Opinions

From 1910 until his unfortunate death in 1940, Tom Mix was America’s foremost cowboy movie star. He came onto the scene when the Old West was fading.Fortunately, old timers were around to tell the stories.

Recently, I was driving past a mental health clinic in Salina and saw a vehicle I recognized. It was of an individual in some of my social circles.My immediate thought was, “I wonder what they’re there for?”After a brief moment, I gave myself a mental shake. I chastised myself.

With the coming of spring, renewed activity returned to the cattle frontier from Texas to Kansas and beyond. In the early years of trailing cattle, big rangy steers with horns that spread across the horizon were a common sight.By the late 1870s the big ones, “old mossy horns,” were few in number.

Grow Ellsworth CountyWhen Marci Penner, founder and co-director of the esteemed Kansas Sampler Foundation calls your community, you answer the call. And when she asks “would you be interested in...?,” the answer is always yes.

In a previous adventure on The Way West, a young Phillipe St. George Cooke arrived at Cantonment Leavenworth, Fort Leavenworth’s earliest designation, in the spring of 1829. 2nd Lt. Cooke was with four companies of the 6th Infantry Regiment under the command of Maj. Bennett Riley.

How was your Big Kansas Road Trip experience? Here at the I-R, we purposefully chose to stay within the county lines. It was our goal in covering the BKRT to showcase Ellsworth County and those who chose to visit.

The scene that confronted Maj. Thomas I. McKenny the evening of June 9, 1864, was heightened by the eerie silence of desolation. Burned out log shelters and looted dugout dwellings told a story of failure.

Council members should keep language cleanDear Editor, I’m appalled and deeply ashamed of what I just read in last week’s paper with the Ellsworth City Council.

Capt. Jack Harvey is not well known today, but in the late 1860s, his every move was followed by the general public. He and Wild Bill Hickok had cut their teeth on death and daring in Missouri and Arkansas during the Civil War.

A few weeks ago at the Grow Ellsworth County Annual Meeting, Marci Penner was telling those gathered that the upcoming Big Kansas Road Trip is an opportunity for city folks to come experience rural life. She used the example that some people have never seen a cow before.