GOODLAND, Kan., is not one of the places where you stop. It is simply one of the places you pass through on your way to Denver or the Pacific Coast. The chances are you have never read about the city, excepting in a Rock Island time-table. It is not an industrial town. It has no mines and no natural resources excepting the prairie land, and its industrial prospects are—well, the day I was there the Goodland Chamber of Commerce was trying to see if it couldn’t induce somebody to start a flour mill in town. You can imagine the place, can’t you, 200 miles from the nearest city of any consequence and 450 miles from the nearest market place for the wheat which is grown in Sherman County?

But if you were to get off at Goodland, you would be in for a big surprise. You can’t say that you have seen America until you spend some time in a community like this. And you will be spending the time, remember: you won’t simply be doing it. For Goodland has hotels that rival those of cities twenty times its size in other sections of the country. It has a hospitality and a hominess which you might expect in Kansas, but a spick-and-span modernity which one does not usually associate with these homely virtues. Your big surprise, however, will come when you get a taste of Goodland’s winter climate. No, they don’t advertise it. It is just there, and they take it for granted. I never saw the sun shine clearer in Los Angeles.

There are about 3,000 people, all told, in Goodland. It is a county seat in the wheat belt, but the stranger senses immediately that it is not a typical rural community, for the people are thinking about something which farmers do not usually think about. They are thinking about labor unionism. They are studying it from every angle and wondering, for the most part, what steps the unions ought to take “in order that American labor may not be completely crushed.” There is the anti-union side too, of course. But who would expect to find strikes and strike tactics the main topic of conversation on a Kansas prairie?

Perhaps you have guessed it. Goodland is a railroad town. It is a division terminal on the Rock Island; and the Rock Island is one of the roads which has stood out against any compromise settlement of the shopmen’s strike. The trades-people of Goodland are largely ex-railroaders or come from railroaders’ families. For months and months before my call, strikebreakers had been housed under guard on the railroad property, taking the jobs of the “regular citizens of Goodland.”

When the strike was first called, I was told, the town was practically unanimous for the strikers. The months of deadlock, however, brought a change. The strike may be over before this article gets into print, but the bitterness and the hatred are things which Goodland will have to live with for some time to come. Even peace treaties, the world has recently learned, do not heal the wounds of war.

And that, I discovered, was what all Goodland was thinking about. Goodland was unhappy. Goodland was fairly sick with hatred—hatred of the Rock Island Railroad, of the professional strike breakers who had camped in its midst, of the union machinists who had struck in their home towns only to be induced eventually to help break the strike in this, or of the leaders and followers in what many Goodland people now considered a lost cause, who permitted their prejudices to keep them from surrendering.

“When I was a boy,” one of the oldest inhabitants reflected, “we were taught that railroaders were a bad lot. It isn’t so. They are not only equal morally to the average run of people but slightly more progressive in certain ways than the average Kansas farmer is inclined to be. Take the matter of modern schools, for instance, every-

body in Goodland wanted modern schools, but it took the railroaders to get behind the project and put it over. The railroaders were willing to have their taxes raised for such a purpose. The farmers were more inclined to count the cost. Yes, I was with the railroad men at the start, and I would be with them yet if it was just a matter of striking for conditions that will permit them to live and bring up their families in the way they want to bring them up. But it’s tragic—this state of mind that the strike has got them into. Goodland was clean and sane and healthy before this strike. If the brotherhoods had all gone out with the other men, maybe the strike would have been won without any such evil as this befalling us. As it is, Goodland may recover physically; but spiritually, it’s nigh ruined.”

If there were no strike in Goodland, I fancy the people might be doing a good deal of thinking about cigarettes. It is against the law to sell them in Kansas, and the law seems to be enforced. At least, I could not buy any, although cigarette smoking was common enough on the streets. People can send out of the State and get them, and almost everybody has friends who go to Colorado frequently.

“I guess we kind of miscalculated when we passed that law,” one strictly moral Kansan explained. “We worked a good many years gettin’ that law; not because cigarettes is more harmful than other forms of tobacco, but because the other forms is more liable to create discouragement among the young. But we hadn’t no sooner got the law passed, in the interest of righteousness and religion and everything good, than along come the war and it became our Christian duty to provide cigarettes for the soldiers. The Y. M. C. A., which had helped us enact the law, became our favorite method of distribution. We wouldn’t permit our boys to smoke ‘em, either before they left Kansas or after they got back. That is, we didn’t calculate to. But we fairly urged ‘em to smoke while they was away, and the result is a leetle disquietin’. Even my own boy smokes, and, much as I hate the idea, when he asks me now to bring him nigh two dollars’ worth at a time from Burlington, I just ain’t got the nerve to utter one objection.”

Goodland, Kansas is a prosperous western Kansas community of 5,000 population located on the Great Plains of Kansas and eastern Colorado. The elevation at Goodland is over 3,200 feet above sea level.

Goodland is a fine tourist stop on U. S. 24 located about 400 miles west of Kansas City and about 200 miles east of Colorado Springs and Denver. Tourist accommodations are excellent with good hotels, motels, and restaurants.

Goodland parks are known throughout the west by tourists as well as the people in the region. The three parks are an outstanding example of community work and spirit. Located in Power Plant Park is the home of the Goodland Tigers, one of the fastest semi-pro baseball teams in the country. When the tigers are playing at home you can see some of the stars of the future and of the yester year. Billy Martin of the Yankees, played a lot of baseball with the Goodland Tigers while stationed at Fort Carson in the Army.

The modern glass enclosed swimming pool is another example of the modern way of life in Goodland and in the summer months, this pool is the habitat of young and old alike. Tourists stare amazed to find a pool of this caliber in the area.

The famous bread basket of the nation is in evidence at Goodland with the modern Prairie Sky Scrapers (wheat elevators) on the sky line. Over 1,000,000 bushels of wheat are stored in these modern elevators.

The region is rapidly becoming industrialized and Goodland is keeping pace with the area. Recent additions to the industrial picture of Goodland are the processing plant of National Lead Company, De Lore Division, and the movement of the main plant of Tyron, Inc. The De Lore Division processes diatomaceous marl of use in many of National Lead’s products and Tyron is a manufacturer of tubeless and conventional tire repair kits.

Goodland is a friendly town that the tourists enjoy with good accommodation that make it truly a home away from home. The Goodland people invite you to stop at Goodland and enjoy with them the numerous activities throughout the year.

Now when you’re traveling on U.S. 24 this summer you just take your time—we have a good highway that you can go just as fast as you want and our under-takers are some of the best in the country, but I’ll let you in on a secret. “They can wait” so take it easy and watch the highway markers. They are put up by people who know the road and all of its quirks.

(From Official Publication of U.S. Highway 24 Assn., May 1, 1956 issue.)

Thank You
To the following supporters of the Sherman County Historical Society from 1/1/03 – 7/15/03

It is the early 1930s, the depression is wide spread, and people are looking for a bargain. Here is an example of the AD-VISOR, a one-sheet community newsletter published by D. W. Blackburn of Goodland circa 1929 to 1937, in which a one letter typo led to much increased business for one advertiser, The Goodland Home Bakery. People even brought in Mason jars with lids to get the product and business was booming!

Gloria Heston Kolb, who lived in the Ennis-Handy House as a child, along with her three children, Twila, Terry, and Tim, were visiting in Goodland at the end of May. Gloria, her children, Millie Wright, and David Branda were having lunch when the subject of an old paper that advertised cherry farts came up. Gloria’s mother, also named Twila, had saved the paper because she thought it was funny and it always gave her a chuckle. David, grandson of D. W. Blackburn, had heard about the infamous issue but had never seen it. Neither Gloria nor David knew the other knew of the paper. In a letter to David, Gloria wrote, “I still can’t get over that I brought up the three farts and your reaction to it. I believe it was meant to be. It gives me so much pleasure to send this paper to you. I kept it because it always gave me a laugh, but for you it’s personal.”

Locating, acquiring, selecting, and even creating contemporary documents, is a very worthy cause for all family and local community historians. From these sources we may answer questions, create collections for future researchers, and help to preserve and share the historical experiences of the collective population of an area. The Historical Society expresses its thanks to those who have shared, and will share, their documents, photos, etc.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!

THANKS ALSO

To: High Plains Office Supply for donating the servicing of the Historical Society copy machine. Thank You!

VICTORIAN HIGH TEA

We are again this year managing a game booth at the home-owned carnival during fair week. We need volunteers to help us out. The work is easy and requires little investment of some evening time. The carnival board pays the society to operate the booth. This is a good fundraiser for us. Please call 899-6773 to let us know we can count on your assistance. Help, Help, your nine-member board is spread very thin!