[ CLAY COUNTY INTHE REARVIEW MIRROR
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Our memorable person this week is Isaac Newton Clark, who, with his brother Dr. Martin Van Buren Clark, was among the first residents of Sutton. Isaac was a farmer and schoolteacher from near Cleveland and a founder, town clerk, and assessor of Hensley Township. The Clark brothers headed west in 1871 arriving at the end of track of the Burlington & Missouri Railroad as the railroad was pushing through Sutton, then called School Creek. They purchased the unsold 400 lots on Luther French’s 80-acre homestead. They built a 20 X 60 building and on Nov. 1, 1871 Dr. Clark opened a drugstore, the first store on the railroad west of Crete. Ten days later, Isaac’s hardware store opened in the building. The Clarks’ early customers included a band of about 400 Omaha Indians who annually visited a campsite on horseshoe bend of School Creek and traded in the store. That campsite was part of about 12 acres that the Clarks deeded to the city for a park. Consider this just a peek at the contributions of I.N. and M.V.B. Clark to the development of Sutton. They received more attention on multiple posts on the Sutton Museum blog.
1999 - 25YEARS AGO
The state power review board switched 11 communities in Clay, Nuckolls, and Webster counties from the Nebraska Public Power District to the South Central Power District. Clay Center, Harvard, Fairfield, Deweese, Ong, and Saronville were the Clay County towns being switched.
Governor Johanns disclosed that tourists had spent $2.7 billion in Nebraska in 1998 making tourism the state’s third -argest industry behind agriculture and manufacturing.
Phone service in Sutton, Harvard, Clay Center and parts of Edgar and Fairfield was interrupted when a fiber optic line buried along Highway 6 was accidently cut by workmen digging a trench. Sheriff Franklin cleared the workmen from responsibility as their documentation was in error. (A recent similar incident cut off internet service to a wide area from Lincoln west past our area. I spoke with Windstream technicians who said their primary and backup lines were cut at the same time. Not to play one-ups-manship, but also around 1999, I had responsibility for emergency planning when my company experienced an outage that took down connectivity to 2,500 grocery and drug stores, coast to coast. Our primary fiber lines between our Northern California data center and the satellite ground station in Salt Lake City crossed Donner Pass. These lines were accidentally cut by a backhoe. Our backup lines went through Phoenix, we thought. The vendor for our backup line, a major telecom company, trying to save us some money, and had switched our backup lines to a shorter route, over Donner Pass.)
Sheriff Jeff Franklin announced that his department had received federal grant money to purchase new bullet-proof vests to replace their tenyear- old models. The grant required matching funds for $1,200. A recent grant from the Nebraska Highway Safety Commission provided the department with an $8,000 breathalyzer.
Featured business: Clay Center Service Auto Sales.
The county paper began a two-part series about the impact of LB 806, a new law establishing a state educational financing distribution system. The article was based on a report from the Nebraska Alliance for Rural Education, a partnership between the Center for Rural Affairs, the Nebraska Rural Development Commission, and other organizations including the Farm Bureau. The report indicated that this legislation and a property tax relief law had cut funding to nine percent of the state’s students.
The Harvard Lady Cardinals volleyball team defeated Shelton in the second round of the Twin Vally tournament but fell to Red Cloud 6-15 and 10-15 in the finals. Jenny Glantz and Paige Barnett were point leaders in the two matches.
Sandy Creek beat Sutton 15-6, 15-5 in a match at Sandy Creek.
Clay Center’s sixth-ranked D-1 team was defeated by D-2’s fourth-ranked Shickley 15-10, 15-12. Shelli Byrkit led the Wildcats.
Sutton defeated Milford in the first round of the Southern Nebraska tourney at Sandy Creek. Sandy Creek beat Wilber in their opener 15-2 and 17-15.
The Sutton Mustangs were 8-1 after beating Harvard 55-8 with offensive stats that matched the score. Jason Lorenzen had 145 yards rushing. Mark Griess had a 78-yard run for the final score.
Clay Center beat Meridian 50-0. David Anderson had 103 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
The No. 3-ranked Cornhuskers came up short in Austin to the 18th-ranked Longhorns. Nebraska led the statistical categories, even in turnovers. Texas QB Major Applewhite was the difference.
1974 – 50YEARS AGO
The Sutton High School Marching Band was one of 61 marching bands attending the 17th annual marching band festival at Pershing Auditorium in Lincoln. The Sutton band was under the direction of Lyman Novy. There were more than 4,000 high school musicians in those bands.
A gang of neighbors met at the farm of Wally Nuss of Sutton to bring in his milo crop. Mr. Nuss had been in an automobile accident a few weeks earlier.
Miss Claire Bender of Sutton, a senior at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, completed several weeks of training at the Aurora Hospital as part of her medical school curriculum. She attended Nebraska Wesleyan University and the Mayo Clinic School of Physical Therapy before entering medical school in 1971.
Featured business: Ted and Dorothy’s Branding Iron restaurant in Fairfield with “A Fabulous 40s Night” on Saturday in the Pidgeon Loft with numbers from the Big Band Era – Dorsey, James, Miller, Lombardo, Welk, Ellington, Krupa, and others. (Do you recognize those names? Good stuff.)
The University Board of Regents named former State Senator William F. Swanson to the joint position of University Vice President for Government Affairs and Corporation Secretary. William Swanson was a 1940 graduate of Sutton High and the son of Mr. and Mrs. Guy Swanson.
Forrest Brown, his wife Verna and sons Mark and Alan celebrated 25 years in Brown’s Thrift Store in Sutton.
Clay Center defeated Chester Hubbell 20-0, led by rushing from Greg Pierce, Scott Johnson, and Pat Sullivan.
Harvard began the game’s scoring against Sutton with a 67-yard TD pass from Doug Stone to Tim Yost before Gary Trautman scored twice for Sutton and Scott Gemar added another TD for a 22-15 Sutton win.
Hebron defeated Sandy Creek 27-16. Nebraska was up to No. 9 after last week’s lopsided win at Kansas. The NU Homecoming game was a closer affair with the Cornhuskers taking a 7-3 win over Oklahoma State.
Nebraska cattle feeders had 1,040,000 head of cattle on feed as of Oct. 1, down 28 percent from a year earlier.
President Ford signed a new law forbidding discrimination in credit applications based on sex or marital status.
1949 - 75YEARS AGO
Rev. Peter S. Kohler died in Lincoln at the age of 92. Rev. Kohler was born in Ohio and came to Nebraska in 1913 as pastor of the Emmanuel Evangelical Church in Sutton. He was the father of Otto and Emil Kohler of Sutton and grandfather of Morrie and Victor.
Workmen began installing gas mains in Saronville raising expectations that Saronville businesses and residents would have their long wait for gas service fulfilled in a few weeks.
Ninety members of the Clay County Education Association met at the Methodist Church in Fairfield for their first meeting of the year. President Mary T. Davis of Clay Center presided.
Fairfield High School was one of five schools in the state chosen to receive demonstrations of audio-visual equipment from the National Educational Association.
Miss Betty Schliep of Harvard was a sophomore at Anderson College in Anderson, IN. The newest of Indiana’s liberal arts colleges had an enrollment of 331.
The 1949 hunting season appeared to be one of the biggest ever in Nebraska. Clay County and surrounding counties were the center of activity. The Sutton Post Office quickly sold out its 196 duck hunting stamps and a second order was gone the day before the season opened. Pheasant hunting opened an hour earlier with more crowds heading this way.
Featured business: Edgar Equipment Co. with a 10-day sale on shotgun shells.
The Center Theater was showing “The Beautiful Blond from Bashful Bend” with Betty Grable, Cesar Romero, and Rudy Vallee. Sutton’s Lyric had “Down Dakota Way” with Roy Rogers, Trigger, and Dale Evans. Alan Ladd, Betty Field, and Ruth Hussey were starring in “The Great Gatsby” at the Lyric in Edgar.
Clay Center capitalized on a Sutton fumble on the first play from scrimmage, Lovercheck scoring on their third play. Sutton regrouped with Bayne’s scoring on a 65-yard run and Demas Griess on a 50-yard jaunt. Sutton won 28-7.
Coach W.W. Parks’ Harvard Cardinals had no trouble in their 42-12 win over Deshler. Hoppens scored two early TDs and Robin Frank had another two. In their next game, the Cardinals came from behind to beat Hebron 19-13.
Edgar took Red Cloud 25-12. The cornerstone for the United Nations Headquarters was laid in New York City.
President Truman raised the minimum wage from 40 cents to 75 cents an hour.
President Truman swore in Eugenie Moore Anderson to be the U.S. ambassador to Denmark. She was the first woman to be an ambassador.
1924 – 100YEARS AGO
The Burlington Railroad’s Dairy Special made its only stop in the county at Harvard coming from a Geneva stop. The train arrived at 8:30 a.m. for the exhibition in the afternoon, when 3,600 people showed up. The train was open in the morning for schoolchildren to visit the exhibits. There were nine coaches with gift bulls from donors looking to upgrade dairy herds in the state. Mr. Jess Koehler from the south part of the county was the winner of a Guernsey bull in the promotion.
The crowd that filled the Sutton Opera House waited an hour for the arrival of William Jennings Bryan. Mr. Bryan’s 45-minute talk held the old-time Bryan vigor according to the Sutton Register reporter. His article included a story that may be new to county folks today. It appears that in late October 1888, Mr. Bryan was a speaker at a Democratic Party rally in Sutton. Some in Sutton in 1924 remembered that this appearance was an early, some believed the first, occasion of public speaking by W. J. Bryan, and that he acquired the name “boy orator” at the occasion. (Some research is in order.) Others who spoke at that 1888 gathering were Albert Watkins of Lincoln, and Otis Holmes and Prof. Thrasher of Edgar. (A reminder, William Jennings Bryan of Lincoln was the Democratic Party’s candidate for president in 1896, 1900, and 1908.)
The Sutton Garage offered an 8-hour car battery charging service–in by 8, out by 4.
The Pantorium cleaners closed their business in Sutton. J.F. Helzer at the South Side Barber Shop was now the Sutton agent for Wilker’s Cleaning Works in York.
Featured business: E.H. Lewis–The Grocer in Fairfield, paying highest market prices for eggs.
The Lyric silent movie house in Clay Center had Dorothy Dalton and Jack Holt in “The Lone Wolf.” Edgar’s Lyric Theater had “The Fighting Coward” starring Ernest Torrence and Mary Astor.
Fairfield had another shut-out defeating Guide Rock 6-0. Exeter beat Clay Center 27-0. Edgar beat Chester 7-0. Sutton played a Friday afternoon home game winning over Alma 17-13. Edgar beat Harvard 13-6.
There were 288 cities in the U.S. with streetcar lines in 1924.
1899 – 125YEARS AGO
A burglar broke into Hanke’s tailor shop in Sutton about 11 o’clock on Sunday night. Mr. Harvey Stenson, who worked at the shop came in the front door to get his .22 rifle he had left there. Stenson grabbed the loaded rifle taking a shot at the burglar who dropped his load of goods and fled through a side door. Damage was limited to a broken back window and a bullet hole in a door jam.
Crop estimates indicated Nebraska farmers were raising 350 million bushels of staple crops, including 244 million bushels of corn leading one of our editors to add, “This means mortgages paid off, new houses and barns built, better food and clothing and more comfort and good cheer in general for all.” Translation: “Let the good times roll.”
Ed Campbell rode his bay saddle horse to Sutton and hitched it at Nicolai’s blacksmith shop. The horse was gone when he returned. The horse was later found at Friend where the thief had sold it for $50.
While checking the local hotel registry, the editors of The Clay County Patriot newspaper in Clay Center discovered two visitors from Kimberley, South Africa were in town.
There were times when our Clay County towns hosted multiple newspapers. For several years circa 1899 Sutton had the Sutton Register, F.M. (Francis Marion) Brown as Editor and The Sutton News, published by E.P. (Edward Payson) Burnett. Looking back more than a century later, the musings and rants likely give us a better picture of their times than do their straight news stories.
This week F.M. Brown commented on the British yachtsman who was defeated by the American in American Cup yacht race. He mentioned a 5X increase in train robberies in the last two years. He reported that Major (Brevet Lt. Col.) Guy H. Howard had been killed in action in the Philippines, referring to the action as a “war of conquest.” (Maj. Howard was one of three career military officers who were sons of Civil War General Oliver O. Howard.) Editor Brown then criticized the McKinley administration for being “…tied hand and foot by its Philippine policy.” He then observed that the administration dared not express sympathy for the South African Republic, and “…the brave Afrikanders in their death struggle for independence” and that “…the great liberty-loving American people have no British strings on them.”
F.M. Brown makes the short list of the most interesting newspaper editors among the dozens who have served the county.
Featured businesses: F.E. Malm’s department store and its competitor, The Boston Store, in Sutton.
The death toll stood at nine in an October blizzard in Montana.
Early reports from South Africa identified two cities taken from the British by the Boers. County newspapers carried reports of continued fighting in the Philippines and the growing conflict in South Africa.
