Inside: Children to present “Jack and the Beanstalk” today See A8
2017 1867
Sports: Sports editor bids adieu See B1
The Weekender Saturday, July 15, 2017
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(That you’ve probably never heard of) Residents who live northeast of Moran know why Pot’s Corner gets its name — obviously — but the origins of the unusual landmark tend to vary, depending on who you ask. REGISTER/RICK DANLEY
The people and stories of Pot’s Corner By RICK DANLEY The Iola Register
In 1976, the Register published a three-paragraph squib about “pot corner”: “Nobody knows for sure how it was started, but a country road intersection east of Moran has been known for years as ‘pot corner.’ … The landmark gets its name from four chamber pots, one sitting on a post at each of the four corners of the intersection. The pots have been there for as many years as anyone can remember, and whatever significance they once had is lost. Still, when a pot is stolen or broken, as it sometimes is, a new one takes its place, put there by an unknown resident.” Then, in 2003, a reference to “Pot’s Corner” made its way into the official minutes
much about the biography of this nowhere place and the history of its people.
At top, an old chamber pot marks the northwest section of Pot’s Corner. Below that, Lucile Bacon, 89, has lived on the same farm she moved to as a young bride in the middle 1940s. “It’s always just been Pot’s Corner to us.” of the Allen County Commission when “a citizen reported a hole in a culvert by Pot’s Corner.” Between these two mentions little else has been written about Pot’s Corner,
an otherwise anonymous, dust-blown crossroads on the margins of the Osage Valley — and probably no one cares one way or another. But then again I’ve met two or three who care very
ON A LATE Wednesday morning last week, I called local developer and longtime Moran resident, Bill McAdam. “If anybody would know, McAdam would,” a coworker had told me that morning. And so I asked him what he knew about the origins of Pot’s Corner. “Me, I’m not old enough to know that,” said McAdam. “I’m only 86.” Still, McAdam stretched his memory toward the project: “I think you have to go back right through the Depression, sometime around ’34 or ’36. That’s when the county had crews working during the WPA days. … I’m from a time when people See POT’S | Page A5
Prison incident report disputed EL DORADO (AP) — An emergency log book suggests that inmates fought during a south-central Kansas prison disturbance that also included a fire and at least one prisoner obtaining a weapon, contradicting a state version that no violence erupted, according to a newspaper report Thursday. Kansas prison officials had reported that no violence occurred and no weapons were accessed by inmates during the hours-long incident June 29 at the El Dorado Correctional Facility. But The Kansas City Star reported that a log book it reviewed shows there were two fights involving separate groups of inmates, at least one inmate had a weapon and at least one fire broke out inside the prison. As the head of the Kansas Organization of State Employees union representing prison workers, Robert Choromanski has said the disturbance began when some prisoners refused to return to their cell houses. He said inmates controlled parts of the prison that included the gym, the yard and the kitchen. Corrections spokesman Todd Fertig said this week that no department weapons ever were possessed by the inmates, though the newspaper said he did not respond to questions about why the department initially said no violence had occurred. The disturbance broke out at a time the state’s prison system grapples with significant staffing shortages as well as inmate transfers to El Dorado.
Looks deceiving when it comes to no-till fields By BOB JOHNSON The Iola Register
This time of year Kansas soybean fields are famous for their picturesque symmetry, long rows of dark green plants divided by corridors of rich brown soil. The appearance is compelling enough to inspire an artist. Because of the way he goes about farming, Karl Allen’s fields are far from eye-catching. In various stages of early development over 300 acres, his soybean fields look more like lawns desperately in need of mowing. The recently hewn tops of rye and field radishes cover the ground like a tattered brown cloak as much as the green broadleafed soybean plants.
That’s the way he wants it at this stage of the game. To accept what he does, “takes a change up here,” Allen said, pointing an index finger to the side of his head. A farmer’s thought process on how to grow soybeans,
or any other crop, has to undergo a sea change if he is to adopt no-till farming. That’s exactly what Allen, 51, did a few years ago, in no small degree because of the cost of conventional farming. He sold off his cultivation
Vol. 119, No. 181 Iola, KS 75 Cents
Karl Allen, left, practices no-till farming, utilizing cover crops to provide protection and water retention in order for his cash crops to thrive. REGISTER/BOB JOHNSON equipment, and settled on a heavy duty drill that has the brute strength to cut through ground cover of practically any dimension and deposit seeds where they will germi-
nate, then pop up and grow into a crop that produces a hearty yield. How it works is simple, See NO-TILL | Page A3
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