilton's party consisted of twenty-five persons. They reached the Trading Post, in Linn county, early in the afternoon, and arrested John F. Campbell and G.W. Andrews, who were in the store. William Stillwell was next arrested. They then made other arrests of Free-State men in the vicinity, placed the prisoners in Stillwell's wagon, and started towards Missouri. Soon after Rev. Charles Reed was arrested, and Andrews was released. The prisoners numbered nine. About three miles from the Trading Post they halted. Brockett then came up, with Snyder, the blacksmith as a prisoner. The prisoners were ordered to form in line a few yards from the Ruffians. The order to fire was given and every Free-State man fell. Fiver were killed instantly, and all the others, except one, badly wounded. The one slightly wounded was, soon after, shot through the head and killed. The others feigned death. The Ruffians robbed the bodies and rode off.

20 - [1861] - "The vexed question of a State seal has at last received its quietus at the hands of a conference committee. The new design embraces a prairie landscape, with buffalo pursued by Indian hunters, a settler's cabin, and a plowman with his team, a river with a steamboat, a cluster of thirty-four stars surrounding the legend, AD ASTRA PER ASPERA,' the whole encircled by the words, Great Seal of the State of Kansas. 1861'"--J.J. Ingalls, in Conservative.

21 - [1915] - Winfield won the $1,000 first prize in a model town contest. Indpendence won the $500 second prize. The contest was based on opportunities for play and athletics, school work and industrial training, social and recreational activities, physical and moral safeguards, activities of child-fostering clubs and societies, and attendance at Sunday school.

22 - [1854] - Vote on the passage of the bill to organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas, at 11 o'clock P.M. Ayes from Free States = 44, from Slave States = 69. Noes from Free States = 91, from Slave States = 9. Total ayes 113, total noes 100.

[1967] - Poet and author Langston Hughes, who was a former Topekan, died after a long writing career. Langston never lost sight of his dream,

"I dream
A world where man
No other man will scorn;
Where love will bless the earth
And Peace its path adorn."

23 - [1899] - Four jointists at Arkansas City who paid a monthly "fine" of $100 were fined an additional $100 for "keeping a building where profane and boisterous conduct is permitted."

24 - [1912] - The Woman's Kansas Day Club unveiled a monument at Pawnee Rock honoring the pioneers who traveled the Santa Fe trail.

25 - [1854] - The Senate passed the bill at 1:15 A.M., May 26, but at the session of Thursday, May 25. Immediately a salute of 100 guns was fired from Capitol Hill. Intoxication and anger made memorable the night scenes in the Senate and House.

The Senate finally passes the bill without division, the call of the ayes and noes being refused. The vote of the Senate on the third reading of the bill was 35 to 13.

26 - [1889] - The Rooks County Record, Stockton, said prairie dogs were building their mounds higher, a sure sign of heavy rainfall.

27 - [1916] - The State Welfare Commission said women employees in laundries be paid at least $1 a day, must have an hour lunch period, and must not work over nine hours a day.

28 - [1914] - The Kansas Optimist, Jamestown, overheard farmers talking aobut hill land. One said he owned a piece so steep he had to tie a pole across the lister to keep it from tipping over. Another claimed that when he plowed out his potatoes he rolled them right on down into a cellar. A third maintained that the only way he could graze his goats was to hang them two by two across the ridges.

29 - [1835] - Expedition of Colonel Henry Dodge, U.S.A., to the Rocky Mountains. Colonel Dodge left Fort Leavenworth May 29. He followed the west bank of the Missouri nearly to the mouth of the Platte, traced the Platte to its source, went south to the head-waters of the Arkansas, and returned through that valley. In other words, he marked the line of the railroads from Leavenworth and Atchison to near Omaha, took the Union Pacific west, followed the Colorado railroads to Pueblo, and came home by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe line. Fort Dodge is on the return trail.

30 - [1887] - A catfish weighing 79 pounds was caught in the Arkansas river near Sterling.

31 - [1886] - The Fort Dodge military reservation of over 12,000 acres was settled by squatters. Every quarter section was taken within 24 hours. The War Department had turned the reservation over to the Secretary of Interior. Squatters had first rights to purchase the land at appraised value.