Tragedy in KC sports: Royals pitcher dies in car crash.
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THE IOLA REGISTER Locally owned since 1867
www.iolaregister.com
Monday, January 23, 2017
THOSE WERE THE DAYS Mildred’s colorful past shared By RICK DANLEY The Iola Register
In the spring of 1907, a stranger approached John Winterbottom as he was planting corn on his farm in the upper part of Osage Township. The man asked Winterbottom if he’d be willing to part with his land, which lay just east of the Katy Railroad. For the right price, Winterbottom said, he would. The man then approached another farmer, a next door neighbor as it were, Hiram Lieurance, and posed the same query, and was honored with the same result. Within days, the stranger — soon well-known to the area’s residents as Sam T. McDermott, vice-president of the Great Western Portland Cement Company, out of Kansas City — had secured options to purchase 260 acres on behalf of his organization. Within weeks, an assembly of laborers and surveyors swept into the area. They built a dam across Coal Creek to provide water for the $2 million cement plant and they laid out lots
Trump meets with business leaders By JILL COLVIN The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Opening his first official week in office, President Donald Trump warned business leaders today that he would impose a Donald Trump “substantial border tax” on companies that move their manufacturing out of the United States, while promising unspecified advantages to companies that manufacture domestically. “All you have to do is stay,” he said during a morning meeting in the White House’s Roosevelt Room. Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Marillyn Hewson of Lockheed Martin were among the executives who attended the meeting. The gathering kicked off a jam-packed day for the new president, including an evening reception with lawmakers from both parties and a sit-down
Regena Lance, the owner (with her husband Loren) of the Mildred Store, speaks Thursday during an Iola Public Library program on the history of the store — known for years as Charlie Brown’s — and the Mildred community. Also shown is Mildred’s old train depot and its longabandoned gas station. REGISTER/RICK DANLEY for a town on 40 acres of adjacent land, and they began the construction of homes. In no time, merchants lined the streets, a school was built; a bank, a hotel, a post office, a movie house, a church, a depot. Dr. R.R. Nevitt became the town’s physician. And residents rattled the boards at a dance hall that occupied the space above the town’s main garage. This pioneer boom town was called Mildred — after the pretty daughter of J.W. Wagner, president of Great Western — an Anglo-Saxon
But it wasn’t many years after this reporter — who also claimed that “one of the finest baths [he] has ever taken was in Mildred” — that many of these live wires, and probably even some of the duds, began to depart the company town in search of work elsewhere. The town’s fortunes were tied to the cement plant, and the plant was dying. In 1917, with the First World War occupying the nation’s attention, the building industry
name, with its brawl of hard consonants, meaning “gentle strength.” At its height, Mildred — which, today, has fewer than 30 residents — boasted a population of more than 2,000. “Anyone who does not like a small town ought to stay away from Mildred,” said a correspondent for this paper in the summer of 1917. Anyway, he continued, “it is not the size, but the quality that counts, and Mildred has more ‘live wires’ to the size of the town than any place in the U.S.—bar none.”
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State election laws in focus By ROXANA HEGEMAN The Associated Press
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — When Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach set out to make Kansas a national model for fighting voter fraud, he found conservative allies in the Legislature willing to enact some of the most restrictive election laws in the country. The state passed laws requiring voters to show identification to vote and requiring people to provide documentary proof of U.S.
citizenship to register. Lawmakers made Kobach the only secretary of state in the country with power to prosecute voter fraud. And they made violations of state election laws a felony. But in the 2017 Kansas
Legislature, with about two dozen new lawmakers elected in a moderate wave last fall, a backlash against the restrictive election laws may be brewing. Democrats are expected to push to repeal the proofof-citizen registration requirement, which Kobach is defending on several fronts in court. One bill seeks to allow same-day registration so people can register when they go to the polls to vote. Another bill seeks to reSee VOTING | Page A2
New group sought to take over Melvin Run By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
A new set of organizers is being sought for the annual Charley Melvin Mad Bomber Run For Your Life. Thrive Allen County announced Friday that it and Allen County Crime Stoppers are giving up the reins of southeast Kansas’ largest 5K run and 3K walk. “While the Mad Bomber Run has been incredibly meaningful and enjoyable for all the members of the committee, it is also a major undertaking that takes tremendous time and resources from all of us as volunteers, as well as from our respective organizations,” Thrive announced in a press release. “Our committee agrees that it’s time for a change.” The Mad Bomber Committee is accepting proposals until Feb. 28 from organizations or businesses interested in assuming responsibility for the event . Proposals should be emailed to info@thriveallencounty.org. The group (or groups) chosen to take over the planning will get all of the materials owned by the Mad See MELVIN | Page A4
Women united Nearly 5,000 people gather at the steps of the Idaho Statehouse for the women’s march in downtown Boise on Saturday. The rally was just one of 3,000 held around the world that drew millions of women and women’s right supporters. (See related article, Page A3). IDAHO STATESMAN/KATHERINE JONES/TNS
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Quote of the day Vol. 119, No. 60
“Repression is a seamless garment; a society which is authoritarian in its social and sexual codes, which crushes its women beneath the intolerable burdens of honour and propriety, breeds repressions of other kinds as well.” — Salman Rushdie, author 75 Cents
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