125 years ago

april 19, 1889

Nearly all the stock of the Marion Belt and Chingawasa Springs R.R. has been subscribed for, there lacking about $2000. The Topeka and Kansas City subscriptions have been assured. The contract for constructing the road will be let Saturday, and they hope to have the road in operation by the 1st of July.

Only three weeks more of school for this year. The work of the final examinations for the year will be the order the last few days. The school will give two entertainments at the opera house. The first will be Friday evening, April 26, and will consist of an operetta entitled “The Land of Nod.” On April 30, the schools will give an entertainment in honor of the centennial anniversary of the inauguration of our first president, George Washington.

The fixing up of Billings’ Park will commence today and after it is thoroughly cleaned out, it will be thickly sown with oats to prevent dust during the coming Bible School, June 11-21.

Less than 24 years have elapsed since the “Martyr President” was borne to his resting place and not one of his associates survives. The last to go was Hon. John P. Usher of Kansas, who died last Saturday while under surgical treatment for a tumor on his throat. He was Mr. Lincoln’s Secretary of the Interior in his first cabinet, and was 73 years old when he died. His passing away leaves the history of those times with few living witnesses.

The Oklahoma boomers “boomed” through here at the rate of about 30 wagons this week.