Topeka Magazine | Winter 2015 by Sunflower Publishing

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vol. 10 no. 1

Historically Yours …

Editor Nathan Pettengill designer/Art Director

Jenni Leiste

COPY EDITOR

Leslie Andres

advertising Teresa Johnson-Lewis representative (785) 832-7109 Ad Designer Cover page Designer

Jenni Leiste Tamra Rolf

contributing Katie Moore Photographers Bill Stephens Contributing Writers Linda A. Ditch Jeffrey Ann Goudie Cale Herreman Christine Steinkuehler Barbara Waterman-Peters

GENERAL MANAGER

Katy Ibsen

Bert Hull

director of special projects

Subscriptions $22 (tax included) for a one-year subscription to Topeka Magazine. For subscription topekamagazine@ information, sunflowerpub.com please contact: Or go online at topekamag.com

Topeka Magazine is a publication of Sunflower Publishing, a division of The World Company. www.sunflowerpub.com

Welcome to this special edition of Topeka Magazine celebrating the city’s history. We have been working on this product for the past two years, reviewing primary and secondary sources from archives, libraries and personal collections. Many of the sources, particularly the earliest books on Topeka history, present a compelling and straight-forward narrative of the city’s past. According to them, Topeka is a creation of pioneer outposts, Free-State perseverance, bold leadership and economic growth—all best understood through biographical summaries of regional luminaries such as Cyrus K. Holliday and Arthur Capper. It is an inspiring interpretation. But it’s also just one narrative among many. We approached this project with the belief that Topeka’s history is vast, layered, exciting and certainly too rich to be summarized by any one compilation. This is not an authoritative overview of the city’s history for many reasons, but primarily because we believe that nobody—ourselves included—can definitively summarize the city’s legacy. We attempted, rather, to be an overview of themes, voices and events that defined and continue to shape the city. We drew equally from the lives of novice vegetable-cart workers, atomic-rocket-cap wearers, sewing circles and fallen heroes. We are not historians, but we owe a large debt to professional and amateur historians, individuals and groups, whose works we consulted. Particular gratitude goes to the Kansas State Historical Society, the Topeka Room of the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, the legacy of the Shawnee County Historical Society Bulletins and our lead writer on this project, Christine Steinkuehler. As with any history, our chronicle of Topeka will contain some mistakes and bias— either on our part or rooted in the source material. We apologize in advance for that, but have worked to keep them to a minimum by allotting a long period of review and requiring rigorous sourcing of material. While space does not allow us to print a citation for each entry, we do include a bibliography at the end of our almanac. Furthermore, we post full citations of material on our online outlets, which we invite you to follow each weekday for extended postings and new calendar entries. That bibliography is an excellent starting point for additional in-depth readings of Topeka history. But for now, we hope you enjoy this sampling of history, and we look forward to any comments you might have. - Nathan Pettengill Editor

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Ranging across the years from time immemorial to the present, @ particular emphasis on the mid-1800s * the early 2000s,

featuring railroads, floods, educators, agitators, business leaders, doctors, bicyclists, immigrants, preachers, politicians,

Customized handbill designed by Tamra Rolf featuring text and illustration of proposed Kansas Capitol, unknown author, circa 1864-1866.

public servants, suffragettes, soldiers, builders, developers, dreamers, schemers, dandies, athletes, an axe-wielding teetotaler,

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Photograph: Elmer and family from Arkansas visiting a farm outside of Topeka, unknown date, from a private postcard collection for Topeka Magazine.

topeka talk Alex Grecian

It didn’t take him long. Alex Grecian announced the completion of the fifth book in his popular Murder Squad series just shortly after the release of our fall edition that included a feature profile of the Topeka writer. Grecian has warned not to expect a particularly happy ending for his latest Victorianera murder mystery, but that dark approach is exactly what has won him fans and accolades. Letters to the Editor …

Ichabodsome!

We had several responses to our previous edition’s feature on the 70th anniversary of the Topeka Symphony Orchestra. Many congratulations, of course, as well as some kindly reminders of other Topeka musical groups celebrating significant milestones. Mary Ann Adams informed us that Topeka Acappella Unlimited (formerly Sunflower Harmony Chorus) marked 40 years of musical performances. The group entertains at several community events, and some of its members regularly perform the StarSpangled Banner at Topeka Road Runner games. Albert Kossler also wrote in to note that the Topeka Community Concert Association (TCCA) is marking 85 years of bringing renowned musical performers to the city. Their anniversary season continues in 2016 with three more concerts: The Lincoln Trio, Anastasia Dedik and Topeka’s own Andy McKee. Congratulations to both groups and thanks for making Topeka an even better place to live.

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We were eagerly awaiting events marking the 150th anniversary of Washburn University that took place this fall, and we were not disappointed with the celebrations. One particular bright spot for this magazine was the appearance of the Ichabod statues around town. In fact, the first of the “Ichabods around Town” was created by our arts correspondent, Barbara Waterman-Peters. Look for her bright-blue bod outside of the Capitol Federal building on Topeka Avenue. next edition ...

The next issue of Topeka Magazine releases in early March, returning to our standard format with profiles, recipes and features of people and events around town. See you then!

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@TopekaMagazine

Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

Story by

Photography by

Barbara Waterman-Peters

Katie Moore

ach month, Topeka Magazine selects a local artist to feature. Here is a review of our most recent selections. Follow Topeka Magazine on Facebook or at topekamag.com to meet our “Artist of the Month,” read extended descriptions of their work, and enjoy more visuals of what they create.

Topeka Magazine’s Artist of the Month for September

Jeremy Mohler

artist of the

topekans

month

A recap of our most recent picks to honor the city’s art community

Sketch for Stories of Survival & Revenge: From Inuit Folklore, copyright Inhabit Media, courtesy Jeremy Mohler

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

Jeremy Mohler attended the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art and the Kansas City Art Institute, and his career took off shortly after graduation when ImagineFX Magazine featured his work. Since then, Mohler’s art has appeared in comic books, textbooks and historical exhibitions and on book covers, album art and trading card games. Mohler now heads a core of contributors in Outland Entertainment, a global illustration company he founded. Look for new creations by Mohler and his team of artists in upcoming video games, illustrations for roleplaying games and wherever there is a need for perfectly rendered illustrations with a sense of life and action that leaps from the page.

Topeka Magazine’s Artist of the Month for October

Patricia Nobo Though Patricia Nobo is an inspired and accomplished printmaker, the genre was not her first choice, nor was art her first interest. Before she settled on printmaking, she explored design, painting and ceramics. And before this, Nobo studied languages and philosophy. Now, however, Nobo’s compelling work stands out in her field of monotype and collograph (assembling several images to a print) works. Her creations have a similarity to soft-ground etching and lend themselves beautifully to the textural effects Nobo favors in her works.

Topeka Magazine’s Artist of the Month for November

Angela Lexow “I can’t remember not wanting to make things,” says Angela Lexow. “‘Artist’ was always on my list of things I wanted to be.” A graduate of Topeka High, Lexow lived across the United States before returning to Topeka as an artist versed in many genres. She designs elegant gourds, assembles steampunk sculptures and has her own line of jewelry called “Devil in Disguise,” which she describes as “pin-up and Rockabilly inspired.” The work of this Kansas artist is also distinctly influenced by the Southwest, where Lexow exhibits her art extensively and successfully.

2942A S.W. Wanamaker Drive, Suite 100 Topeka, 66614-4479 785.440.4000 www.cavlem.com

Abolitionists Animals Birthday The Bottle Business Capital City of Topeka Education Elections Entertainment Family

N A V I G AT I N G T

topeka almanac ...

Fashion Flood Good Times Ichabods Inventions Law Love Story

The following pages are set in standard almanac format—that is, they are both chronological and time-traveling, arranged by calendar date, from January to December, but jumping from year to year, depending on what historical event is highlighted for that particular date. For example, the entry for March 23 brings the opening of the 1979 water skiing season and the following entry for March 24 jumps back to 1945 to bring a bank’s buoyant hopes for postwar purchases. You can read the pages in different ways depending on your preference. You can flip through them as you would a book, moving in one sitting or day-by-day through the pages from January 1 to December 31, or you can jump around to see what happened on events important to your life (your birthday, a family celebration, an anniversary, etc.). Some of the calendar entries and all of the “Monumental Topekans” biographies include icons identifying themes from that event or life. The icons are identified on the right-side of this page and, looking at them both collectively and as they appear throughout the pages, you can see certain patterns and strong forces running throughout the history of Topeka. We’re a town of the river and railroads, of education and entertainment, of racial tensions and multicultural progress … and much more. Our chronicle of Topeka’s history doesn’t end with this publication. If you are online, join us each weekday at Facebook, Twitter or at topekamag.com as we post Topeka Day in History with new entries and additional information on the ones included in these pages. It’s a continuously evolving project as we explore and share more details, accomplishments, legacies and anecdotes from the city’s past.

Medicine Military Parks Race Relations Railroad Royalty Sports Strong Women Transportation Words/Writing

January 11 January 12

january

January 14

January 1

January 4

January 6

January 7

1866—The first passenger train, operated by Union Pacific, stops in Eugene—the area that is now North Topeka.

1936—The city is abuzz with excitement over the annual poultry show set for the following week, when 1,400 exhibits will be on display at the City Auditorium.

1878—Promises of personal relief come to Topeka as ads appear for Dr. Pierce’s Pleasant Purgative Pellets. Chemical analysis of medicine from Dr. Ray Vaughn Pierce—who ran a nation-wide mail-distribution pharmacy from Buffalo—would reveal a concoction of sugars and herbs not suitable for individualized diagnosis and treatment. The approach, unfortunately, was common in the unregulated American medical market of the late 1800s.

1906—An earthquake strikes Manhattan, toppling chimneys and sending people fleeing for safety. Vibrations are felt in Nebraska and western Missouri. The quake, lasting about 23 seconds, shakes windows and dishes in Topeka homes.

1958—New science textbooks appear in Topeka schools in response to the Soviet Union’s dramatic opening of the Space Age. The text includes a demonstration of crystal-type batteries and other science experiments.

1958—Topeka woman goes into labor and, unable to reach the hospital, calls the police. Minutes later, her daughter was born with 3 policemen and a grandmother as midwives.

1876—Topeka creates its first paid municipal fire department.

January 5 1877—Fred Harvey opens the first Harvey House Restaurant on the second floor of Topeka’s Santa Fe Depot. This is the beginning of a long relationship with the Santa Fe line and effectively the first restauranthotel chain with vertical integration of a brand.

1881—Pack up the picnic bags! Colonel Hartzell’s Omnibus Company—which operates 7 omnibuses, 2 street hacks and 30 horses to carry the U.S. mail and railroad baggage—is now taking parties of 8–10 people for picnic excursions to Wakarusa.

January 2 1856—James Cowles opens the city’s first formal school, the Topeka Academy. The Topeka Association provided a school house, and two lots were set aside on the southwest corner of Fifth and Harrison streets. The school building would be finished in 1857.

1908—The New Novelty Theatre opens at Eighth and Quincy streets to feature vaudeville shows. It would turn to showing movies in the 1920s and become the Dickinson in 1944.

January 3 1886—Washburn University (then known as Lincoln College) conducts its first classes at 10th and Jackson streets. There were 22 men and 16 women enrolled in the college preparatory program.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

January 8 1936—The Flower Lovers Club meets at the home of Mrs. George H. Hood to discuss the upcoming “Flower Days” celebration.

January 9 1937—The Kenwood neighborhood gets its own paper as the first edition of the “Bungalow News” appears. The newsletter was produced by R. Mike Burns on a second-hand mimeograph machine. January 10 2001—After intervention from the city’s mayor, the Topeka Zoo lifts its entry ban on a

former zookeeper-turned-whistleblower who had initiated federal investigations into the zoo’s treatment of its elephants and orangutans. January 11 1936—“Spookie,” the puppy owned by Governor Alf Landon’s children, showed up at the home of the Shawnee County’s deputy sheriff after running away. The happy kids and dog are now reunited.

January 13

January 19

1924—Some 800 visitors help celebrate the opening of the Mulvane Art Museum and the premiere exhibition featuring works of the Topeka Art Guild.

1952—The Topeka Camera Club is gathering and sending slides to American soldiers in Korea in hopes that pictures of home will raise troop morale.

January 14

1999—The Topeka Scarecrows hockey team, playing in its first full season, are represented in the Central Hockey League All Star game by Brett Seguin.

1911—Gage Park greets the arrival of Old Joshua, a bison who has become the latest attraction.

January 20

1898—The Melan Bridge opens across the Kansas River.

1909—The grand Copeland Hotel burns to the ground. One man dies, but all other guests escape in their night clothes, running barefoot through the snow to safety.

1899—Governor William Stanley begins reform of the Kansas National Guard, saying it is a “Pop machine” and should keep out of politics. A new law would pass to regulate the organization in March, leading to fitness tests and examinations of officers.

1952—The Union Pacific depot is now running smoothly after an extensive, floorto-ceiling makeover to erase the damages of the 1951 flood. Water peaked in the building at 8ft. 3 in., necessitating more than $100,000 in remodeling.

1949—Arthur Capper rides off into private life. Senator Arthur Capper ended his 30 years in the U.S. Senate by boarding a Pullman car in Washington, DC, for a trip home to Topeka. The Kansas politician would return to live at the Jayhawk Hotel and manage the affairs of his Capper Publishing empire.

January 15

January 12

1864

January

City leader Cyrus K. Holliday relinquishes the presidency of the Santa Fe Railroad— at that point still inactive—to Samuel C. Pomeroy. It would later become a multimillion dollar corporation.

1936—Work is about to begin on the Shunganunga cut-off, a Public Works project that will lead to the creation of Lake Shawnee.

1857—Reverend Charles Calloway holds the first public Episcopal worship service at Constitution Hall with 175 people in attendance. 1872—The Topeka Library Association creates its charter. January 21 1915—New car service begins as a 20-horsepower, 5-passenger-seat Maxwell touring car offers rides from the railway station at Eighth and Kansas streets to Mulvane street for a 5-cent fare.

1965—Topekan Forrest V. Hastings has been named Kansas 1965 cooking champion for his Robust Breast of Veal. All recipe submissions had to use potato chips.

1919—Topeka, like the rest of the state, is in the grips of the flu, which hit some 220,000 Kansans in the past week. This outbreak was the last assault of the 1918– 1919 Spanish influenza pandemic that would kill some 675,000 Americans.

January 16

January 22

1863—The Topeka Association deeds the title to land at Sixth and Harrison over to the city for the purposes of building a school. Four years later, Harrison School, Topeka’s first public building, will be built there.

1872—The Grand Duke Alexei, the third son of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, stays overnight in Topeka at the elegant Fifth Avenue Hotel, before leaving for a bison hunt in western Kansas.

January 17 1895—The Bijou Opera House at 629 Quincy opens to feature live variety shows.

1915—Topeka’s Warren M. Crosby Dry Goods Company in the 600 block of Kansas Avenue tries out the new idea of an 8-hour work day. January 23

January 18 1920—There’s a new dessert trend sweeping the city—donuts, those round cakes made popular by our service boys during the war. Topekans are consuming 50,000 donuts—or one for every resident— each week.

1920—Times are good, the economy is roaring, but who knows what is around the corner? Topeka paper urges families to observe “Family Budget Day.” As Benjamin Franklin said, “A small leak will sink a great ship.”

Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

Monumental Topekans January 24

Every year, Topeka students seeking scholarships look up Dr. Manuel Pusitz in order to write an essay about his life as a part of the requirements for the endowment scholarships he bequeathed. One of the first things they usually discover is that Pusitz created many scholarships. Digging a bit deeper, students encounter details of a fascinating Topekan. Manuel Pusitz was born and raised in Canada and came to the United States to complete his medical training in Iowa. A campaign by the Kansas Crippled Children Commission brought him to the Sunflower State, where Arthur Capper helped convince him to stay. Capper even bought the young doctor the physical and occupational therapy equipment needed to furnish his office and encouraged the Kansas Medical Society to amend its constitution to aid Pusitz in establishing his Topeka medical practice. It was a good investment. Pusitz worked in Topeka at both Stormont-Vail and St. Francis hospitals from 1933 until his retirement in 1970. He took a leave of absence during World War II to serve as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Medical Corps, but he returned to Topeka to create a lasting legacy through his work with the treatment of the physically disabled with an emphasis on those with cerebral palsy. Pusitz was a member of many professional medical associations as well as Temple Beth Shalom and a number of Topeka fraternal lodges. He authored several books. In addition to the many scholarships that he endowed, Pusitz began the library at Topeka’s Temple Beth Shalom and endowed it with a speaker’s bureau fund. —Christine Steinkuehler

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

January 30 1956—Family Park at 21st and Urish Road, a total of 160 acres, is purchased from the Topeka Public Golf Courses, Inc. for $18,000.

January 25 1920—The QuincyGrant Parent Teachers Association is preparing for a big meeting, trying to revive interest in creating a public kindergarten. Their efforts will succeed—six years later—with the opening of the Grant School and the city’s first purpose-built kindergarten classroom. January 26 1871—Lorenzo Costa’s Little Opera House opens on Kansas Avenue. 1876—The last stretch of rail line is completed to link Topeka and Pueblo, Colorado. January 27 1903—Topeka papers report that the Kansas Senate is taking action against barn thefts. A bill is introduced that would make theft of chickens or other barnyard valuables punishable with prison time.

1856

twenty-eighth

Healer and Philanthropist

1951—A Topeka firefighter is called out for a fire and realizes it is his own home, burning because of lint left in the dryer.

January

1904–1977

Builders of Topeka 1956; Capper Printing Co.

Dr. Manuel Pusitz

1974—Birth of Jason Harwood in Garden City. Harwood would grow up to become Cpl. Harwood, a decorated officer with the Topeka Police Department. He was shot to death on duty in September 2014. Thousands turned out to honor his service in a citywide memorial service.

1912—Some 200 Topeka High School female students create the “Keep Smiling Club,” the predecessor to the school’s official pep club.

Loring Farnsworth becomes Topeka’s first elected mayor.

January 29

January 31

1861—Kansas is admitted to the United States as the 34th state. Though Free State forces had recognized Topeka as the territorial capital since 1855, the official capital would continue to be the proslavery stronghold of Lecompton until Topeka wins a statewide vote in November.

1915—Tickets are on sale for Helen Keller’s upcoming appearance at the City Auditorium. Reserved seats cost 75 cents to 1 dollar, and general admission is 50 cents.

January images (listed in order of appearance, by date): January 3—A group of students perform Midsummer Night’s Dream at Washburn University 1888, via Kansas State Historical Society; January 11—The Landon family (without their puppy, Spookie) stand outside the governor’s mansion in 1935, via Kansas State Historical Society; January 12—Melan Bridge, as it looked in 1913, via Kansas State Historical Society; January 13—Cyrus K. Holliday as a young man between 155-1858, via Kansas State Historical Society; January 14— Detail of a lithograph postcard showing bison at Gage Park, date unknown, from private collection for Topeka Magazine; January 28— Loring Farnsworth, circa 1880-1889, via Kansas State Historical Society. Monumental Topekans photograph of Manuel Pusitz from Who’s Who in Topeka, courtesy of Capper Publishing.

february

February 1

February 3

1917—President Woodrow Wilson and his wife Edith arrive in Topeka for a five-hour visit. The president spoke to a full house at the City Auditorium and then at Topeka High School. President Wilson is on a tour preparing to ask Congress to let the United States enter the war in Europe but has found Kansas to be an audience of primarily pacifists and isolationists.

1913—The Washburn College Glee Club begins a two week concert tour to California. The young singers will provide entertainment at the Harvey House Reading Rooms along the way. February 4 1915—Baseball fans meet tonight to discuss ways to raise $5,000 to keep The Kaws in Topeka. Hutchinson is trying to lure away the minor league baseball team.

February 2

charter issued by the State of Kansas and the General Association of Congregational Ministers and Churches of Kansas. It would become Washburn University. February 7 1904—The Auditorium Pipe Organ Association was incorporated. It raised $12,000 in order to purchase a pipe organ with 3,123 pipes for the city’s showcase concert hall, City Auditorium. February 8

February 5 1859—The Topeka Cemetery, the oldest chartered cemetery in Kansas, is incorporated. 1861—Charter is granted to the Female Seminary of Topeka, which would change its name to the College of the Sisters of Bethany in 1872. 1883—Topeka’s Saturday Night Literacy Club founded. The programs consist of 45-minute lectures followed by discussions.

February 5 February 16

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

1901

1890—This newfangled sport of baseball is creating trouble. Charles Daily, a pupil at Lowman Hill public school, suffered a severe nose injury when he collided with another player as they attempted to catch a “fly.” February 6 1886—After a month of classes, Lincoln College is formally established by a

1901—This year’s Topeka High School girls’ basketball squad has an average height of 5 feet and 2 inches. 1972—The first female member of the Kansas National Guard has been assigned to the personnel office in Topeka. She says she joined for the “excitement of it, the glamour.”

february 5

Carrie Nation, Kansas’ axe-wielding prohibitionist, is joined by followers in destroying Topeka’s Senate Saloon, a favorite of several Kansas legislators. Surrounded by crowds of supporters, Nation would spend the next days in Topeka, addressing church groups, laying waste to seven more Topeka bars and leading a statewide vigilante movement striking bars in Leavenworth, Hutchinson, Lawrence, Herington, Silver Lake, Eureka, Millwood, Garden Plain, Chanute, Scott City, Junction City, Fort Scott, and Marshall County.

February 9 1888—The East Side Street Railway is chartered with capital of $100,000. Beginning at Kansas Avenue and Ninth Street, it then ran east on Ninth across the viaduct of the Santa Fe and Union Pacific tracks to the intersection of Ninth and 10th streets through Gilmore Heights to Tecumseh. Another line leaving Ninth went past Stevenson’s Orchard and the Curry addition.

february 14 1857—Happy birthday, Topeka! The city officially incorporates four years before statehood. At the time, Topeka contained some 600–700 people; there were four physicians, two attorneys, two civil engineers, two hotels, two stagecoach lines, a newspaper and five general stores. We now have fewer stagecoach lines, but considerably more attorneys.

February 10 1927—The Rees Eugenic Marriage Bill is passed on from the Kansas House to the Senate. As the Topeka State Journal notes, the bill will “get some attention on the Senate floor. It is likely to get too much in fact.” One amendment to the bill forbids inter-racial marriages while another requires that either the bride or groom possess a minimum of $1,000 over indebtedness in order to be married. The bill would die in the Senate. February 11 1898—The senior class at Topeka High School has become the school’s richest class in history as their treasury tops $22.

February 12

February 14

1866—Lincoln College (later Washburn University) holds its first fundraising event, drawing 500 people and $600 in donations.

1893—Several male students at Lincoln College assist the National Guard during the Kansas Legislative War, an armed standoff between Republican and People’s Party officials, who each claim control of the legislature.

1959—Former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt tours psychiatric facilities at Menninger’s and at the Veterans’ Hospital. February 13 1974—A motorist passing by the Shawnee county court house was startled when he saw a sack “float up the side” and disappear into the third floor of the jail. A girl questioned by the police admitted that she had tied a pint of whisky to a string dropped down by her boyfriend who was being held in the courthouse jail.

1924—The College Hill News notes that a certain young woman—the paper won’t say who, but her license place is 35100!—is careening around Topeka in a 1924 Studebaker and will most certainly “run someone down or run into another car unless she shows a little more care and less speed. ... There is entirely too much fast and careless driving in this community and this girl is no exception.”

Monumental Topekans

Dr. Eva Harding Medical Advocate and Civic Reformer When Carry Nation stormed through Topeka, she had a broad base of support from many in the community. Though Nation and her prohibitionists are often portrayed as humorless, judgmental zealots in contemporary accounts, their numbers included a range of established, community advocates who felt that alcoholism was ruining the lives of families in the community. One of these people was Dr. Eva Harding—by all accounts a brilliant mind who graduated from Chicago’s Hahnemann Medical College in 1882 and set up practice in Topeka ten years later. A homeopathic-trained physician, Dr. Harding was also a tireless reformer who lobbied for education reform such as the adoption of business-career courses and the creation of kindergartens. In 1897, she was appointed physician of the Boys’ Reform School (also referred to as Boys’ Industrial), and she set about trying to improve conditions for the boys there—even when it led her in direct conflict

1855-1920

with administrators. A friend to Nation, Harding was jailed and put on trial with Nation during her 1901 Topeka campaign. A suffragette and member of the Good Government Club, she became the first woman in Kansas to seek her party’s nomination for Congress in 1916—four years after women won the right to vote in Kansas, but four years before the formal ratification of national suffrage. In Topeka, Harding was known for taking in homeless children and running her own adoption agency of sorts. Between College and Boswell streets, she built a summer cottage with gardens that she called “Ragged Robin” and brought children there for a day in the country. A member of the parks board, Dr. Harding was a vocal advocate for providing the community with public bathing facilities as well as gardens and parks for recreation. She bought land, planted it with flowers and invited community children to enjoy the garden and to take home with them as many flowers as they desired. Her legacy continues to this day in the donation or bequeathing of three public parks. —Christine Steinkuehler

Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

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February 15 1914—Eighteen young Topekans have enrolled in a “Montessori” school taught by the McClintock sisters, who studied this new educational system, developed by Maria Montessori, in Europe. February 16 1951—Forbes Air Force Base goes back into service. The Topeka airfield, crucial to WW II military efforts, has been reactivated in response to the Cold War. February 17 1923—Topeka is set to host a gala dance with no music. The Topeka Silent Social Club, an organization for the deaf, is set to hold a masquerade ball and non-musical dance at Labor Hall with some 150 guests from across the state.

Topeka bars that Chiles owned and operated. February 19 1903—Topeka barbers must now “prove they know how to amputate whiskers without pain,” according to the Topeka Daily Capital, commenting on a new bill passed by the Kansas house requiring barbers to be licensed and “to keep their tools, towels, etc. in a sanitary condition.” 1955—Gene Autry, America’s singing cowboy, brings his yodeling and guitar playing to Topeka’s Municipal Auditorium during a national spring concert tour of 32 U.S. cities.

1941—Anticipating war and in response to the nation’s first peacetime draft, Topeka High School begins offering two home economics classes for boys who might soon become soldiers. The classes would teach students “to do laundry, make beds and care for clothing” in an army camp.

February 24 1927—Topeka’s engineering department spends $7,250 to purchase 26.9 acres that will become Auburndale Park, known for its lake and stream stocked with trout and catfish for public fishing.

February 22 February 25 1936—Minnesota’s pioneering female politician Anna Dickie Olson tells a gathering of Topeka women that President Roosevelt has saved the nation from dictators and is protecting bankers and farmers. February 23

February 20 1918—The Construction News of Kansas reports that the Knights and Ladies of Security are set to construct several buildings for

1897—The Crawford Opera House headlines hypnotist Professor Flint.

protect widows, orphans and the disabled.

1967—A mother of a U.S. serviceman in Vietnam writes to the Topeka State Journal to thank Topeka members of the Communication Workers of America for allowing families to place free international calls to their overseas GIs during the past holiday season. February 26

February 27 1906—The Washburn University Dramatic Club begins raising funds to build a college gate of rough, colored boulders at the entrance to the campus on 17th Street. February 28 1909—The Capper Building formally opens on the SE corner of Eighth and Jackson streets. The new office brings all of the Capper publications—with its 396 employees in 21 departments—under one roof. 1941—Helen Keller addresses students at Topeka High School, ending her program by leading the audience in singing “Nearer My God to Thee.”

1941—Horse racing and card playing on Sundays

February 18 1901—Carry Nation is arrested in Topeka for smashing bars. A crowd of some 2,000 supporters follow her to jail, surrounding the building as the police pull her through with a raised revolver. Nation is shortly bailed out of jail by Nick Chiles, a progressive businessman, publisher and activist who would later publish Nation’s temperance newspaper. Nation thanked Chiles by promising to smash up the

1869

february 21 Perine, the blacksmith near Eighth and Kansas streets has velocipedes for sale. These machines work like a bicycle but the hands work as well as the feet so you can go at speeds of up to 40 mph.

February 21 1880—The first entry in the city’s oldest dock book involves a suit against the Santa Fe railroad, calling for $10,000 in payments for a train running over and killing a Thos. Brown.

their office and service facilities on Martin’s Hill, several miles west of Topeka. The organization—which would eventually become Security Benefit—was formed as a fraternal beneficiary society to

could be legal again under a new bill by Kansas senator (and future Kansas Supreme Court justice) William Wertz. The senator’s legislation, however, would leave intact anti-gambling legislation outlawing cockfighting on Sundays.

February 29 1892—A federal judge releases two leaders of the Soldier Creek Pottawatomi who had been held nearly one year in jail for “insubordination”.

February images (listed in order of appearance, by date): February 5—Carrie (or “Carry”) Nation stands with a hatchet and a Bible, via Kansas State Historical Society; February 14—J. E. Hazen’s map of Topeka circa 1900-1910 via Kansas State Historical Society; February 16—Forbes Field Air Base circa 1949-1959 via Kansas State Historical Society; February 21—Velocipede, via Shutterstock; Monumental Topekans photograph of Eva Harding via Kansas State Historical Society.

Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

March

March 3

March 1

March 3

March 5

1906—Topeka High School becomes one of the first schools in the Midwest to install student lockers. This is done to prevent the theft of erasers, car fare and boys’ hats.

1903—The cost of ice, a crucial household good in the years before refrigeration, is expected to rise sharply in Topeka after the Mutual Ice Company announces it has bought the Topeka Ice Company and will control the entire surplus output from local supplier Wolff Packing.

1876—The first passenger train of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway leaves Topeka for Pueblo, Colorado, with 446 excursionists, including many state legislators. Tickets are $10 per person.

2010—Topeka mayor Bill Bunten issues a proclamation changing the city’s name to “Google” for one month as a publicity bid to attract the tech company’s high-speed fiber network. Google did not select Topeka as one of its launch sites but did return the favor one month later, rebranding itself as “Topeka” for the duration of April Fool’s Day.

March 4 1917—The main portion of Grace Episcopal Cathedral is completed. Construction continues on the church’s two towers.

March

March 2 1945—First Lieutenant Paul Steinrauf, who served eight years as a deputy in the office of the clerk of the Court of Topeka before joining the Army in 1942, is reported killed in action on the Western front. His death is the first fatality of 90 members of the Topeka Bar Association serving in the armed services. 2005—By a 53% decision, Topeka voters reject a bill promoted by a local antihomosexual religious group that would have repealed municipal legislation banning discrimination based on sexual orientation.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

1915—The Topeka High School Guild is formed to unite Topeka High School teachers for mutual help, socialization, professional advancement and action. Membership includes the entire faculty of Topeka High.

1904—Blind

1929—Topeka native Senator Charles Curtis is inaugurated as the nation’s 31st vice president.

Topekan M. August “Auggie” McCollum meets with naval recruiting officers to urge them to consider possible war contributions from blind citizens, such as serving as radio station operators. “With physically fit men being called by the selective service and labor shortage, McCollum feels that the blind are increasingly important in the war program,” reports the Topeka State Journal.

March 7

March 11

1862—School district #35 is organized under the direction of Peter McVicar, the county superintendent. Initially called “Flanders School,” it became Highland Park.

1871—The Ladies’ Library Association opens a reading room with 158 books available for check out. Demand is great and many fundraisers are held in proceeding months to sustain the venture.

March 8 1974—Unseasonably warm weather and youthful bravado fuel the fad of streakers at Washburn University. At least two streakers, one barefoot, raced across the Topeka campus during break on this day, bringing the total number of bare-naked sprinters to 14 this spring. March 9 1903—A deep snowfall catches the city by surprise and nips spring in the bud, notes the Topeka State Journal. “The robins are sneaking around with a foolish look on their countenance today—and as for the chappies who have been parading with their gray suits and brass buckle shoes—they look worse and feel the shame.” March 10 1904—Local paper Farmers Advocate urges rural households to invest in liquid manure; “The fact remains, however, that farmers should pay more attention to the conservation of the urine from their stock.”

1878—The Topeka horse thief detective association holds a meeting. Such groups were common in the Midwest after the Civil War and in the early 1900s. In Kansas, they formally organized as the Anti-Horse Thief Association. 1949—Dean Smith, who would go on to become a legendary basketball coach at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, leads the Topeka High Trojans in a regional title over the Lawrence Chesty Lions. The season would also mark the last year that Topeka High fielded separate, segregated boys’ basketball teams: the white Trojans and the black Ramblers. 1965—Fans of Hayden High School boys’ basketball team storm the court and almost collapse the floor of the Allen Fieldhouse at the University of Kansas after the Wildcats, playing the opening match against Hutchinson, scored an overtime basket as the ball—which had languidly sat on the edge of the rim as the final buzzer sounded—fell through the net. The

’64–’65 Wildcats would fail to take the state title in their three-game series, but they went down in school history as one of the best squads ever. 1965—The Shawnee County courthouse moves all of its furniture and records from the old courthouse at Fifth and Van Buren streets to a new building at Seventh and Quincy streets. March 12 1855—The Topeka Association—then the area’s governing body—forbids all consumption of alcohol except for medicinal use.

March twelfth 1915—The Topeka High School World urges students to make pies with rimless crusts to reduce the high cost of living and help send flour to Belgians, who are facing a food shortage at the onset of World War I. The students’ efforts reflected concerns across the state as Kansans donated sacks of flour for Belgium relief efforts.

Monumental Topekans

The Good Government Club 1901–circa 1930 Pragmatists and Agitators At first, when they assembled as the “Susan B. Anthony Club,” the women who gathered in 1901 at the home of Mrs. J.D. McFarland feared their husbands would attempt to ban their participation in a group honoring a prominent radical, so they changed the name to “The Good Government Club.” But they remained radicals—the city’s first club devoted to securing the right of women to vote. By 1906, just five years after formation, the club’s membership swelled to 161 and even included some men. By 1908, the club was joined by several elected officials from Topeka in handing a petition to the governor, who supported their goals. Members of the group lobbied 50 days a year, distributed campaign literature at large gatherings, marched in parades, bought ad space

in newspapers and held countless fundraisers (selling everything from peaches to hair tonic). On November 5, 1912, the members could claim partial responsibility for winning a statewide vote granting women suffrage, 175,246 for the amendment and 159,197 against. After celebrating this victory, the club began to raise the funds to build the Women’s Board Building at 920 W 9th (now owned by the State of Kansas and known as the Insurance Building) as a base for future work. The club also continued to promote progressive causes such as reforming laws governing labor, property, children’s labor, women’s rights, minimum wage, hygiene standards and state primaries. The club disbanded sometime in the 1930s and faded into history. Yet, Kansas history was shaped by those few Topekans who gathered in a parlor and dared to imagine they could change political reality. —Christine Steinkuehler

Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

March 18

luxury, unused land, gophers, cinch bugs, Hessian flies, hog cholera, bad marketing facilities, marketing gambling and grasshoppers.” March 16 1900—The Topeka High School girls’ basketball team accepts a challenge from Ottawa University, going on to split a 2-game showdown with the collegians.

March 20 1886—Rock concert at the library! In this case, a special musical presentation featuring a rock harmonicon, a xylophonelike instrument with the musical bars formed from rock chiseled from English mountain ranges. March 21 1956—A noisy crowd of approximately 200 people shouts and catcalls the city commission during a discussion of a proposal to raise garbage collection fees.

March 13 1891—Mrs. Butter of Silver Lake has been fortunate to fill her ice house with 7-inch-thick ice from Walnut Creek. The unusually thick creek ice was even thicker than ice from the lake. 1900—Rev. Charles Sheldon— the progressive pastor of Topeka’s Central Congregational Church who coined the phrase “What Would Jesus Do?”— begins a weeklong experiment of serving as head editor of the Topeka Daily Capital and presenting the news as Jesus might have.

March 17

March 22

1856—The Grand Lodge of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of Kansas is organized in Topeka. Its members would include Cyrus K. Holliday, Joel Huntoon and Arthur Capper.

1899—The Topeka State Journal notes that “A Topeka boy has a large pug and a small spaniel which he harnesses together to a small wagon. The pug makes the better ‘horse’ of the two.”

1968—Senator Robert “Bobby” Kennedy is mobbed by wellwishers in downtown Topeka, one day after he announced he would seek the Democratic Party nomination for the president of the United States and en route to deliver a lecture at Kansas State University.

March 23

March 18 March 14

1950—The Topeka Library board denies rumors that it has raised the city librarian’s annual salary from $4,800 to $7,000. “The city has never paid more than $4,800 for a librarian,” chairman W.A. Biby told the Topeka State Journal.

1899—Topekan Walter Vance writes from the front lines of the Spanish-American War in the Philippines: “I am not a bit cold-footed or chicken hearted, but it is my honest opinion that this war is a parallel of the war of 1776, except that we are on the wrong side this time.”

March 15

March 19

1917—Topeka hosts a statewide food conference organized to mobilize support for supplying the nation in the event that the United States entered the European war. Patriotism runs high at the meeting as delegates declare war on “extravagance,

1939—Topeka police officers are trying to catch “Ladder Luke,” a burglar who often uses a ladder to crawl into second-story windows to rob downtown areas.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

1979—Water skiing season opens at Lake Shawnee just a few days after the last ice has melted. The Topeka State Journal writes that Joe Pinter, the skier who traditionally opens the season, is “obviously of a singularly hearty breed, doesn’t recommend the practice for everyone.”

the robes, said he believed: ‘there is only one place to wear a gown, and that is not at graduation.’” But others argue that a common gown and cap would eliminate rivalry and expenses of wearing new, fancy clothes. One teacher said that “girls find it necessary to spend at least $35 for their graduation outfits, and that the cap and robe, rental of which is $2.50, would bring about a good example of Calvin Coolidge economy.” March 26 1960—The USS Topeka sails again. The Cleveland-class light missile cruiser, originally built during WW II, would serve the US Navy for nine years—patrolling waters from the Gulf of Tonkin to the Mediterranean Sea.

1884

March

March 24 1945—In a sign that the nation is anticipating the end of World War II, Merchants National Bank of Topeka urges young couples to deposit funds “to make postwar ambitions come true … that postwar home, new car—or anything in your plans!” March 25 1926—Seniors at Topeka High School debate the pros and cons of wearing gowns for their May graduation, according to the Topeka State Journal. “Arthur Chittendon, speaking against

Even Topeka is following the ups and downs of a scandalous English-born actress and her business baron lover who were the “Brangelina” of their times. “Grief can now dry her tears,” reports Topeka paper The Daily Critic. “The quite too touchingly tender news comes to us that Lillie Langtry and Freddie Gebhard have made up.”

March 27 1908—The St. John A.M.E. Church Sewing Circle was entertained recently by Mrs. Eliza Marion. “A delightful time was enjoyed by all,” reports the Plaindealer, “and good results followed.” 1924—Several gallons of a concoction believed to be liquor in the making are seized by police during a raid of a home on W. Twelfth Street. March 28 1903—Spinning tops have replaced marbles as the must-have toy for Topeka boys.

demand the

March 29 1900—Death of Cyrus K. Holliday. The Pennsylvania native moved to the area of Topeka in late 1854 and was chosen to lead the township by the end of the year. Active in politics, he helped found the Kansas Republican party and became a leader of the local Free State movement, aiding the Union army with logistics in the Civil War. As a businessman, he founded the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad and Merchants National Bank in Topeka. Holliday Park in Topeka is named in his honor, and his grave is located in Topeka Cemetery. 1901—The state appropriates $35,000 for the purchase of a house for the governor, an executive mansion. The Bennett Mansion at the southwest corner of Eighth and Buchanan streets was built of solid red brick with oak, white pine, sycamore and redwood floors. It boasts 16 large rooms, numerous small ones, a ballroom orchestra rostrum, a billiard room and a cyclone shelter.

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March 30 1859—Original town of Topeka is platted, extending from the Kansas River to Huntoon with avenues 130 feet wide, north and south streets 100 feet wide, east and west streets 80 feet wide and alleys 20 feet wide. March 31 1915—Chief Elk Thunder Bear Johnson of South Dakota tells an all-male assembly at Topeka High School that American Indians should be granted the right to vote. While Congress granted American Indians United States citizenship (and thus the right to vote) in 1924, some states barred Native Americans from voting as late as 1957.

March images (listed in order of appearance, by date): March 3—Detail from a postcard showing an ice Wagon in Topeka, from private collection for Topeka Magazine; March 4—Senator Charles Curtis standing on steps of U.S. Capitol circa 1928-1933, via Kansas State Historical Society; March 11—Cover Image of the 1905 Kansas Constitution for the Anti-Horse Thief Association via Kansas Historical Society; March 12—Flour bag sent from Kansas to Belgium as part of war relief efforts, via Kansas Historical Society; March 18—Col. Funston and 20th Kansas Volunteers Cross River at Calumpit, print, 1899, via Library of Congress; March 27—Lillie Langtry in role of Cleopatra, via Library of Congress. Monumental Topekans photograph of Kansas suffragettes campaigning in Topeka, via Kansas State Historical Society.

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April

April 1 1859—The short-lived Topeka Gold Rush begins (and ends) after gold seekers heading for Colorado on a steamboat find some metallic bits in the Kansas River while stopping over in Topeka. This led to a quick, but fruitless, panning for gold before prospectors continued up the Kansas River.

1889

1899—Topeka annexes the city of Potwin Place. Initially protective of its independent status, the Potwin council chose not to oppose the annexation because it could not afford an independent fire department. 1911—Automobiles are proliferating in the capital city. On this day, Topeka issued license number 607.

april 2

An all-women ticket is elected to all city offices in Rossville, providing for a mayor and city council. An 1887 law allowing women to vote in municipal elections led to the state’s first all-women tickets—running strongly on platforms of temperance and good governance—in Argonia and Oskaloosa. The Rossville sweep, however, preceded statewide suffrage by 23 years and national suffrage by 30 years.

1949—Cold War fashion comes to Topeka children as Pelletier’s department store sells the “Atomic Rocket Cap.” Advertisements in Topeka papers promise “It’s new! It’s wacky! It’s wonderful! Two propellers spin as you walk! The faster you walk, the faster the plastic propellers spin. The top of the cap is shaped like an airplane fuselage and trimmed with brass portholes.” A bargain at only 49 cents. April 3

April 12

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

1893—Rev. Charles Sheldon leads the Topeka Kindergarten Association in opening the city’s first free kindergarten. More than 200 students enrolled the first day.

1949—Cyrus K. Holliday (one of the city’s founding fathers and first president of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway) is honored with the dedication of a plaque at Topeka’s new Santa Fe Railroad station. April 4 1871—Shawnee County Poor Farm opens for its first residents. It would get a new home in 1920, a large, multistory structure that would become the Shawnee North Community Center at 300 NE 43 Street. 1887—The Sunnyside Addition, the area contained north to south by 28th to 33rd streets and from east to west by California and Indiana streets, is platted. Part of the Highland Park region, it was initially developed as an upscale, rural suburb.

April 5 1881—Construction begins on the Topeka’s first street railway. The route started at the Santa Fe depot and went south on Kansas Avenue. A stone stable at Tenth and Jackson streets housed the 25 horses and 8 trolley cars that provided the service.

chants are suffering because they “are content to trust to God, luck and handbills.” The paper’s modest solution? “A little more money spent in judicious advertising in the newspapers.”

The Wyandotte Constitution replaced the 1855 Topeka Constitution, both Free-State documents that recognized voting rights for neither blacks nor women.

Monumental Topekans

April 6 1926—Paul Blanshard, secretary of the League for Industrial Democracy, speaks at Washburn University on his organization’s call for a minimum wage for all workers. He is forced, however, to deny charges made by Topekans that his views make him a communist. Decades later, Blanshard would become infamous in the United States for his anti-Catholic opposition to President John F. Kennedy. 1965—Let’s do the time jump … or not. By more than a 2–1 margin, the city’s voters reject a proposal that would establish daylight savings time in Topeka. The time-jump, however, would be mandated less than a decade later when the nation adopts daylight savings in 1974. April 7 1881—A devastating fire in the rolling mill at Topeka Iron Works leaves 300 workers unemployed. There were 120 men in the building at the time of the fire, but no one was injured. The estimate for damage—entirely uninsured—was $100,000 (or $2–3 million in modern costs). April 8 1884—The Daily Critic newspaper says Lawrence and Leavenworth merchants are prospering while Topeka mer-

Nick Chiles 1867–1929 Reformer and Publisher April 9

April 11

1867—Eugene, a collection of cabins, a station and a warehouse, is annexed into the city and designated as North Topeka.

1934—More than 18,400 people turn out to inspect the new Union Pacific M-10000 train—a modern, streamlined machine with air-conditioning and the railway’s first internal combustion engine—as it stopped in Topeka on a national tour.

1987—A federal judge rules that the Topeka school board had eliminated all traces of racial segregation. The ruling came in a lawsuit asserting the board of education had not sufficiently followed through on the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling to end segregation in American public education. April 10 1860—The House of Representative votes 134 to 73 to admit Kansas as a state under the Wyandotte Constitution. The Senate would require more than eight months before passing the bill leading to Kansas statehood.

April 12 1885—Dedication services are held at First Presbyterian Church, 817 Harrison. The building has the distinction of holding rare Tiffany stained glass windows. L. C. Tiffany stayed in Topeka while the windows were being made and installed. The dedication was also marked by the use of the church’s new furnace, which spoiled festivities with belches of smoke and a small fire.

Nick Chiles, the son of South Carolina slaves, came to Topeka in 1886 to seek a better life. Starting with little, Chiles worked a series of jobs, saving up to buy the Topeka Call in 1896 and changing the paper’s name to the Plaindealer. A skilled writer and editor, the outspoken Chiles turned his paper—published first in Topeka and then in Leavenworth—into one of the strongest and longestrunning African-American newspapers in the country (it lasted until 1958). In addition to the Plaindealer, Chiles’ printing company at 1129 S. Kansas published newsletters and other publications for the Masons, Oddfellows and other groups. Not afraid of standing by his beliefs in print or in action, Chiles bailed Carry Nation out of the Topeka jail and subsequently published several editions of her Smasher News, all while owning a hotel and dramhouse on East Seventh Street. In 1926, he unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate. —Christine Steinkuehler

April 16

April 13 1962—The family of Kansas governor John Anderson becomes the first to take up official gubernatorial residence in Topeka’s Cedar Crest, which had been donated to the state in 1957 by Mrs. Madge McLennan. 1909—The mother of future literary icon Langston Hughes withdraws him from Topeka’s Harrison Street school, effectively a segregated white school, and moves the young boy to Lawrence to live with his grandmother. April 14 1884—Miss Minnie Dickinson is set to entertain a few of her friends at her house. The occasion, notes The Daily Critic, “will be a most pleasant one for no one knows better how to entertain her guests than does Miss Minnie.” 1933—Topeka paper The Pink Rag summarizes local politics for 1933 and perhaps beyond: “Now that our city election is a thing of the past the winners feel they are lucky to have won and the losers are satisfied they are luckier to have lost.” April 15 1889—The city’s first electric railway car begins routes in Topeka. 1945—The Topeka plant of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company ships out its first set of tires to the U.S. Army. The tires are special heavy-duty constructions specifically for Army vehicles and made from synthetic rubber since natural rubber was in short supply during World War II.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

1937— Gangsters and G-men in post office shoot-out. After a robbing $18,000 from a bank in New York, Robert Suhay and Glen Applegate stopped in Topeka to pick up mail at the post office. But the FBI had been tipped off to their arrival, and G-men moved in to arrest the robbers. Shots were fired—leaving bullet holes still visible to this day—and FBI agent Wimberly Wayne Baker was killed. Suhay and Applegate escaped town but were caught shortly afterward in Nebraska. Suhay and Applegate were sentenced to death for the murder of Baker and were executed in August 1938. 1970—Mexican-American high school students march to City Hall against the backdrop of a growing Chicano activism throughout the United States. The students were protesting discrimination and what they felt was a disregard for Chicano culture and history.

april 17 1938—Miss Ruth Stilson, the only aviatrix to teach flying in an American military school, has announced her engagement to John Joseph White of Topeka, now a junior instructor at the Air Corps Technical school in Scott Field, Illinois. White is a former student of Ms. Stilson, who had posted a sign on her desk in the Wentworth Military academy in Lexington, Missouri, reading: “I CAN’T DATE CADETS” in order to discourage lovestruck students.

April 17

April 21

1970—Approximately 200 Topekan African-American students boycott classes to demand more respect at school, the right for blacks to join the cheerleading squad, and an academic program that includes study of African Americans in U.S. History. The administration cancels classes shortly after the school day begins, allowing protestors to meet with officials from the school system and the board of education.

1856—The horse will cost you extra, but the pigs are cheap. County sets river-ferry prices: 5 cents for every hog or sheep; 10 cents for a human; 25 cents for a man and horse; 75 cents for horse and wagon and one dollar for two horses and wagon.

April 18 2010—With precise, crisp choreography that a Buckingham Palace guard could envy, Zeus and Hope, the parent falcons watching over their nest of eggs on the top of the Westar building downtown, are filmed changing guard duty.

April 22 1902—Vinewood Park (think of it as a Victorian-era amusement park) opens south of Topeka in the area just north of present-day Lake Shawnee. 1978—The band Kansas and Topeka native Kerry Livgren see hit single “Dust in the Wind” peak at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. April 23

April 19 1871—William Eagleson releases the first issue of The Colored Citizen, Topeka’s first blackowned and operated newspaper that would operate with “fidelity to Republic principles, a free ballot and a free press” and work toward “the goal of race progress.” The paper would continue to print until 1881, and Eagleson would advance several issues for the black community, including urging the integration of labor unions and Topeka schools some 70 years in advance of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education court ruling.

1867—Fires break out in Topeka as the ground shakes from vibrations of the biggest earthquake in Kansas’ recorded history. The quake’s epicenter was near Manhattan, but vibrations were felt in Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri and Indiana. 1888—A charter for the incorporation of the Chicago Heights, Potwin Place and South Topeka Electric Motor Railway company was filed. This was one of the forty or so railway companies that were filed during the Topeka railway bubble—but were never built. April 24

April 20 1883—Dedication of a new public library on the grounds of the Capitol; it was constructed with $25,000 in donations from the Santa Fe and Union Pacific Railroads. 1920—Miss Minnie Doering becomes Topeka’s first woman ticket agent.

1941—As Europe fights, Topeka wages the war … against dandelions. Topeka High School principal Van Slyck is rallying his “student troops” ahead of tomorrow’s “AllSchool Blitz” vs. dandelions on the THS lawn. The combined staffstudent forces are aiming to pull up more than 150,000 dandelion weeds.

April 25 1950—A four-hour fire destroys the historic, 125-room Throop Hotel in Downtown Topeka at the corner of Fourth and Kansas. Firefighters described it as “the most spectacular blaze here in a quarter century.” The hotel had stood since 1887. April 26 1869—Seven miles of railroad track is ceremoniously opened in the southwest area of Topeka with a second hand locomotive and 2 cars (one borrowed). Almost 100 passengers participated in the inaugural train ride at a blazing speed of 15 mph.

APRIL 27 1891

Birthday of L. Philip Billard, Topeka’s pioneering aviation daredevil and engineer who died serving his country as a test pilot during World War I. The city’s Billard airport is named in his honor.

April 28

April 29

April 30

1895—The Holliday Park Association allows the city to condemn the triangular area of land between Western, Taylor, Huntoon and 12th streets so that it can become a city park.

1970—A jury and judge in Topeka are convening at an adult movie theater in Topeka. The gathering will include a special film viewing as part of a trial over indecency charges brought against The Princess Theater on North Kansas Avenue. The jury is to determine if the films correspond to decency standards, or not.

1971—Marking the end of an era, the Santa Fe Railway discontinues passenger train service after 102 years.

1933—Topeka High School sophomores establish their own branch of the school’s pep squad … it’s the birth of the “Pepperettes”!

April images (listed in order of appearance, by date): April 2—Detail of Pelletier’s Atomic Rocket Cap ad; Union Pacific poster showing the M-10000; April 12—Detail of a Tiffany stained glass window at First Presbyterian Church, Topeka, Topeka Magazine; War on Crime, H1-48 edition, via Comic Book +; April 27—Philip Billard, 1912 via Kansas State Historical Society; April 30—ATSF engine production facility in Topeka, via Library of Congress. Monumental Topekans photograph of Nick Chiles via Kansas State Historical Society.

may

May 1

May 4

1855—A steamboat named the Emma Harmon docks in Topeka, marking the beginning of river traffic on the Kansas River (which would end in February of 1864 due to low water). The steamboat delivered a sawmill that helped build the city.

1938—A charter is filed for the non-profit Shawnee County Humane Society, Inc. Society members picked up animals in their own vehicles and took care of them in their own homes without outside support. May 5

1858—Topeka’s first Kansas River bridge is christened. The wooden structure lasted only twelve weeks. After that, the city relied on a river ferry service until 1865, when thirteen flat boats were tied together to form a pontoon bridge. 1924—Topeka’s College Hill News prints that it is aware of (but will not comment on) the salacious stories of how several students, including one woman, are making business good for the medical community.

May 23 May 6

1971—The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) takes over operation of passenger trains on the Santa Fe tracks through Topeka. May 2 1910—The city receives approximately 17 acres as a donation, which it uses to create Lakewood Park.

1967

1913—A year after Kansas women won the right to vote, Paris is catching up with the political fashion, as the Topeka Daily State Journal reports on the rise in the French garment industry of “suffragette-style skirts” that feature side pockets, which are “real and unavowed ones into which the wearer can plunge her hands.” May 6 1911—The last stone is laid in the construction of the new $5,000 main arch at entrance to Gage Park. May 7 1889—The opening of the Potwin city council meeting is delayed for 20 minutes as the council had to respond to the mayor’s unruly cow who broke from her pen and wandered through Potwin lawns.

May 3

St. Francis hospital officials report that 7-year-old Donna C. is recovering in “satisfactory” condition after surgery. The young girl was taken into the hospital after she fell from a swing set and suffered a severe break in her upper right arm.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

May 13

May 15

May 18

1896—Dr. E.W. Wagner is found guilty in police court of failing to sound his bicycle bell as he approached an intersection. Although no other vehicle or pedestrian was on the road when Dr. Wagner was pulled over, he was nonetheless arrested and fined on sight.

1906—The Plaindealer chides colleagues for racial double standards in crime reporting. “We were surprised at the fact that the daily papers did not comment very strongly about the inhuman outrage committed upon a little nine-year-old white girl by Henry Russell and wife, both white, of this city a few days ago, and who were arrested and plead guilty within five days and within seven days were in Lansing penitentiary. Had they been Negroes, the daily papers would have intimated that there would be a lynching and would have had the entire population of Topeka and the surrounding country worked up to do anything to colored people; all because some ingrate had committed a heinous offence. … We are trying to educate the minds of the progressive white people to the fact that when crimes are committed that the criminal alone be held responsible for the act and not the public.”

May 8 1884—Topeka paper The Daily Critic urges a change in municipal laws that allow any person to walk into a pharmacy and inspect all client prescriptions. May 9 1927—A symphony performs a special Mother’s Day concert at the Jayhawk Theatre for the first broadcast of WIBW AM.

may 12 Municipal Auditorium is completed with 303 windows and 420 doors in an art deco style. An extensive remodeling campaign, spearheaded by Topekan Beth Fager, would be completed in March 1991, at which point the venue was renamed the Georgia Neese Gray Topeka Performing Arts Center (TPAC).

May 19 May 16

1910—Bloomer Girl’s baseball teams, barnstorming semi-professional athletes (think today’s competitive WNBA instead of the Lingerie Football League), are set to play in Topeka. Nonetheless, the serious nature of the female athletes doesn’t win over writers at the Topeka Daily Capital, who labeled fans of this sport “chumps who still fall for that sort of thing.”

1956—The Topeka Hawks pull one over the New York Yankees. The minor-league baseball franchise had the foresight to close a deal early with the Yankee franchise system and pick up first baseman Al Weygandt for only $100. Once Weygandt arrived, a Hawks’ coach worked with him to adjust his batting stance. Now, the team is enjoying a rush of 10 home runs in the past three days from their new slugger, whom they will honor soon with a “Weygandt Appreciation Night.”

May 14

May 17

1884—Christ’s Hospital opens in a one-story frame building with 30 beds. It would later be twice renamed, first as Vail Hospital (in honor of board of trustees member Bishop Thomas A. Vail) and then as Stormont-Vail, following a 1949 merger with Jane C. Stormont Hospital and Training Center for Nurses.

1954—The United States Supreme Court hands down its decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case, brought by the NAACP on behalf of a group of families, including the Brown family of Topeka. It is hailed as a landmark decision that effectively ended legal segregation by race in American public education.

May 10 1861—A group of California-bound emigrants pass through Topeka with what locals regard as “the finest lot of mules ever seen in Kansas.” May 11 1918—Nearly 200 Topeka carpenters return to work after a 38-day strike. The carpenters won a pay raise from 55 cents an hour to 62.5 cents an hour, but lost demands that all foremen be union members. 1950—Santa Fe Railway firemen begin a five-day strike. More than 2,000 Santa Fe workers took part in the national strike, the largest since the end of World War II. The strike would break out again in August.

May 13

1978—Washburn’s Mabee Library is formally dedicated after opening in January of 1978 and going through an extensive move from Morgan Hall with the help of the “Mabee Movers,” teams of students and staff who formed a book-truck brigade to hand-pass the books to their new location. May 20 1915—Ben Franklin’s the man! Since the widespread installation of lightning rods on Topeka buildings, the amount of lightning fires for a two-month period has gone down from 19 to 4 cases from the past year. No building with a lightning rod caught fire from lightning during this time.

May 10

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May 21

May 24

May 28

1956—Elvis Presley and his band appear at the Topeka Municipal Auditorium, playing to a crowd of some 2,500 screaming fans and performing—as the Topeka Daily Capital described—gyrations that would “put a burlesque queen to shame.”

1973—The Topeka Zoo formally dedicates its tropical rain forest exhibit. The event helps set record attendance numbers.

1903—The Westside Forestry Club organizes a women’s tea party. The group of genteel tea sippers would accomplish many goals to improve the city, including transforming a pig farm into Willow Park.

May 25

May 29

1912—The police report that speeding in automobiles has decreased very much since the department has been borrowing a car to chase down speeders.

1969—Yearbooks are released at the end of Topeka’s school year, containing bits of learned wisdom such as the remark Topeka West High School exchange student Christa Guenther of West Germany, who sums up her year at a U.S. high school as: “Hamburgers are neat; boys are so short and narrow!”

May 22 1869—A grand velocipede carnival is held in Topeka. No ladies are allowed to witness the derring-do of riders on these dangerous, modern modes of transport.

May 26 May 30 1877—Pigeons are uncommonly plentiful in Topeka this season.

May 23

May 27

1918—Topeka has contributed more than $68,000 to the Red Cross war fund, putting it within $10,000 of its goal. The pastor of First Presbyterian Church urged volunteers to be aggressive in soliciting donations: “If any man refuses to give, appoint a strong arm committee to wait on him and then push him and push him hard.”

1869—Rhonda and David Cross sell 70 acres of land for $14,400 to C.W. Potwin, of Zanesville, Ohio. The Ohio businessman uses the land to develop Potwin Place. 1989—The Gage Park Carousel is formally opened at Gage Park.

1932—Nearly 800 have seen and appreciated Mrs. A.M. Robinson’s rock garden at First and Fillmore, delighting in its multiple bridges, pools, and miniature seaside village complete with lighthouse. May 31 1899—Gage Park becomes part of the city with a donation by the heirs of G. G. Gage. 1910—The cornerstone is laid for Grace Episcopal Cathedral.

May images (listed in order of appearance, by date): May 6—Detail of lithograph postcard featuring entry arch of Gage Park, private collection for Topeka Magazine; May 10—Illustration of an Army mule, via Library of Congress; May 12—View of Municipal Auditorium, private collection for Topeka Magazine; May 13—The Osage Bloomer team circa 1900-1915 via Kansas State Historical Society; May 22—Velocipede rally, 1868, Harper’s Weekly; May 23—Red Cross War Funds poster, via Library of Congress. Monumental Topekans illustration of White Plume via Kansas State Historical Society.

Monumental Topekans

white plume Negotiator and Philosopher Pushed from their land in the Ohio valley and settling along the Kansas River, a group of indigenous people known as the Kaw, Kanza or Kansas nation were facing a crisis in the early 1800s as American settlers eyed their lands and brought diseases that would kill off approximately half of the Kaw people. Federal agents were intent on securing land from Kaw leaders. One of the leaders representing the Kaw people was White Plume, who is believed to have helped Lewis and Clark on their exploration across the United States and supported an 1825 document that the Kaw Nation’s official history now describes as “the first and perhaps most devastating treaty” for its people. White Plume’s agreement reduced the Kaw’s 20 million acres to only 2 million acres of land spreading along the Kansas River from

Unknown–1838

modern-day Topeka. The treaty also created strong divisions among the Kaw, who later would be forced into further concessions, be removed to Oklahoma, fully capitulate their national rights in a 1902 treaty negotiated by Charles Curtis (Topekan native, half-blood Kaw and future U.S. vice president) and lose the last full-blooded member of their nation in 1985. In that arc of history, White Plume was only one leader who (for a guarantee of property for his own use) conceded away his nation’s land to make way for the settlement of Topeka. But White Plume’s legacy might be more than the passage of land from one people to another. His negotiations—which scholar Zachary Isenhower has described as a shrewd, “firebreak” maneuver to ensure survival of his people in conditions “akin to combatting a wildfire”—also left behind a letter to a federal agent that made

a simple and cogent statement about the concept of racial equality in America. I consider myself an American and my wife an American woman—I want to take her home with me and have everything like white people … White Plume’s vision of American society— where citizenship extends to the people who live on its land and rights transcend race—failed to win any significant concessions for his people and went unrecognized by the government of his time, but it grew from a concept into a political struggle that continues to our time. —Nathan Pettengill

Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

june June 1

June 3

1879—The “Topeka Insane Asylum” (later renamed the Topeka State Hospital) opens for its first patients. It was created by the notable architect H.M. Hadley in the Kirkbride Plan/Queen Anne style.

1825—Representatives of the Kanza nation trade land that will eventually become Shawnee County to members of the Shawnee nation for $4,000 in goods and horses, plus a promised annuity of $3,500 for 20 years and a fixed reserve along the Kansas River.

1933—Graduating with honors, Ella Lillian Gentry becomes the first African American admitted to the Topeka High School National Honor Society. June 2 1890—In a year when nine workers die during construction of the Kansas Statehouse, the Topeka State Journal floats an idea to force convicted murders to do the dangerous job. “It would be ‘Capitol’ punishment, as it were,” notes the paper.

head of Kansas’ special inspection service for censoring movies. State censorship of films had received strong support for decades from reformers and progressives across Kansas. 1949—President Harry Truman appoints Topeka Georgia Neese Gray as United States treasurer.

1917

june 7 Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks, famed poet and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the 1949 Annie Allen, is born in Topeka.

June 7

June 8

1910—Three days of demonstration flights begin at Garfield Park. Tickets were sold for 50 cents to watch the new Curtiss Biplane take to the air. Promoters billed it as “The First Airship Flight in Kansas.”

1903—A flood hits central Topeka and waters cover the streets of North Topeka.

June 5 1945—Some 8,000 people gather at the Topeka Country Club—some standing on the clubhouse roof—to watch Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and professional golfers play an exhibition round to raise money for war bonds. June 4 1888—Potwin Place incorporates as an independent town with population of 600. 1921—Governor Henry Allen appoints Emma Viets of Topeka as

June 1

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

1919—Topeka Avenue is renamed “Topeka Boulevard” after a successful petitioning campaign and new legislation establishing that cities with more than 40,000 residents could use the word boulevard in naming streets. In the original town plat, Topeka Boulevard was laid out as “Main Street.” June 6 1881—Topeka opens a school northwest of the city for delinquent boys.

June 8 1937—Topeka’s last street car is taken out of active service.

1966—A tornado rips through central Shawnee County, killing 16 people and leveling major portions of Topeka—including Washburn University and Downtown Topeka—with estimated damage of more than $250 million.

Monumental Topekans

June 8

For many Topekans, the event is represented by WIBW-TV reporter Bill Kurtis’ live-reporting and his warning: “For God’s sake, take cover!” June 9 1904—Topeka paper Farmers Advocate prints editorial calling for an end to corporate control of public utilities. “We must have a square deal or eventually … there will be but one alternative: either the red flag of revolution, or the man on horseback, representing an oligarchy of bandits.” June 10

1938—Bands play at the opening of Gage Park’s Westlake fishing pond, stocked with 30,000 catfish, bass, crappie, bluegill and yellow perch. The city’s park commissioner notes the fish are “hungry and biting.”

june

1886—Topeka business is booming! The city boasts 10 cigar manufacturers, 7 tailors, 7 metal roof plants and 9 flour/ feed/oil mills.

1844—The first recorded flood strikes Shawnee County. There will be more. Many more.

June 13

June 12 1903—Rex Stout, creator of the world-popular Nero Wolfe mystery series, graduates from Topeka High School.

1918—The name of Topekan Richard Still Ross, a U.S. Marine corps gunnery sergeant, has appeared on the list of severely wounded from the fighting in France. His family is told that further details are impossible to determine. June 15 1988—Ronald McDonald House opens in what had been the childhood home of Georgia Neese Gray at 825 Buchanan. The house, with eight guest rooms complete with baths, is created for families with children in area hospitals. June 16

June 11 1861—The Episcopal Female Seminary of Topeka begins classes with 35 students and 2 teachers.

June 14

1988—Death of Zula Bennington Greene, an awardwinning Kansas writer who moved to Topeka and became famous beginning in the 1930s for her “Peggy of the Flint Hills” newspaper columns. 1903—Fifty-nine students graduate from Topeka High School. Forty-two of them are girls.

1908—Johnny Cratte writes to his aunt in Minnesota that he is doing well in Topeka, having found a job on a vegetable wagon that pays him 50 cents a day. He is saving up his money for the upcoming Fourth of July. 1911—The YWCA opens a new building at Seventh and Van Buren, which includes a basement swimming pool, the only public pool for women in the city. The building’s top floor includes 15 residential rooms, which are rented to young women as safe, reduced-cost housing.

Lilla Day Monroe 1858–1929 Attorney and Women’s Historian Born in Indiana, Lilla Day Monroe moved to WaKeeney, Kansas, in the mid-1880s, married local attorney Lee Monroe and raised four children. By 1894, she passed the bar examination to become the first woman attorney in Kansas. Moving to Topeka in 1904, Monroe began working tirelessly for the women’s suffrage movement. She joined the State Suffrage Association and the Good Government Club, at different times serving as president of both organizations. Parallel to her legal work, Monroe wrote newspaper articles and spearheaded a decadeslong, state-wide project collecting oral histories from Kansas women who had settled the state. Monroe eventually collected the reminiscences of more than 800 pioneers. Her recognition of the “common people” was unusual for a time when history was mostly a chronicle of exploits by “great men” and rarely deigned to notice the mundane tasks and challenges that dominated the lives of women. These historic records were nearly lost. Monroe’s granddaughter, Joanna Stratton, discovered them in the 1970s stored in a Potwin attic and released them to the public, publishing highlights of the histories in her 1981 book Pioneer Women. The complete, original collection is held by the Kansas State Historical Society and remains as Monroe’s legacy to us. —Christine Steinkuehler

Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

June 17

June 21

1915—It’s a bad year for strawberries, notes the Topeka Daily Capital. “[M]ost are of inferior quality due to the heavy rains of the past three weeks, which have caused them to be saturated, puffing with water and bitter to taste, inedible.”

1914—The “Topeka Movies” premieres. Filmed by the Holt Feature Film Company, the show features dedication ceremonies at the Memorial Building, a horse parade, the Washburn Dramatic Club and the destruction of alcohol in front of the city jail.

June 18

1945—General Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower stop at Topeka’s Union Pacific depot on their way to Abilene. Estimated crowds of 4,000 to 10,000 meet the conquering war hero and his “Eisenhower Express.”

1963—The governor’s mansion at Eighth and Buchanan is auctioned off for $30,000. It would later be razed and replaced with a parking lot.

June 19

June 20 1976—Elmhurst Plaza on the northwest corner of Huntoon and Land is razed. Built in 1926 and opened in 1927, it was believed to be Topeka’s first suburban shopping center.

June 26 1889—The Santa Fe Railway offices catch fire.

June 22

June 27

1944—Topekan Arthur Capper, representing Kansas in the U.S. Senate, crosses party lines to support Vice President Harry Truman’s legislation to fund a fair employment practices committee in order to end racial discrimination in the workplace.

1944—Unusually hot weather causes residents to drain nearly all the water from the million-gallon tower on 11th and Quincy.

June 23

June 28

1915—Dr. Samuel Crumbine, Kansas’ crusading health reformer, urges Topekans to combat infant mortality by thoroughly washing and sanitizing infant milk bottles.

1931—Gage Park’s Doran Rock Garden opens to the public.

june 24

1937—Kansas Power and Light Co. orders the last trolley off Topeka streets. 1968—Members of the Kansas Health Workers AFL CIO Local 1271 claim a takeover of the Topeka State Hospital and the Kansas Neurological Institute. The union faults the institutions for failing to provide mental health needs for Kansas citizens and calls on Kansas governor Robert Docking to begin widespread reforms of the state’s mental health system. Administrators at both facilities had workers removed and arrested.

substantial discrimination” existed in the Topeka school system. This verdict would be rejected in 1954 by the Supreme Court’s historic ruling that began the dismantling of legalized segregation in public education.

1927

june

1904—The Figure-Eight Toboggan Ride opens at the Vinewood.

Street trolley railway service to Gage Park begins. The trolley runs with 15-minute intervals.

June 24 1922—Ouster proceedings are filed against Topeka mayor Herbert J. Corwine, who is charged with failing to enforce laws regulating alcohol and cigarettes and with allowing police officers to accept protection money. June 25 1951—Round one of the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka case is heard in U.S. District Court. The Topeka-based court would release its decision in August, deciding that “no willful, intentional or

June 30 1913—Light showers fall across Topeka for a few minutes shortly after 8:55 a.m. The rain is part of a Midwest storm front, which broke a severe heat spell that had killed dozens, including at least 42 people in Chicago.

June images (listed in order of appearance, by date): June 1—Topeka State Hospital, detail of lithograph postcard from a private collection for Topeka Magazine; June 7—Detail of souvenir postcard from the Topeka Airship Show, June 7-9, 1910, from a private collection for Topeka Magazine; June 8—Detail of a souvenir postcard showing flood waters along Kansas Avenue, June, 1908, from a private collection for Topeka Magazine; June 19—Topeka streetcar from brochure Souvenir Vinewood Park, circa 1907-1910, from a private collection for Topeka Magazine; June 24—Detail of a lithograph postcard featuring the figureeight toboggan ride at Vinewood Park, from a private collection for Topeka Magazine.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

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July 8

July

July 21

July 1 1862—President Abraham Lincoln signs the Pacific Railroad Act, legislating the construction and payment for a national railroad to the Pacific. Section 12 of the act called for the Kansas section to travel through Topeka or on the river banks opposite the town. 1922—Some 1,000 Santa Fe Railway workers walk off the job in Topeka, joining a nationwide strike that was to last until October.

1856—Federal troops march on and forcibly disperse delegates of the free-state government, effectively putting an end to the Topekabased Free State Legislature that was opposing expansion of slavery into Territorial Kansas.

July 7

1934—Topeka celebrates Fourth of July at Gage Park with the presentation of a new ice-water drinking fountain, baseball games, a wife-carrying contest, a fat-man race, fireworks and more.

1904—Topeka paper Farmers Advocate tells farmers to man-up on the chore front. “I would like to ask you husbands how much you are doing this summer to help your busy, hard-working wife to attain to her ideals of an attractive and well-appointed home, both in the house and out of doors? … Try to give her a lift occasionally to help her to attain to them. You won’t be sorry. Try it and see.”

July 5

July 8

1915—Shawnee Golf Club (which became the Shawnee Country Club in 1931) opens with a one-hole gala for the ladies and a three-hole gala for men.

1888—The fourth annual session of the Kansas Chautauqua begins at Garfield Park. Part big-tent TED Talks, part Victorian-era earnest charm—these traveling performances of lectures and music were popular summer attractions across the states.

July 2 1965—The Melan Arch Bridge collapses over the Kansas River during rush hour traffic. One person is killed.

july

1889

Kansas Medical College of Topeka, the first medical college established in Kansas, opens at the corner of 12th and Tyler. Enrollment is 22 students with a faculty of 24. The two-year school would become part of the University of Kansas in 1913.

July 4

July 6

1855—Oh, say can you see the barrels’ red glare, the whiskey bursting in air? After voting to ban liquor sales in their new town, the members of the Topeka Association march just outside of the boundaries where an enterprising man had set up a makeshift liquor store. The Topekans collected money for the man, then ignited his barrels of whiskey, creating a tremendous teetotaler bonfire.

1859—Mabie’s Newly Organized Double Troupe of Menagerie and Circus performs in Topeka. Tickets are 50 cents for adults and 25 cents for children and servants. Based out of Delavan, Wisconsin, Mabie’s was arguably the nation’s leading circus at the time. Its most famous member, “Romeo” (a gargantuan 10.5-foot, 10,500-pound elephant), would kill 5 of his handlers in the course of his time with the circus.

July 9 1889—The probate of C.W. Potwin, for whom Potwin Place was named, is filed in Shawnee County courts. Though he never set foot in Topeka, the Ohio real estate speculator owned so much property in Topeka that it was necessary to conduct his legal affairs here after his death. July 10

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

1924—The KKK attempts to buy gratitude of Topeka churches. Neighborhood paper College Hill News reports that unexpected donations are dividing local churches. “The visit by a number of Klansmen to Central Park Christian church some weeks ago, when they left a substantial sum of money to help defray the expenses of a revival, was followed last Sunday night by a visit

from a number of Klansmen, in full regalia, to Lowman Memorial church, with a gift of $200 to aid in expense of the new addition. A member of the building board who objected to its acceptance was informed by one of the visitors that if it was not acceptable there were other churches that would be glad to get the money and it would probably be accepted.” July 11 1857—Fisticuffs break out on Kansas Avenue as temperance protesters march through town, smashing kegs and breaking bottles at local saloons. July 12 1941—Twenty-three cases of whooping cough hit Topeka and Shawnee County over a one-week period. 1951—A major flood strikes Topeka after the dikes break on the Kansas River west of the Topeka Avenue Bridge and east of the Melan Bridge. About 12,500 acres are flooded in North Topeka, Oakland, parts of east Topeka and Auburndale and the Shunganunga Creek region, causing an estimated $100 million in damage. July 13 1950—Ground is broken for the new Parish House (now the Cloister Building) at Grace Episcopal. July 14 1888—Merchants National Bank receives its charter with Cyrus K. Holliday as president, a position he would retain until his death in 1900. 1899—The heirs of Guildford Gage donate to the city 80 acres, which form the beginning of Gage Park. July 15 1910—The Topeka Daily Capital reports that “Topeka is becoming

1908

july 14 Senator Arthur Capper and his wife hold the first Capper’s Children’s Day. The celebration would become an annual tradition until 1950, with children of Topeka—regardless of race or class—invited to a local park for free pony rides and food.

CALL SYLVAN OF TOPEKA FOR CLASS SCHEDULES

Sylvan of Topeka 785-272-6284 topdir@sylvanks.com so free from sin and wrongdoing that the police are finding the situation monotonous.” Even a case against W.F. Weber for allowing manure to accumulate in his alley was dismissed for lack of evidence. 2013—Topekan Brian Jude Quinn, representing volunteer organization Silverbackks, is honored at the White House by President Barack Obama and former President George H.W. Bush with a Daily Point of Light award. The award was created to honor individuals and groups bettering their communities through nonprofit initiatives. July 16 1968—A district judge in Topeka releases 41 health care union demonstrators who had been charged with contempt of court for not limiting the number of pickets outside the Topeka State Hospital and Kansas Neurological Institute.

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and celebrate. Landon wins the Republican nomination but little else. Facing off against Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Landon wins the electoral votes only of Maine and Vermont … and fails to take his home state of Kansas. July 24 1886—One of the city’s oldest parks, Chesney Park, is acquired by purchase. The 3.36 acres of park became popular for its bandstand and children’s wading pool.

July 20

July 25 July 17

July 20

1965—Kansas has set up and stocked fallout shelters throughout the state, including 165 in the Topeka region, to provide refuge to citizens in the event of a nuclear attack. Working mostly on a firstcome, first-served basis, the Topeka facilities would hold 73,000 people, meaning approximately 1/3 of the city’s population would be left outside, fending for themselves.

1880—Mary K. Holliday, wife of Cyrus K. Holliday, obtains a triangular piece of land that would became known Holliday Park in 1895.

July 18 1978—An old-fashioned political rally is held at Gage Park to support Nancy Landon Kassebaum’s bid to represent Kansas in the U.S. Senate. Her father, former Kansas governor Alf Landon, is the keynote speaker. In December, Kassebaum would win the election and formally become the state’s first woman senator.

1900—Lowman School, one of the town’s few mixed-race schools, is burned down just six weeks before the fall session. July 21 1917—Topeka greets a delegation from Belgium with six large Belgian flags suspended over Kansas Avenue as a gesture of support for the small, besieged European nation being battered by the war in Europe. The visit comes as the first of 3,811 Kansas draft numbers are released and the city prepares for the possibility of sending its young men into the overseas war. July 22

July 19 1923—Shawnee County is awash in potatoes. The annual exporting of Kaw Valley potatoes began two weeks prior when spuds were $1.05 a bushel. But now their price has dropped to 65 cents a bushel, causing them to be too cheap to ship. Some 86 stock cars full of potatoes are sitting on the rail tracks in Topeka.

1959—Fats Domino, singersongwriter of “Blueberry Hill” fame, performs at Topeka’s Meadow Acres Ballroom. July 23 1936—Alf Landon announces his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination outside the Kansas Capitol where 80 high school bands gather to parade

July images (listed in order of appearance, by date): July 8—Detail of lithograph postcard featuring Garfield Park, private collection for Topeka Magazine; July 20—Boy’s Lowman Hill track team, 1912, via Kansas State Historical Society; July 21—Belgian aid relief sketch by W. A. Rogers in the New York Herald, 1914, via Library of Congress.

1903—The Vinewood opens south of Topeka near present-day Lake Shawnee as an amusement park with a dance pavilion and café. Some 7,500 flocked to the park, forcing trains to run all night. July 26 1913—The Krazy Kat Club is organized in the Highland Park neighborhood with 50 young people as members. Meetings of the social club were held every two weeks and featured talent shows, hayrack rides and picnics. July 27 1900—Two large rattlesnakes, each with ten rattles, are discovered and killed in Wanamaker.

1905

July 29 1943—Topeka pencil collectors mourn that their hobby has lost popularity. Buford D. Sumpters notes his collection has suffered recently because production resources are focused on the war effort. Sumpters has in his collection some 13,646 pencils, many of them which were once used or owned by famous people such as Senator Arthur Capper. July 30 1906—East Topeka residents are telling the mayor they prefer having their horse teams cross over the rail tracks rather than risk running into street cars on a narrow viaduct. July 31 1941—Arthur Capper and Oscar Stauffer form the Topeka Newspaper Printing Company by combining the resources of the Daily Capital and the State Journal. Capper held two-thirds of the new company’s stock. 1961—Approximately 70 head of cattle roam the Kansas Turnpike after a cattle truck tipped over 11 miles south of Topeka. Highway patrol officers, turnpike personnel and one horse are called to round up the cattle.

July 28

Topeka Plaindealer newspaper editor Nick Chiles reveals that he has secretly integrated Governor’s Square, a fashionable neighborhood where owners refuse to rent to black families. Chiles announced that an African-American man who appeared white has been living in the area for 16 months without incident. Chiles writes that the experiment has taught Topeka’s white community “that living in the same block with colored people does not injure their high standing in the social world, nor has it been the cause of them being slighted by any of the fashionable circle in which they move. We have taught them that we do not consider it anymore of an honor to live in the same block with them than it is with people of their own race, and that we do not feel that it has raised our standing in the least.”

Monumental Topekans

John Meade 1853–1924

Farmer and Diarist John Meade was born on November 1, 1853, in Ninevah, Virginia, and came to Topeka in April 1877 to work as an assistant to the superintendent of bridges and buildings for the Santa Fe railroad. He met Emily J. Ward, better known as Jennie, whose family was one of the early settlers in this area. They married in 1879 and raised seven children. Meade detailed much of his Topeka life from 1905 to 1920 in a diary, copies of which are kept by the county in the archives of Old Prairie Town and published here for the first time. Preserving a record of the mundane tasks and small joys of raising a family in the relatively new state capital, Meade’s entries are a direct link to daily life in early Topeka,. Because he was a farmer, much of Meade’s attention is directed toward stock, crops and weather. But those practical issues were mixed with daily concerns of a family, celebrations, joys and tragedies. Thursday Night, August 17, 1905: Topeka experienced the worst wind storm ever known in its history being the culmination of a long hot spell. It being 104 in the shade, during Thursday. Many buildings were unroofed, Griswolds Mill, Crawfords opera house, & Warren M. Crosbys store being amongst the list. Telephone & electric light wires all blown to pieces. Birds by the thousands, lay dead on the ground & stenched the air for several days. The large elm tree near our gate (South) was blown to pieces & had to be topped & our new barn under course of erection, was blown down.

March 18, 1906: We had our first blizzard & snow storm of the season, i.e. in the way of howling & fury, 6” of snow fell… May 18, 1906: Our Brindle cow had a heifer at 6 o’clock this morning … December 25, 1906: A bright beautiful xmas day. No snow & warm enough to set outside. Saturday, April 20, 1907: Our faithful and beloved old mare Ester, died tonight at 9 P.M. in a livery stable in North Topeka, of acute pneumonia, was only sick 8 hours. Prichard & Nicely were called, & did everything possible to save her life. Alice drove her over to the Union Pacific depot, where she was first noticed to be shivering & suffering with very high temperature, & had to be taken to the livery stable. Friday, May 3, 1907: Had a snow storm of 2 ½ inches last night & this morning, killing all fruit & young leaves & vegetation. Wednesday, December 25, 1907: A bright beautiful Xmas Day. Every body home by Bessie. Attended 11 o’clock services with Mrs. Meade. Daisy Pullman had her baby baptized. David Lakin & Daisy Moore sponsors. Temperature outside about 60. We all had dinner at Mrs. Lakins, 16 in number. Had a most delightful time & family reunion, enjoying the little comical gifts & witty saying with each very much, also had small fire works for last course at dinner & a game after dinner, in which each one was blind folded & tried to see who could pin a tail closest on a paper mule pinned on a door. the writer won both prizes.

Wednesday, January 1, 1908: A bright beautiful day, out side temperature about 50. Mrs. Meade & myself went calling in the afternoon. 1st to Mr Isles, Highland Park 2nd Y.M.C.A., 3rd Bishop Millspaughs, 4th Cousin Bill’s, & I spent the evening with Mr and Mr. C.W. Merriam. Mr. Meade did not call at the latter place. No snow, no mud, roads fine & a spring-like day. Wednesday, June 30, 1909: Mary was married this evening, 8 o’clock, at Grace Cathedral, to Torrance J. Ewart, a hauling man, with the Hall Lithographing Co. Topeka, by Bishop Millspaugh, assisted by Dean Kaye, a beautiful wedding & elegant presents, the writer gave her away. They went West on a 3 mos trip. March 8, 1911: Torrance J. Ewart was paralyzed on his left side, just as he got home from the office. a very severe case. March 21, 1915: Taken sick with Nephritis, at Engineers Convention, Chicago. July 1, 1916: Scott Thompson, cut the alfalfa, to day, gave him 1/2. Meade struggled with nephritis, an inflammation of the kidneys, for the rest of his life. After suffering a stroke, he died on October 31, 1924, leaving behind his account of life in Topeka. He also left the legacy of his home, which the family sold to Topeka in 1960 and now forms the core of Old Prairie Town at Ward-Meade Historic Site. —Linda A. Ditch

Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

August

August 1

August 6

1951—Topeka State Hospital begins outpatient psychotherapy treatment for adults as part of its pre-doctoral training program approved by the American Psychological Association.

1942—A much-needed rain rescues the county’s 40,000 acres of corn that was in danger of dying. County farm agent Preston Hale says the rain “is easily worth a million dollars to Shawnee county farmers.” The rain also helped save the region’s soybean crop, vital in making explosives and camouflage paint—both in crucial demand for the war effort.

August 2 1926—The original plat for the Westboro neighborhood is filed. Lots were initially sold for $37.50 per linear foot. August 3 1944—News reaches Topeka that one of the city’s civilian-soldiers, former Topeka insurance executive Howard S. Searle, now Col. Searle in the Kansas National Guard’s 35th Division, has helped capture a top Nazi military figure, General von Schlieben, near Cherbourg, France.

August 7 1954—A Topeka driving instructor lets out the secret that—shock—women are generally easier to teach than men. Furthermore, the instructor points to national studies that show women have fewer accidents per mile than their male counterparts. All in all, men don’t come off well in his experience, but particularly as teachers. The instructor faults husbands for being notoriously impatient when they attempt to teach their wives to drive a car.

August 31 1969

august 3

The three monkeys who escaped from the Topeka Zoo voluntarily return—but not to their cages. Zoo officials have noticed them on the grounds and were able to trap only one of the three runaways. “At least they’re inside the zoo,” says director Gary Clarke. “The zoo visitors get quite a kick out of it—seven monkeys inside the cage and two of them on top.”

August 27 August 22

August 4

August 8

1978—Hayden High School lifts its ban on students wearing beards and mustaches. It will also now allows students to grow hair to any length. But some regulations are staying in place. For example, bib overalls are still strictly forbidden.

1874—A plague of grasshoppers cuts through Kansas and the state capital. It will continue for three-weeks, darkening skies and devastating crops.

August 5 1950—The famous Kansas City Monarchs defeat the Indianapolis Clowns in a Negro American League exhibition game at Topeka’s Hicks Field.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

August 9 1953—The movie Topeka opens in theaters. It’s a B-grade Wild West film starring Bill Elliott about a group of renegades-turned-lawmen who win a town’s affection.

1950—The state auditor’s office in Topeka mistakenly sends out some 6,000 payroll checks dated back to the year 1050.

Monumental Topekans

August 13 1969—Gas prices rise sharply across Topeka with regular leaded gasoline jumping from 22.9 cents per gallon to 35.9 cents per gallon.

august

August 11 1970— Many local families are enjoying the opening of Perry Reservoir and the chance to spend the weekend on their houseboats. One such family is the Hankamers, who have launched their 46-foot houseboat, “Freckles,” practically every weekend of the season. August 10 1889—Rev. John D. Knox, Methodist Episcopal Church minister and head of the John. D. Knox and Company Bankers and Loan Agents, declares bankruptcy with debts of more than $500,000. Reporting on the event several days later, the Chicago Tribune noted that many of the clergyman-banker’s creditors were widows who had entrusted him with their entire life savings.

1959—Topeka native Gil Carter, playing with a Chicago Cubs minor league baseball team in Carlsbad, New Mexico, hits a 733-foot home run that is regarded as the longest home-run hit in the history of professional baseball. 1979—The leadership of the Topeka Beautification Association laments that Topeka club members are eager to show up at meetings, but less eager to participate in clean-up days. Removing trash from streets should be a priority, says the official.

1908—Under a slogan “Throw Away Your Hammer and Buy a Horn,” North Topeka is celebrating what it thinks will be the end of flooding in the area after the construction of a new pumping station, sewage extensions and dikes. Celebrations proved tragically premature as the region would face several floods over the coming decades.

August 12

August 15

1915—Scuffles have broken out in Garfield Park as police try to close down a swelling gathering of Evangelical Christians who have been flocking to the area to see spiritual leader Maria B. Woodworth-Etter, believed by fellow believers to have healed a young cripple at the meeting.

1877—Young hoodlums are using a rope to trip people as they walk across the bridge at Fourth and Polk streets. On Saturday, some 10–15 hoodlums were observed to have “yelled and shrieked with laughter” after tripping and injuring a group of elderly ladies, reports the Daily Commonwealth.

L.F. Garlinghouse 1879–1965 Builder and Dreamer In 1906, L.F. Garlinghouse, a farm boy who attended Washburn Law School, opened a small realty office at 608 SW Kansas. It was a daring move; Topeka already boasted more than 100 real estate firms. But Garlinghouse had an entrepreneurial spirit that propelled him into becoming one of the largest builders in Topeka and dominating the construction business in the Auburndale and Edgewood Park areas. Soon, Garlinghouse began putting pictures of his bungalows with floorplans in banks and lumberyards—the idea being that people could buy property, the floor plan and build the house on their own or through contract. Garlinghouse Company published its first book of house plans in 1916. Bungalow Homes was 40 pages and featured 25 houses with plans from houses Garlinghouse had already built, most of them in Topeka. As the plan books became successful, they included more than just Garlinghousebuilt homes. Garlinghouse or his head designer would drive around Topeka photographing houses, talking to homeowners, going inside or simply extrapolating the floorplan based on the architectural elements. As a result, the early plan books are a scrapbook of Topeka architecture. Over the years the plan books expanded to include multiple home styles: bungalows, Spanish, duplexes, Tudors, ranches, etc. —Christine Steinkuehler

Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

August 16

August 20

1962—The integration of Topeka Fire Department begins with six white firemen reporting for duties at the historically allblack Fire Station No. 3, and six black firemen from Station No. 3 reassigned to stations across the city.

1978—The Topeka Balloon Club finishes its third annual Huff ’n’ Puff hot air balloon festival, ending a tradition of launching balloons from the Capitol grounds in the center of Topeka. The festival would move to the campus of Washburn University and on to Lake Shawnee, where it continues to be held.

August 17 1909—The Daily Capital holds its Children’s Day celebration at Vinewood Park. The following year, Daily Capital publisher Arthur Capper would organize the free and open celebration attended by thousands of children as Capper’s Children’s Day, a summer tradition that would continue until 1951.

1954—A 7-year-old Topeka girl who received the Salk polio vaccination as part of a nation-wide test of the vaccine has been admitted to a Topeka hospital with polio. Doctors say the effectiveness and value of the vaccine, however, cannot be judged by one case.

1942—Topeka Army Air Field (now Forbes Fields) opens as a training installation for B-24 bombardment crews. August 23

August 18 1871—The Topeka Board of Education formally establishes Topeka High School. August 19 1969—Topeka police introduce uniform changes. American flag emblems will go on their uniforms and approximately one dozen police will wear “ununiforms,” described as soft blue blazers, shirts, slacks and shoes, in order to “soften” the image of policemen. The purpose of the flags is to indicate a “solidarity with American ideals” and to commemorate the flight of Apollo 11, Police Chief Dana Hummer tells Topeka Daily Capital.

august 24 Yankee Robinson arrives in Topeka with his animal show, featuring 210 horses, ponies, mules and an “Egyptian Walapus.” The walapus, though billed as an exotic and exceeding rare animal, is believed to have been a water buffalo or, as one local observer remarked, “it’s nothing but a blamed Mexican cow with her hair scraped off and her horns knocked hell-west and crooked.”

August 21

August 22 1942—Mrs. Pennie Steiner Lathrop, a graduate of Seaman High School, is now stationed in New York as one of the first women inspectors of radio for the Army signal corps.

1867

1920—Debate continues among Topeka’s rival papers as to whether a hero cat gave its life to rescue a group of kittens from a fire in the Arnold Drug Company. A reporter from the Topeka State Journal first reported that a mother cat rescued her three kittens, one by one by the napes of their necks through flames and smoke, giving up her life just after rescuing the last kitten. The Topeka Daily Capital retorts that the story is touching, except for the fact that the animal was a tomcat, and that no kittens existed. To this, the Journal responds that its reporter might not be an expert on a cat’s sex, but he does know three orphan kittens were rescued and are at the Arnold store for all to see.

August 25

August 29

1855—Shawnee County is organized mostly from land that once belonged to the Shawnee nation with original boundaries from the Kansas River south almost to Burlingame (in what is now Osage County).

1907—The Elks Club is issued a permit to build a $50,000 building at the corner of Seventh and Jackson streets. The building is now owned by the Kansas Highway Patrol. August 30

August 26 1934—Dedication ceremonies are held for the $1-million Federal building, home to the downtown Topeka post office, built on the site of the former post office (which was built in 1884). August 27 1927—The Santa Fe Hobo Band headlines entertainment at the Santa Fe Railway picnic and parade. August 28 1946—Birthday of Mike Torrez, Topeka High graduate, professional baseball star and member of 1977 World Champions New York Yankees, who was named by the Topeka CapitalJournal as the greatest athlete in the history of Shawnee County.

August images (listed in order of appearance, by date): August 7—Advertisement for Dodge cars, circa 1949-1952; August 22—B-24E in flight via War Department/Library of Congress; August 24—Sketch of water buffalo, common domain; August 27—Santa Fe Hobo Band playing in 1927, via Wolfe photography/Harold Wolfe and Kansas State Historical Society; August 28—1977 Topps baseball card of Mike Torrez; August 31—Promotional photograph of Wanda Hawley, lead actress in film Bobbed Hair, via Library of Congress. Monumental Topekans photograph of L.F. Garlinghouse via Who’s Who in Topeka, 1926.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

1912—The traditional September 1 switchover from summer straw hats to winter felt hats might not be warranted because of warm weather this year, notes the Topeka State Journal. Nonetheless, gentlemen should spiffy up their felt headgear and accept the inevitable—winter is coming and straw hats must be put away. August 31 1922—A “Bobbed Hair Contest” is held by the Cozy Theatre to mark the new film Bobbed Hair and to celebrate flapper fashion. It was won by a young girl from College Hill.

August 28

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september September 1

September 4

1854—Anthony Ward and his family move onto a land claim in what would become Topeka.

1913—Combining education and progressive health policies, officials reward Topeka school children for swatting flies.

September 2 1911—Topekans Albin and Ereanius Longren complete their first successful flight with a distance of 200 feet. Their plane, the Topeka I, was the first Kansas-made aircraft to fly. Albin Longren would go on to operate a plane factory in Oakland.

1949

1942—The War Department announces it will build a permanent $3-million general hospital in Topeka with plans to convert it into a veterans’ hospital after the war. It later becomes what is now the Colmery-O’Neil VA Medical Center.

september 3

Ms. Gulllian will give a speech on historic hosiery, showing off her collection of stocking pairs dating back to the 1820s.

September 3

September 5

1946—Capper Publishing purchases the Redden Building at 912 Kansas Avenue for $80,000. It would house some of the editorial and advertising offices in addition to Capper Printing Company.

1957—Topeka annexes Highland Park.

September 9

September 6 1896—A 13-year-old Topeka girl is confirmed dead from severe burns in a home accident. The girl had been helping her sick mother with chores around the house when she mistakenly used gasoline to light a fire to prepare supper. The girl’s mother also received severe burns when she rushed to the aid of her daughter. The mother is in severe shock and her life is now in danger as well. September 7 1900—Several of the city’s young ladies have been driving out to Wanamaker to visit the state militia boys who are camped there for target practice. Unfortunately, one young woman was so distracted by the soldiers that she drove her horse straight into a ditch. September 8 1888—New York vaudeville and opera star Lizzie Evans is set to present her latest performance at the Crawford Opera House. 1897—Topeka High School graduate Lutie Lytle is the first black woman admitted to the bar in Tennessee. One month later, she also would become the first black woman admitted to the bar in Kansas. September 9 1871—The first Kansas state fair is held at the Kansas Free Fair Grounds, what is now the Expocentre grounds. The fair entrance still stands at the southwest corner of 17th and Topeka

1928—Sisters of Bethany College closes. The school, which had a bachelor’s program for women, was originally named Episcopal Female Seminary of Topeka when it opened in 1861. Most of the college’s buildings were razed to provide a building site for Topeka High School.

E N j o y

N I g h t

o u t

September 10 1939—Aaron Douglas returns to Topeka to visit his sister-in-law and conduct a private showing of his art. Douglas, a leading American artist and prominent figure in the Harlem Renaissance, graduated from Topeka High School in 1917. September 11 1882—Topeka’s Fire Station No. 3 opens. Manned by an all-black crew, it becomes a gathering point and de facto community center for the African-American community in East Topeka. 2011—Dozens of Topeka community, religious and collegiate groups gather to observe the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks with a day of volunteerism and an ecumenical remembrance service. September 12 1861—Episcopal Female Seminary is completed. The three story brick building facing Ninth Street and Topeka Avenue will host ten instructors teaching core courses in ancient languages, metaphysics, geometry, French, algebra, trigonometry, and natural science.

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1906

September 20

september 13

1900—Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show performs in Topeka.

Ostrich races in Topeka draw a crowd of approximately 10,000 people.

September 14

Alonzo Thomas 1877–1969 Horologist and Entrepreneur In the days before cell phones and radio, pocket watches were the king of handheld devices, setting the pace for the day and helping trains run on time. Alonzo Thomas entered the world of horology by attending the Peoria Watchmaking School and opened a small shop in Topeka at 601 East Fourth. Strategically near the Santa Fe depot, Thomas’ shop became the Santa Fe Watch Company after an official endorsement in 1896. In 1902, Thomas married Annie Porter, who took over books and expanded the store into a diamond business. The new branch flourished and expanded, first on Eighth Street and later at 821 SW Kansas Avenue. It also became the city’s first dealer of Columbia machines and Edison phonographs. But Thomas continued selling watches as well, offering deals of trial periods and monthly payments through ads in railroad magazines and popular periodicals. Although much of the jewelry was made at the shop in Topeka, the company also pioneered outsourcing—to a watch company in Springfield, Illinois—before selling the business in 1942. —Christine Steinkuehler

TOPEKA MAGAZINE

1947—Cornerstone is laid at 134 NE Lake for Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. September 15 1904—Topeka paper Farmers Advocate calls for reassessing national budget priorities: “The army and navy get $97,000,000 while agriculture is allowed $6,000,000 of national appropriations. We would change these figures, somewhat.” September 16 1932—Topeka newspaper The Pink Rag hypes a sartorial showdown in the city. “It looks very much like Dr. Titus is trying to do Mayor Wilcox out of his title as Best Dressed Man. The talk is around town that Doc. bought 14 ties at one sitting.”

a classic gothiccollegiate design with spires and stained glass windows. September 18 1871—Topeka High School opens on the third floor of the Lincoln School at Fifth and Madison streets. September 19 1967—A Topekan walks into the First National Bank, presents $1,269 worth of silver certificates and asks for them to be redeemed in silver as guaranteed by the federal government. The bank, not having silver on hand, sent off for a silver bar that weighed some 62.5 pounds and was the size of a loaf of bread.

1928—The GEM market and drugstore at 10th and Topeka Avenue formally opens.

1934—The Capper Foundation for Crippled Children is incorporated as a charity to continue the work that the Capper Fund began in the 1920s. September 27

1894—Members of the Kansas Masonic Grand Lodge and Topeka Lodge 17 lay the cornerstone of the original, Richardson Romanesque-style Shawnee County courthouse at Fifth and Van Buren. September 23 2014—Facing a bill that was too hot to handle, the Topeka City Council declined to vote on an ordinance banning public nudity and chose to send it to a commission for further review. The bill, originally proposed and failed in 2005, would be passed in August 2015.

1942—City officials and personnel from Topeka Air Base remove a WW I memorial artillery gun from Gage Park to be melted into scrap metal for military use. September 25 September 20

September 26

September 22

September 24

September 17 1931—Topeka High opens for classes in its new building in the 800 block of 10th Street. It is greeted as a triumph of architecture, combining modern facilities with

September 21

with ties to Topeka, is appointed United States secretary of war.

1936—Harry Hines Woodring, a former Kansas governor

1911—Topeka throws a horse parade to greet the arrival of President William Howard Taft. September 28 1889—Train service begins to Vinewood at a cost of 5 cents for the five-mile trip. The owners of the park with amusements and natural landscape urge families to come and gather nuts on Sundays. September 29 1904—How do you raise those 19thcentury Millennials? Well, Topeka paper Farmers Advocate prints some solid advice for young men: “Do not look toward a bedroom door when passing. Always knock at any private room door.” September 30 1880—Bus service begins in central Topeka as a two-horse bus commences rides between the railroad depots and hotels for a ticket price of 5 cents.

September images (listed in order of appearance, by date): September 2—Topeka I, as displayed in the Kansas State History Museum, via Kansas State Historical Society; September 8—Promotional card of Lizzie Evans, via Library of Congress; September 9—Students at Sisters of Bethany prepare for May Day performance, 1916, via Kansas State Historical Society; September 19—Promotional poster for Buffalo Bill show, via Library of Congress. Monumental Topekans photograph of Alonzo Thomas from Builders of Topeka, 1956.

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October 8

October 1

October

October 1

October 2

1905—The Kansas capital is getting ready for a visit from Eugene V. Debs, who represented the Socialist Party in U.S. presidential elections 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912 and 1920. Though Topeka was never a Socialist stronghold, there was a Socialist Party presence and Debs’ background as a railroad worker might have struck a chord with the city’s large rail community. Kansas, in general, was also sympathetic to the Socialist cause. When Debs had his best showing in the 1912 presidential elections, taking 6 percent of the vote, Kansas gave him more than 7 percent of the state’s ballots.

1905—Going West? Topeka ticket agents offer special Santa Fe Railway fares, including 75-cent one-way tickets for home-owners seeking new land in Texas, New Mexico, the Indian Territory and other destinations.

October 4

October 5

October 7

1910—An editorial cartoon for the Topeka State Journal predicts an era of “sissified” football for Washburn University, which is forced to play under a new set of rules, many of which—such as the ban on the flying tackle— were designed for the safety of players.

1858—Topeka defeats Tecumseh in the fight to be the county seat. The decision was made by a special vote in the Territorial legislature.

1934—Topeka High School World advises students to be sensible when dressing for big dates at Trojan football games: small hats that won’t obstruct the view, shoes that allow you to climb bleachers and tiny combs tucked into braids or curls for emergency coiffure repair.

1899—Topeka holds its first golf tournament at the Keith tract, an area of land in present-day Kenwood.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

1922

Topeka CapitalJournal’s second-greatest athlete in the history of Shawnee County for his Gold-Glove-winning defensive play, finishes the 1972 season with a rare sum error total of zero.

October 6 1942—Six-year old Virginia Mel Miller is being praised for donating the metal stands of her swingset as 100 pounds of scrap metal for the war effort. Her swing is now supported by an apple-tree limb in her yard.

October 3 The Topeka Daily Capital lauds Governor Henry J. Allen as the state’s official football good luck mascot. The University of Kansas football squad has so far won most every game that Gov. Allen has attended.

1972—Ken Berry, Washburn Rural graduate, professional baseball player and named as

October 8 1909—At least 17 people die after two rail engines collide

on the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway north of Topeka near Soldier Creek.

school catering classes for girls. Other lessons have included a study of maid uniforms.

October 9

October 14

1928—Crowds fill the area around Eighth and Kansas for a transmission of the final game in World Series play between the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals. The Yankees took the series in four games straight.

1905—Diphtheria strikes the region with 17 cases reported in the county.

October 10 1907—“Kenwood” has been chosen from 500 entries as the name of the new subdivision that had been known as the “Keith tract” at Willow and Broadmoor. 1941—The Menninger Foundation is formed as a non-profit group that would encompass Topeka’s Menninger Clinic and related schools and facilities. Originally founded as a private family practice in 1919, the Menninger Clinic had grown to become a renowned, progressive mental health facility that treated patients from across the United States and remained in Topeka until 2003. October 11 1888—Police officer arrests a Union Pacific conductor and brakeman for allowing their train to idle for 25 minutes at the Harrison Street crossing, a common practice at the time that was infuriating residents.

October 15 1897—Sixth time’s the charm? The Topeka Daily Capital reports that a local Topeka man has now had five engagements called off. In each case, it was the young lady who broke off the match. October 16 1916—Residents of the Topeka neighborhood of Oakland have indignantly refused a request from their namesake city in California to get off the map and allow the California metropolis exclusive use of the name.

October 19 1913—A parent-teacher association is organized at Rochester School and is the first rural group of its kind known in the state. October 20 1897—A scurrilous Slavic squash-saleswoman’s screeds spoil serenity. Residents along Monroe Street say that the elderly Russian vegetable woman Mrs. Winn is disturbing the peace with strong language in loud tones. October 21 1925—On the third public vote, Oakland agrees to annexation into the city of Topeka.

october 16 1933— Asked to bring unusual pets to science class, Topeka High School students responded by showing off two spider collections and one live rattlesnake.

October 22 1918—Topeka buildings, including 1517 Mulvane and the Kappa Sig house at 15th and Boswell are called into service as hospitals for flu victims. Washburn’s Rice Hall is put to use for isolation cases. October 23

October 12

October 17

1912—Democratic presidential candidate Woodrow Wilson campaigns at the City Auditorium. Wilson would win Kansas’ electoral votes and the national election in November.

1909—St. Francis Health (St. Francis Hospital) begins treating patients at a 40-bed facility on West Sixth and Garfield. The hospital was established by the Sisters of Charity, Leavenworth, Kansas, at an estimated cost of $50,000. October 18

October 13 1933—Reflecting Depression-era job opportunities, Topeka High School has been holding after-

October 23

1897—It’s Washburn University football team’s greatest day as the team risks losing an away game because it refuses to racially segregate its squad. Arriving for a game at St. Mary’s, Washburn learned that the home team would not play the game unless the Ichabods dropped one of their players— a black student—from the contest. Washburn refused and chose to pick up its own hotel bills and railway fares rather than comply with St. Mary’s demands. The referee for the game, however, sided with Washburn and awarded the contest to the Ichabods with a score of 6-0.

1938—Topeka High School’s 1938 yearbook wins first place in the national yearbook contest sponsored by Columbia University Scholastic Press association. Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

Monumental Topekans

October 24 1936—Topekan and Kansas First Lady, Theo Cobb Landon, breaks with tradition by declining to participate in her husband’s political campaign for president of the United States. Although Governor Landon’s advisors say his spouse would be an asset on the campaign trail, they have agreed to respect her wishes to remain out of the limelight and stay in Kansas with her children.

John Ritchie 1817–1887 Radical and Philanthropist John Ritchie came from Indiana to Kansas in 1854 with the intention of setting up a farm and helping make Kansas a free state. It was a difficult time for both. The besieged Free-State farmers were forced to defend their families and neglect their crops, leaving Topeka dangerously short of supplies and provisions. In 1856, Ritchie emerged as a leader, heading a group of raiders into pro-slavery regions such as Oskaloosa to secure supplies. He also operated a station on the Underground Railroad and assisted his friend and ally John Brown in battling pro-slavery forces. Ideologically, Ritchie fought on all sides, battling fellow Free-Staters by taking positions that were considered radical at the time. As a delegate at territorial constitutional conventions, Ritchie spoke and voted against proposals that would restrict the rights of blacks, voted for full women’s suffrage, and worked to restrict the sale of alcohol. Having accumulated land in Topeka, Ritchie was generous in distributing it. He sold plots without regard to the race of the buyers, and he donated land that would become Mount Auburn Cemetery for blacks and land at 17th and Boswell that would become a cemetery for the poor. He also donated land that would become the site of Washburn University. —Christine Steinkuehler

October 25 1929—Topeka Catholic High School wallops Manhattan in a football game 18-0. Stinging from defeat, the Manhattan team would recruit what the high school yearbook described as “three players of unmistakable size and apparent roughness” for the rematch later that same season. Despite the gigantic recruits, Topeka won again, 13-0. October 26 1992—The United States Congress formally establishes the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site to commemorate the 1954 Supreme Court’s unanimous decision that struck down racially segregated public educational facilities. The site chosen for the national park was the former Monroe Elementary School, one of the four segregated elementary schools for African-American children in Topeka. October 27 1947—Topeka business leaders call for the production of more broilers across the Topeka region. The production of broilers—domestically raised meat chickens—would surge across the United States in the years after WW II.

October 28 1912—Ahead of a historic vote that will give women access to polls in state elections, Kansas Suffragettes send out final newsletter to supporters across the state. With the headline “KANSAS MUST NOT FAIL!,” the newsletter exhorted supporters to continue all efforts in the final stretch. In the capital, the campaign was spearheaded by the Good Government Club of Topeka. Their efforts would pay off. Kansas passed the suffrage bill on November 5, making it the eighth state in the Union to recognize women’s right to vote.

october 1948

Washburn University observes a traditional week where women foot the bill for all dates. The Topeka Daily Capital notes female students do not seem to mind pulling out their purses since the university is now filled with returning soldiers, and the tradition allows women “to date the men they want for a change.”

October 30 1938—Striking a blow to Depression-era gloom, The Palace celebrates its 50th anniversary with 25-cent “appreciation certificates” for patrons to use in seeing the latest films. October 31 1945—With relief, Topeka shoe store managers tell the Topeka State Journal that customers behaved with “sane and sensible buying” on the first day of post-war unrationed shoe sales. The managers promise plenty of shoes will be available in coming months.

October images (listed in order of appearance, by date): October 1—1904 election poster for Eugene Debs and Socialist Party, common domain; October 8—Train Crash near Soldier Creek north of Topeka, via Kansas State Historical Society; Rattlesnake, Shutterstock; October 23—1895 Washburn Football team, via Kansas State Historical Society; October 28—Poster for Woman’s Suffrage, Library of Congress. Monumental Topekans photograph of John Ritchie via Kansas State Historical Society.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

november

1917—A sugar shortage leaves Topeka unable to bake pies, cakes and cookies.

November 1 1891—As lynchings increase and race relations worsen across the United States, the black newspaper Topeka Weekly Call encourages readers to stop singing a popular spiritual. “Brothers, please quit singing that song: ‘Take all the world and give me Jesus.’ That talk used to go, but it don’t go now,” writes the paper.

1899

November 6 1915—The Brist Manufacturing Company—based in the Kansas capital— grows to employ 30–35 people making boomerang sets sold as a game set for $3–$15 or separately for 25–50 cents.

November

second

Topeka welcomes home the 20th Kansas Volunteer Infantry, or the “Fighting 20th,” with a parade through downtown Topeka. The Fighting 20th served in the Spanish-American War. Though most men had enlisted in the early period of the war when the United States battled Spanish forces in Cuba, the unit ended up being stationed in the Philippines where they faced down Filipino independence forces.

November 21 November 3

November 3

November 7

1946—The Santa Fe Apprentice School enrolls 900 new students to become railmen. With no national highway system in place at the time, railroads continued to serve as the nation’s vital transportation arteries.

1954—The Topeka Humane Society, forerunner of Helping Hands Humane Society, holds an open house to mark the new shelter at 2625 Rochester Road. Since the flood of 1951, shelter volunteers had housed and cared for animals at their homes.

November 4 November 8 1956—Topeka Public Library starts what would become a very popular, nearly 40-year program—loaning library patrons framed art prints for several months at a time. For a time, librarians also worked as art framers, placing and repairing frames for the prints on loan. November 5 1880—Washburn University officials register the beginnings of the College Hill subdivision.

1886—The Wichita County showdown moves to Topeka. Embroiled in a dispute over selecting the capital of a sparsely populated county in Western Kansas, a delegation from the city of Leoti arrives to Topeka to make their case against rival town Coronado for the county seat. The dispute leads to the public whipping of a newspaper editor, a covered wagon shoot-out, ballot-stuffing, townsfolk being forced to chug beer at gunpoint, mass arrests and two years of litigation.

1912—In a statewide ballot, Kansas women win right of suffrage for state elections, making the state the eighth in the nation to give women the vote. Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

November 9

November 14

1956—The predecessor of the Helping Hands Humane Society establishes the city’s first official cemetery for pets with options for burial or cremation.

1914—Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Parish is established by Pedro Lopez and Father Ocampo.

November 10 1897—Cancer is cured, or so claims an advertisement in the Topeka Advocate for Dr. B.F. Bye’s Oils. The ad goes on to state that the miraculous substance cures tumors as well and that all of the medication can be prescribed and taken at home without the interference of a physician. Quack medical advertisements were rampant in the United States in the late 1800s. But, fortunately in this case, medical justice was served in 1905 when Collier’s ran an exposé on the fraudulent Bye medical empire operators, describing them as “cancer vampires.”

1953—Arthur Capper’s WIBW TV, Channel 13, goes on air.

1961—The county establishes Rural Water District 8 in response to years of drought. November 17

1855—The Topeka Constitutional Convention closes at Constitution Hall. This gathering of Free-State delegates drafted a “Topeka Constitution” for the state that would outlaw slavery. The convention’s draft failed to win federal approval, but the gathering advanced the Free-State cause and set a precedent vote for establishing Topeka as the state’s capital. 1918—Topeka allows businesses and churches to reopen, lifting stringent quarantine and isolation regulations set in response to the deadly epidemic known as the Spanish flu.

1884

November 12

Marshall’s Band is organized. The brass group would be the first owners of Garfield Park, where they would perform for 131 (and counting!) years.

November 13 1967—Topeka holds “Farm City Week” to bridge contacts between the region’s urban and rural residents and businesses.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

November 19

November 23

1887—The Topeka YWCA is founded for the purposes of the “elevation of women physically, mentally, morally and spiritually.” The first home for the YWCA was at 108 E. Sixth.

1951—Local skaters are preparing for auditions to appear on the “Skating Vanities” show, a rollerskating dance troupe with elaborate productions and costuming.

November 15

November 16

November 11

November 24

1916—The Topeka Commercial Club becomes the Topeka Chamber of Commerce.

1897—What will the future Kansas look like? Marveling at the expansion of commerce and trade, the editors of Topeka’s Advocate estimate that Kansas could support a population of 25 million people. The state population did increase from 1890s level of 1.5 million people, but so far, by the 2014 census, has not exceeded 3 million. November 18 1932—A Topeka man might never make the list of most eligible bachelor. The Pink Rag reports that “Tarzan” Weismuller’s most recent date was so short of entertainment that she fell asleep in his car and tumbled out of the rumble seat.

November 24 November 20 1998—The Topeka Scarecrows win their first shootout game, topping the Wichita Thunder 4-3 in Wichita. The Scarecrows were in the Central Hockey League and played in Topeka at the Landon Arena from 1998–2001.

1904—The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway offers special $7.60 return tickets to catch the last days of the World’s Fair. “Up-to-date people should see it. Plan to go now. The last chance to see splendors of the largest and most comprehensive of world’s fairs.”

November 21 1904—Music legend Coleman Hawkins is born in Missouri. Hawkins would study at Topeka High School and Washburn University before moving to New York City and establishing himself as one of jazz’s greatest tenor saxophonists. November 22 2009—St John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, informally organized in 1872, holds a dedication ceremony after an extensive renovation of church facilities in the 900 block of Fillmore.

November

25 1986—CASA of Shawnee County is formed as a volunteer organization to advocate for children involved in the court system.

plan for revitalization of Tennessee Town, a historic neighborhood in central Topeka originally settled by freed slaves from Tennessee. The plan would gain final approval in January 2001. November 28

November 28

1890—The first organized football game is held in Topeka as a match between Washburn University and Baker University. Unfortunately, the home team lost 32-0. November 29

November 25

November 26

1857—Topeka Lodge 17 is formed in Topeka as the city’s first Masonry Lodge; founding members include Cyrus K. Holliday.

1975—An arson fire destroys Grace Episcopal Cathedral, leaving only the stonework standing. Reconstruction was started immediately.

2006—Topeka guitarist Andy McKee uploads a video of himself playing his tune “Drifting.” The video becomes a viral sensation with more than 50 million views, helping to launch McKee as a global artist and popularize his finger-style guitar playing.

1987—Rock legends KISS perform at the Kansas Expocentre.

1870—The Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Railway signs a contract to build railway connection between Topeka and Atchison. Though chartered in 1859, this would be the first time the company actually controlled a line directly linking its two namesake cities. November 30

November 27 2000—A Shawnee County planning commission approves a long-range

1857—Jehial Tyler is appointed Shawnee County sheriff by the governor of Territorial Kansas. Tyler, backed by Free-State forces, was the fifth sheriff in only two years of appointments for an area fraught with political dispute over the future of the state. Having no jailhouse and no budget, Tyler issued certificates of advance tax payments to bring in money and pay for expenses.

November images (listed in order of appearance, by date): November 3—ATSF Topeka engine workshop 1943, via Library of Congress; November 11—The Topeka Movement by W.E. Connelly from the Standard History of Kansas and Kansans; November 21—Coleman Hawkins performing on the tenor sax, via Library of Congress; November 24—Venice gondolas at St. Louis World’s Fair via Library of Congress; November 28—Washburn University football game in progress, detail of a postcard from a postcard circa 1890s from a private collection for Topeka Magazine.

December

December 8

March 3, 1903

December 1 1888—An electric power plant is completed, allowing for electrification of more than 18 miles of streetcar track running from Quinton Heights to Oakland, with a transfer station at Eighth and Kansas and a waiting room in Potwin Place. December 2 1880—“Devouring Demon: The City’s ‘Gem’ Discovered to be on Fire at 4 o’clock AM” reads the headline of the Topeka State Journal. The Crawford Theatre, in the 600 block of Kansas Avenue, was a premier stage venue that had opened only 90 days prior to the fire. Owners would rebuild the theater, and it would continue to host productions. 1929—The original USS Topeka is decommissioned. Built in 1881 by German manufacturers for the Peruvian navy, the US Navy transformed it into a gunboat that fought Spanish forces off of Cuba in the SpanishAmerican war and briefly served as a prison ship. December 3 1932—Commercial shuffle board courts are set to open on East Seventh Street.

1942

december 4

Topeka High School students are undertaking the “Fats for Freedom” campaign to save animal fat in metal containers so that it can be used to produce glycerin in war production. One student, Mary Jean Stewart, won an award for creating a display on how fats are used in creating paints and explosives.

December 5 1854—The Topeka Town Association (forerunner to the City of Topeka) is formed. Charles Robinson (who would become the first governor of Kansas), Cyrus K. Holliday, and others form the Topeka Town Association, which divides the 684-acre town site. The town site was two miles long, east to west, and one and a half miles wide, north to south. Each member of the original company had one share, with the rest reserved for future settlers. The population? 25 (and counting!). December 6 1952—While parents worry about polio, another lesser but still serious illness—mumps—is setting a record in Shawnee County with 1,757 reported cases at this date. December 7 1972—Highland Park High School graduate Ronald Evans launches as the Command Module Pilot for the Apollo 17 mission, NASA’s most recent lunar landing. December 8 1915—Grange #1507 in Highland Park was organized with 92 charter members. Originally agrarian

political movements in the late 1800s, many grange organizations gradually grew into social clubs. This one’s stated mission was to “advance culture, refinement … make better neighbors and citizens.” December 9 1895—Kansas Medical College at 12th and Taylor is accused of grave robbing at the Rochester Cemetery. Topekans are more than a little upset by the desecration; the governor calls in the National Guard to aid the police when public outcry descends into mob violence. December 10 1855—The Kansas Tribune releases its first edition in Topeka. Under owner/editor John Speer, the Tribune would become a leading voice in the Free State movement. Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

December 11

December 17

1903—Mr. W.A. Roberts, who lives in the 700 block of Lincoln Street, is recovering on this day after falling some 25 feet through a hole on the East Eighth Avenue bridge and losing consciousness. The bridge was undergoing repairs after a flood damaged it six months previous.

1912—Jay E. House, a Topeka newspaper man, has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor on a charge of refusing to testify concerning the purchase of beer. He was fined $5 plus court costs.

1942

december 12 December 18

1953—Dedication services are held for the Topeka Free Public Library’s new building on 10th and Washburn. The city’s Children’s Library, which had been separate, moves into the building as well.

1912—Topeka should allow vacant lots to be used for home gardening, says Topekan Chas. Withington, speaking at the Kansas Horticultural Association’s annual gathering in Topeka. Withington noted that home garden lots would educate students and save the city the 50 cents it spends on each lot ridding it of weeds.

1905—Topekans are following the revelations of the John G. Cooper divorce trial. Cooper, a wealthy Shawnee farmer now in his sixth decade, had lived for years as a widowed bachelor when he was introduced by friends to a younger woman, 36-year-old Miss Stookey. According to Cooper, even though he put on a white shirt for the first time in his life for their wedding, things soon turned sour. His young wife complained of finding worms in the kitchen flour, seemed displeased to kiss him and—for some reason—balked at providing him three or four children. December 15 1953—A new building apparently merits a new name. Topeka Free Public Library officially changes its name to Topeka Public Library by amendment to the organization’s bylaws. It remained so named until 1992, when a public vote resulted in its current name, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. December 16 2012—Two Topeka police officers—one a native Topekan and the other a former Marine—are killed in the line of duty after being called to investigate a car parked outside a grocery store in central Topeka. The officers were honored by colleagues and city residents as they lay in state at the Kansas Expocentre.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

December 21 1876—After first appearing over western Kansas, an unusually bright and large meteor passes north

Worley has put on his dress blues and left his training base at Dam Neck, Virginia, to try to make it home to Topeka for Christmas. The 18-year-old Worley flies into Philadelphia where his next flight is grounded. So he decides

A Topeka family is set to welcome another child to their home. The mother and the 12 daughters say they are hoping for a baby boy this time.

December 13

December 14

and even I felt the pricks of Cupid’s darts.”

December 19 1951—Arthur Capper, Topeka’s former governor, U.S. senator, publisher and philanthropist, dies at the age of 86. Beneficiaries of his will included the Capper Foundation and fourteen other local charities. December 20 1911— The College of the Sisters of Bethany holds a school-wide “German” dance ball with orchestral music and refreshing dainties. A correspondent for the school yearbook reports: “By Jove! Such a lot of good-looking girls and teachers I have never seen. They were all arranged in their very best

of Topeka at an altitude of only 60 miles. It began to break up over Illinois, Indiana and Ohio before exploding into bright balls and raining down over Pennsylvania. December 22 1855—A severe snow storm hits Topeka. For the next six weeks the roads remain impassable with snow 15 inches deep in areas without drifts and with temperatures dropping to -18 degrees. December 23 1944—The USS Topeka CL-67 is commissioned for service. The second ship to bear the name for the US Navy, this manifestation of the USS Topeka is a Cleveland-class light cruiser that would participate in several fights around the Japanese mainland. The Topeka would be decommissioned in 1949, then refitted and commissioned again in 1960, serving until 1969. December 24 1970—On a short leave and with little to no money, Seaman Dale

to hitchhike home, hoping to arrive before Christmas and surprise his mother. Worley is given rides in a series of cars, 18-wheelers and other vehicles as the snow continued to fall. He makes it into Lawrence at 8 pm on Christmas Eve where traffic drastically thins until a group of college students picks him up, takes him out for pizza and beers and drops him off at his mother’s home before midnight. December 25 1854—Christmas arrives as a pleasant but balmy day, with a swimming party held in the Kaw River, joined in by many of the town’s few residents. 1927—The tower chimes at Grace Episcopal Cathedral are dedicated. December 26 1942—Winter General Hospital is opened as a temporary installation to care for wounded men and women returning from WWII battlefields. It would evolve into the Veterans Affairs Hospital.

December 30 1935—J.C. Nichols, the highly successful and controversial developer from Kansas City, speaks to an audience of approximately 300 at the Jayhawk Hotel. December 31

December 20

December 27 1881—Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church charter was filed. It is one of the first Topeka churches with AfricanAmerican trustees (the AME church on Monroe Street, between 1st and 2nd avenues is believed to be the first).

1999–2000—The USS Topeka nuclear submarine spends the last day of the 20th century (and the first day of the 21st century) straddling the international date line. Effectively, one portion of the Los Angelesclass submarine sat on the date line January 1, 2000, while another portion of the submarine sat at the same time—for 24 hours—on the dateline December 31, 1999. In addition, the submarine positioned itself along the international date line directly at the equator so that portions of the submarine spent the period in the world’s

december 28 1956—Watchmen serve their last day on the Union Pacific line. Watchmen manually lowered a guard rail or held a stop sign/flag to halt oncoming traffic at busy intersections. They were replaced with electric signal systems.

December 29 1944—A lack of cotton gloves has brought Kansas farmers to a standstill on their corn shucking and combining. Despite an appeal by Senator Capper, the War Production Board has ruled that cotton gloves must go first to the military.

northern hemisphere while another portion remained in the southern hemisphere. Some crew members were able to walk back and forth between hemispheres and between days, literally time traveling from one century to the next, and back again. The submarine is the most recent of three US Navy ships to bear the name USS Topeka.

Monumental Topekans

Lutie A. Lytle 1875–circa 1950 Attorney and Trailblazer Lutie A. Lytle achieved milestones. She was the first black woman to be admitted to the bar in the states of Tennessee and Kansas, and she was the first woman to serve as a law professor in the United States. Although she was born and spent her early years in Tennessee, Lytle’s family moved to Topeka, where Lytle attended public schools and graduated from Topeka High School. As a young adult, Lytle worked for black newspapers. The May 24, 1894, Leavenworth Times praised her writing: “Not a dozen newspaper people in Kansas have ever heard of Miss Lytle, and yet nearly all of them have copied paragraphs of her writing.” At age 21, Lytle returned to Tennessee, where she taught school two years in Chattanooga while she saved money for law school. She enrolled in Central Tennessee College in Nashville, which had a black law school that admitted females. There were two students in her graduating class of 1897—one male, one female. Lytle was the valedictorian. Getting admitted to the bar in Tennessee was a bit tricky. Upon her first attempt, in Nashville, the presiding judge noted that the Supreme Court of the state had ruled that no woman could serve as a notary public, so no woman could serve as a lawyer. In Memphis, a judge in the criminal court admitted her on September 8, 1897, and Lytle became the first black woman admitted to practice law in Tennessee. Later that month she was admitted to the Kansas bar, another first for a black woman in Kansas. Lytle did not immediately practice law, but undertook speaking engagements. In 1897 in Topeka, she commented about race relations in the South and North: “In the North the letter of the Constitution is better observed than in the South, but in the South the spirit of the constitution is not dead. In the North the colored people are given all the privileges of spending money, but not of earning it. In the South, the colored people are given the privilege of earning money but not of spending it.” This is an astute summation of economic versus social segregation. Instead of practicing law, Lytle accepted a teaching position at her alma mater for the 1898–1899 academic year. The October 27, 1898, Topeka Daily Capital announced her appointment with the headline: “Lutie Lytle’s Luck.” Given the obstacles faced by women and blacks in the 19th century, luck would have had little to do with it. Her smarts, grit and perseverance gained her the job, which the Capital said made her “the only woman law instructor in the world.” In fact, she was the first woman of any color to teach in a chartered law school in the U.S. Around 1907, Lytle married Alfred C. Cowan, a prominent lawyer. Residing in Brooklyn, the couple reportedly attended the National Negro Bar Association meeting, which made Lytle the first black female to join a national bar association. Cowan died in 1913, and Lytle argued one of his last legal cases. A few years later, she married an elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Reverend Stephen McNeill. By 1925, Lytle was back in Topeka lecturing to a big group at St. John’s A.M.E. Church, the church she attended as a girl. There, she praised Marcus Garvey of the Black Nationalist Movement. Rev. McNeill died in 1934. Lytle is believed to have died around 1950, though no records have been discovered to verify this. Lutie A. Lytle rose to the heights of many worlds—with significant accomplishments as a woman, as a woman of color, as a member of the legal community, and as a teacher and speaker. —Jeffrey Ann Goudie

Winter 2015 | TOPEKA MAGAZINE

Listing of sources for calendar entries: City of Topeka centennial celebration brochure; Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West (Stephen Fried); Shawnee County Historical Society Bulletin (various editions); Washburn University official online history; Topeka State Journal; Witness of the Times, A History of Shawnee County (Douglas Wallace and Roy Bird); United States Census Bureau, Nostrums and Quackery: American Medical Association Articles on the Nostrum Evil and Quackery, vol. ii (Arthur Cramp); Historic Kenwood (HKNA), Lawrence Journal-World; Twelfth Biennial Report of the Kansas Adjutant General, 1899–1900; Arthur Capper: Scholar, Politician, Philanthropist (Homer E. Socolofsky); Plains Woman: The Diary of Martha Farnsworth, 1882-1922 (Marlene and Haskell Springer); Topeka Daily Capital, City of Topeka—Topeka Police Department official biography of Jason Harwood; Official Record Book #1256 of Shawnee County; official online history of the CHL: various clippings from the Topeka High School scrapbook and the THS World; Historic Shawnee County: The Story of Topeka and Shawnee County (Spencer Duncan); History of the State of Kansas (William Cutler); Higher Education in Kansas (Frank Blackmar); Topeka Daily Capital; Carrie Nation: Retelling the Life (Fran Grace); Washburn University official online history; Topeka State Journal; Remember the Vinewood; Vinewood Park: The way it was...is...and will be (Jean Moore and Marion Dunton), “My Day” collection of Eleanor Roosevelt columns held by George Washington University and posted online through gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday; Shawnee County Record Book #546; College Hill News; The Construction News of Kansas; Following in his Steps: A Biography of Charles Sheldon (Timothy Miller); City of Topeka, official proclamations; Farmers Advocate (also in various years as Advocate); The Daily Critic; Patrick Macfee posting on macfeesports.com; Topeka Commonwealth; 1905 revision of Anti-Horse Thief Association Kansas Constitution; Witness of the Times, A History of Shawnee County (Douglas Wallace and Roy Bird); Private correspondence, postcard of John Cratte; Topeka Capital-Journal; The Daily Mail; Postcard History of Topeka (Don Harmon); Historic Shawnee County: The Story of Topeka and Shawnee County (Spencer Duncan); Annals of Kansas (D.W. Wilder); US Naval History and Heritage Command, official site; Plaindealer; Application paper for the Columbian Building National Historic Register Nomination; The Pink Rag; 1971 Rossville Centennial Booklet; Women Officeholders in Kansas: 1872–1912 (Lorraine A. Gehring); Kansas History summer 1986); Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, inflation calculator; “History of Presbyterian Church,” brochure from First Presbyterian, Topeka; Langston Hughes biography folder at the Topeka room of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library; “A Fire in the Sky” doctoral dissertation submitted to University of Kansas by Beryl New, 2002, p. 64–107; Associated Press; Westar falcon camera youtube.com posting, account Munchie 1951; Blacks in Topeka Kansas, 1865–1915: A Social History (Thomas Cox); Geological History of Kansas (Kansas Geological Survey); Archival history binder of Topeka (Shawnee County) Parks and Recreation Department; Treaty of 1825 between William Clark and representatives of the Kansas nation, through digital collections of Oklahoma State University; Chevalier yearbook 1969; Grace Episcopal Cathedral history brochure; Kansas City Times; Banned in Kansas, Motion Picture Censorship 1915–1966 (Gerald Butters); A Life of Gwendolyn Brooks (George Kent); And Hell Followed with It (Bonar Menninger); Thirty Years in Topeka: A Historical Sketch (Frye William Giles); Nero Wolfe biographical file, Topeka Room of Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library; Ronald McDonald House Charities of Northeast Kansas company history posting; YWCA Topeka, official organization history posting; Delavan Historical Preservation Society marker “19th Century Circus Capital of the World”; “Early Civil Rights Activism in Topeka, Kansas,” Jean Van Delinder, Great Plains Quarterly; : On the Avenue of Approach (Barbara Hauschild); Westboro: A Neighborhood of Tradition (Carol Green); Guns at Last Light (Rick Atkinson); Topeka Daily State Journal evening edition; Assembles of God Heritage; Chicago Tribune; The Only Big Show Coming (Orin King); Aaron Douglas biography file of the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library; Washburn University Americorps press release on 2001 anniversary events; Shapell Manuscript Found; ation document and commentary on letter from President Franklin Roosevelt to Secretary Henry Woodring, June 19, 1940; uselectionatlas.org; baseballreference. com; Topeka Weekly Call; Out of Sight: The Rise of African-American Popular Music 1889–1895 (Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff); ; 123 Years of Caring for Animals (Mary Ann Earp and Roscoe Earp); Collier’s; HistoricIndianapolis.com; “The Bottoms of Topeka, Kansas,” Tom Rodriguez; Kansas Statistical Abstract 2014 (Institute for Policy and Social Research, University of Kansas); Topeka State Journal; ScottishRiteTopeka.com; casaofshawneecounty.com history section; Candyrat Records posting; interviews with Andy McKee; Tennessee Town Neighborhood Plan; Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office: 1855–2005 (J.D. Mauck and Rich Mergen); Naval History and Heritage Command official online history; NASA official online history of the Apollo missions; “City of Topeka Police Department, Investigative Report on the Murders … of December 16, 2012”; Topeka Capital Journal; The 1912-1913 Biennial Report of the Kansas State Horticultural Association; Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 13; “Diver Dale’s 1970 Christmas Journey,” in anthology of Sid’s NTIS Locker, northofseveycorners.com. Photograph above, a march by members of Topeka Council Bakers Union No. 271, from a private colleciton for Topeka Magazine.

TOPEKA MAGAZINE | Winter 2015

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