Last year, Hutchinson resident Wallace Smith came into The News office with an old photograph.
It shows a great uncle, Mort, holding a rifle and standing by a covered wagon. The back of the photo said it was taken at Wilburn, Kansas.
Smith said his grandmother, Stella, traveled with her parents some 900 miles from Brown County, Indiana to the Ford County town. Smith knew the town had since disappeared.
He wanted to know more, he said.
Wilburn ArgusEditor Frank Mathews wrote of the town’s promise in the April 2, 1886 edition.
It shows a great uncle, Mort, holding a rifle and standing by a covered wagon. The back of the photo said it was taken at Wilburn, Kansas.
Smith said his grandmother, Stella, traveled with her parents some 900 miles from Brown County, Indiana to the Ford County town. Smith knew the town had since disappeared.
He wanted to know more, he said.
Wilburn ArgusEditor Frank Mathews wrote of the town’s promise in the April 2, 1886 edition.
A few months ago, Wilburn was not and where it now stands the wolf,
the antelope and the coyote held unchallenged dominion, save by the buffalo and
the wild horse and the rattlesnake gave his
fatal warning unheard by the ear of man. Today the scene has changed. One turn
of the kaleidoscope of time and we see a different picture. We now have alone
hardware, one clothing store, two grocers, a lumberyard, a shoe shop, a larger
feed and livery stable, post office, a large well-conducted hotel, a blacksmith
shop, two rustling real estates firms who are always willing to give you any
information desired. We also have one of the best schoolhouses in southwest Kansas, and last but not
least a newspaper and publishing office.
And yet we just begun to grow. Strange faces are daily seen upon
our streets … to the young man of limited means in the overdone cities of the
east, who would gain a foothold where wealth and happiness be his portion, to
who would better their condition, we would respectfully, but earnestly say,
come to Wilburn. We extend the invitation believing that there is a country
that ere long will blossom as the rose and a town that will keep right along
with the country.
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