Locally owned since 1867
Fillies take second in tourney
Monday, August 31, 2020
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City to rebuild, rethink highway By RICHARD LUKEN The Iola Register
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Portland mayor calls for calm PAGE A2
Lincoln students make solar s’mores PAGE A4
Macabre auction sells president’s hair, telegram
At some point over the next few years, much of U.S. 54 will need to be rebuilt through Iola. Cognizant of what such a disruption would mean for business owners and residents alike, city officials are eager to hear from the public on how they’d like to see the project completed.. A smattering of Iolans showed up through a 2½ hour open house session Thursday at Iola’s Riverside Park to get a firsthand look at what’s needed. The plan is to eventually replace more than a mile of the highway, extending from State Street to Kansas Drive. Unlike previous repairs involving milling off the top and adding a new layer of asphalt, this rebuild will be from the ground up, and thus substantially more costly, and take longer to complete.
Interim Iola City Administrator Corey Schinstock speaks at an open house Thursday to consider design options for the eventual replacement of U.S. 54 through the heart of Iola. REGISTER/RICHARD
LUKEN
The city will continue to gather input into the fall before selecting an option to carry forward into preliminary engineering, Interim City Administrator Corey Schinstock said. Engineers from Burns & McDonald offered up illustrations of what various de-
sign options would entail, including widening the highway’s right-of-way or converting the current four-lane layout to three lanes, with one lane going in either direction and a turning lane in the middle. Other amenities, such as adding bike lanes or lighting and widening side-
walks, also will be considered. An online survey has been developed at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/FD8YD3X to gather comments on what priorities should be stressed, including: — cost; — improving safety for bicyclists or pedestrians; — minimizing the impact of having the road closed for an extended period; — sidewalk width and rights-of-way impacts. (Widening the corridor would require obtaining rights-of-way from adjoining property owners, Schinstock noted.) Schinstock also hopes to provide a link to the online survey at the cityofiola.com website. The construction itself likely will not occur before 2024 at the earliest, and would likely require a successful bond issue because of the price tag, projected to run into the millions of dollars.
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Drinking the water of life
Congress won’t get in-person election security briefings
By TREVOR HOAG The Iola Register
Pioneer life is hard. Time for a vacation. But where to? A charming city featuring scenic places to drive one’s wagon. Check. Reasonably priced resort with free food. Check, check. So where might one find this attractive gem, and will other members of high society be present to further distinguish one’s company? Believe it or not, some of the finest ladies in all Kansas City, including Mrs. B.S. Henning, Mrs. Dr. N.N. Horton and others recommend the mineral well resort in Iola, Kansas, featuring its oneof-a-kind, unique-to-all-theworld Iola Mineral Water. No sooner had they exited their posh palace car had they absolutely fallen in love. “Mr. Acers, you have quite the little town here,” one dreams of them saying as they greeted their host at the park. “I also heard a rumor that the baths in your resort were once tubs from the distillery. Is that so?” “Guilty as charged,” grinned the attorney-proprietor, as a blast from the jet black Santa Fe engine sounded on the tracks nearby. The train hadn’t been passing through for more than a couple of years, but it was nonetheless a welcome sight bringing along with it the potential for countless guests. Acers and crew had initially been prospecting for coal east of the tracks near today’s Riverside Park, but as former Register editor Charles Scott put it, “by a quirk of chance the bit that
By LAURIE KELLMAN The Associated Press
the purview of the Mineral Water’s curative powers: erysipelatous, syphilitic, scrofulous and fever sores; sore eyes, catarrh, general debil-
WASHINGTON (AP) — Racing the political clock, frustrated Democrats on Sunday searched for a way to force the Trump administration to continue briefing Congress in person about foreign attempts to interfere in the November election. The director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, said most briefings on what the administration knows about efforts to influence the vote will now be given to Congress in writing. In the past, delivering “all-member” briefings in-person, he said, has resulted in “leaks” for political purposes within moments. “A falsehood, yet again another lie by the president,” responded Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Ratcliffe said those lawmakers who are “entitled to the briefings and classified information will still get that information” and that the briefings would be “primarily in writing.” “What we won’t be doing is all-member briefings, to all members of the House and all members of the Senate,” he said. It was unclear which lawmakers would receive the intelligence material and how giving them the assessments in writing would cut down on leaking. There was little time
See RESORT | Page A4
See ELECTION | Page A4
A historical photo of Acers Park reveals multiple resort buildings as well as pools of Iola Mineral Water. At right, south of the Riverside Park sign in Iola once sat Acers Park, named for attorney-politician Nelson Acers. REGISTER/TREVOR HOAG
drilled into a gas pocket simultaneously opened a vein of mineral-laden salt water.” The Water of Life. A wondrous substance to cure all that ails you. Others, like the ladies from Kansas City, likely hadn’t come to be “cured,” but imbibed the putrid water all the same, with its delectable concoction of sulfurous saltiness. Bathed in it, too, in their striped, full-body swimwear,
while likely keeping their social distance from the afflicted. In the 1870s, there was quite the menagerie of avoidables, though all listed as within
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