Memories spring eternal ...

100 YEARS AGO

(1907)

May 30 of every recurring May is observed as Decoration Day and this was no exception even though the weather was unfavorable. The residences and downtown places were decorated with bunting and as a token of respect to the old soldiers there was a general holiday declared at noon when almost all of the business establishments and offices closed at noon for the remainder of the day. The parade formed at 1:30 on Scott Avenue and followed the course outlined in The Tribune. Judge W.R. Biddle was parade marshal. A committee went to National Cemetery this morning and decorated the soldiers' graves. The G.A.R. offered prizes for wreaths and bouquets in connection with the services. The wreaths were so exquisite that it was difficult for the judges to select the winners who were Miss Mary B. Miller, Mrs. G.W. Combs and Mrs. Dr. Brookins. The bouquet prize was awarded to Mrs. Major Combs.

L.A. Chapman, the music man, while in Kansas City recently, came across a brother of the Silsbee boys who were lynched here several years ago. It casually came up that Mr. Chapman was from Fort Scott and as soon as Silsbee learned this he commenced a tirade of abuse upon the people here for hanging his brothers, stating that there was never any evidence against the pair. Mr. Chapman told the fellow that he could very well appreciate his views regarding the matter, but that insofar as there not being evidence against the murderers there was an abundance of, and that the only friend the fellows had here was Tom Allen, the jailer, whom they tried to kill.

75 YEARS AGO

(1932)

Commencement exercises for the more than 200 students who are to graduate from the Fort Scott Junior College and senior high school will be held tomorrow night at Memorial Hall. It is expected that the exercises will be attended by a large crowd made up not only of Fort Scott residents but of people representing every section of the county, adjoining counties and points in Missouri, as Fort Scott reputation as an educational center has attracted students from a wide radius in all directions.

An impressive ceremony, part of the Memorial Day services, joined in by hundreds of patriotic citizens, was the laying of the memorial stone in the southwest corner of Memorial Hall, the stone dedicated to the American Legion, Clair Harkey Post No. 25 and other veterans' organizations, the GAR, The WRC, the Spanish American War and women's auxiliaries of all. Post Commander A.B. Konantz introduced the speaker, Mayor Martin Miller, who told of the construction of Memorial Hall by the community in 1925. The cornerstone is of Carthage marble with sand carved emblems.

Paul Leffler, 420 West Wall, had his tonsils removed this morning at the Main Street Mercy Hospital.

50 YEARS AGO

(1957)

"If we remain strong there may never be a need for us to decorate the graves of men of a third world war," Lt. Col. Warren E. Nassaman, commander of the ROTC unit at KSTC of Pittsburg and former military advisor to the post war Japanese army, told a Memorial Day audience of several hundred at National Cemetery here this morning. Well over a hundred cars lined cemetery roadways as decoration of graves of war dead and of veterans of all American wars since early Indian war days began. By the time the service started at 10:30 a.m., parked cars stretched for several blocks along the East National Avenue approach to the National Cemetery gates.

25 YEARS AGO

(1982)

No publication.