Staff writer
Since 1995, selected Centre High School seniors have been recipients of scholarships funded by income from the Mowrer farm west of Lost Springs. This year, five students each received $4,500 scholarships. They were Cole Svoboda, Jacob Jirak, Allison Shields, Brian Burhoop, and Tyler Klenda.
The 155-acre farm owned by Loren E. and Clara Mowrer was donated to the Centre school district by Clara Mowrer after her husband’s death in 1990. She died in 2000.
Members of the Mowrer family, including Ezra P. Mowrer and his brother, Thead, homesteaded in the Lost Springs area in the 1880s. The two men operated a farm together and went into the business of buying and selling livestock and grain. At one time, the farm and ranch included 1,500 acres northwest of Lost Springs.
The Mowrer brothers’ sister, Dora, came to Kansas and got a job teaching school at the newly developed Lost Springs. She later married Wilbur Smith, and they raised a family in Lost Springs.
The town was platted in 1887 at a site where two intersecting railroads were being built. Several businesses and residences already existed at the site.
According to Thead Mowrer’s son, Ernest, the brothers expanded their business by building a grain elevator and flourmill in Lost Springs. E.P. moved to town to operate the businesses.
The flourmill was severely damaged by a tornado in 1902 and had to be rebuilt. The mill ran day and night for a while and sold “Silver Wave” flour.
After the town was incorporated in 1904, E.P. Mowrer became the first mayor. The brothers dissolved their partnership that year. Thead kept the farm and ranch, and E.P. retained the Lost Springs businesses.
E.P. later sold those businesses and bought the general store, which he operated for years.
Thead bought 160 acres of land one mile west of Lost Springs in 1910 and built a modern house on it. It had modern plumbing, steam heat, and water under pressure and reportedly was one of the first modern farm homes in Kansas.
Loren E. Mowrer was Thead’s son. He graduated from Lost Springs High School in 1916 and earned a geology degree from Kansas State University in 1923.
He spent most of his working years in the petroleum industry in Texas. He met and married Clara Snyder in 1939, when she was a teacher at Midwestern University in Wichita Falls.
After Loren Mowrer retired in November 1961, the couple moved to the farm at Lost Springs. He farmed the land for 10 years, and then rented it out. The 5-acre homestead was purchased by Tom and Dicey “Jane” Clymer in 1987.
In the spring of 1995, when Clara Mowrer donated the land to the Centre school district, she specified that income from the farm be used to provide “a perpetual scholarship fund for CHS graduates.” She also donated $5,000 to jumpstart the fund. Four students received $800 each that year.
The board of education established a special fund to handle the fiscal operations of the Loren Mowrer Scholarship. Each applicant was required to write an essay and to have scored at least a 21 on the ACT test and maintained a minimum 3.5 grade point average.
After Clara Mowrer’s death in 2000 at age 105, the fund was renamed the Loren E. and Clara Mowrer Memorial Scholarship Fund.
Several other sources of revenue were added to the fund. On Dec. 20, 2000, the school district accepted a gift of $250,000 bequeathed to it from Clara Mowrer. In 2001, a producing oil well was drilled on the Mowrer farm, resulting in additional income and more money for college-bound seniors.
The scholarship fund guarantees that the Mowrer family’s contribution to Lost Springs and the surrounding communities will continue in perpetuity.
(Sources: Judy Bresch, great-great granddaughter of Dora Mowrer Smith; Marion County Past and Present, Sondra Van Meter, 1972.)