Category: Gallery
-
Eskridge Branch Library Digitizes Photos
The Eskridge Branch of the Pottawatomie-Wabaunsee Regional Library system recently partnered with Kansas writer and historian, Greg Hoots to digitize their historic photo collection. The library had a small but significant collection of historic photographs of Eskridge as well as a group of Eskridge school class photos that had been donated to the organization. Hoots…
-
Dunn Home Supply, Eskridge, Kansas
-by Greg Hoots- Dean Dunn was born in 1926 in Eskridge, Kansas, the son of local pharmacist, Preston Dunn and his wife Dora. Preston Dunn had moved to Eskridge with his parents when he was just a boy, and he became a civic and political leader in Eskridge and throughout Wabaunsee County. Preston and Dora…
-
The Photography of Charles Herman
Charles L. Herman was born in 1922 in Alma, Kansas, the son of Alma shoemaker, Fred Herrmann and his wife Mary Schubert Herrmann. Charles graduated from Alma High School and was a longtime resident of Alma. Charles married Charlotte Finley in 1963, and the couple was married for thirty years before her passing in 1993.…
-
Herrmann’s Shoe and Harness Shops
-by Greg Hoots- Ferdinand and Christine Herrmann were a young German couple, married for five years when they immigrated to America in 1874, settling in Alma, Kansas, a rural Wabaunsee County town with a significant German immigrant community. Ferdinand was a cobbler by trade and opened a shoe shop and a harness shop in Alma shortly…
-
Eskridge Alumni Association Digitizes Eskridge High School Class Photos
The Eskridge High School Alumni Association recently contracted with Flint Hills photo historian, Greg Hoots to digitize forty-six graduating class pictures that once adorned the walls of Eskridge High School in Eskridge, Kansas. The photos were lost for a period of time when USD 330 disposed of their elementary and old high school buildings. The Alumni Association recovered forty-six…
-
Tornado Strikes Eskridge
-by Greg Hoots- April 12, 1911 began like many spring days for the residents of Eskridge, Kansas as a strong, relentless wind was blowing from the southwest and a hint of clouds could be seen along the western horizon. By early afternoon, clouds had filled the sky above Wabaunsee County, and the first thunderstorms, accompanied…
-
Louis Palenske Archives Presented on Kansasmemory.org
The digitized photos and manuscripts of Alma photographer Louis Palenske have been included in the Kansas State Historical Society’s digital archives and presented on their website, Kansasmemory.org. The collection represents 390 new items for the KSHS website, and can be viewed as a group through this link: http://www.kansasmemory.org/locate.php?categories=13479-13484-11928-12854& The photos and documents were digitized through a…
-
Alma Bottling Works
-by Greg Hoots- There are few of us that have never enjoyed a cold bottle of “soda pop” on a hot day. That simple pleasure has become a big business in the United States with revenue from the sales of soft drinks topping 100-billion dollars, annually. While soda pop seems as American as apple pie…
-
A Hardware Legend
-by Kathy Hendricks, WCHS Museum Curator- Alma, Kansas, known as the “City of Native Stone,” had its birthplace at what is today the intersection of Missouri and 3rd Streets. The county’s first courthouse, the town’s first store and its first hotel were all built near that intersection. The town itself is a mere 150 years old,…
-
Soda Fountain Memories
One of the iconic businesses that existed in most Kansas towns of the 20th century was the local drug store and pharmacy. The business, itself, underwent great changes as the patent medicine sellers whose medicine could barely be distinguished from the wares of snake oil salesmen, began to fade into obscurity, and the pharmacy business…