Folder: November 10, 1926

Dodge City, Kans., Nov. 10, 1926 Tuesday, 10:15, maybe 9:15

Dear Bess:

We had a grand meeting in Great Bend and Mr. Moses and the president of the Chamber of Commerce hooked up a fine 1927 Buick sedan and hauled us to Larned where we had a meeting at the Caf? Bon-bon with the town's leading citizens, after which we drove out to Pawnee Rock, which is a rock hill about one hundred feet above the surrounding plain at a little place about twenty miles southwest of Great Bend called Pawnee Rock and from the top of which you can see for miles. It is the only rock in forty miles and was formerly used by Indians as a place from which to jump out and slaughter unsuspecting travelers who were going down the Santa Fe Trail. The D.A.R. have put a fence around it and erected a fine monument on top of it to the early pioneers.

We drove on to Kinsley, where we had another meeting at 8:00 P.M. At Kinsley the road forks going east and the new Santa Fe Trail goes by way of St. John and Syracuse to Hutchinson and Emporia. At Larned the road splits and goes west to Garden City by way of Jetmore and is called North 50. If Larned directs traffic straight west by North 50, it misses Kinsley and Dodge City. If Kinsley directs traffic east over the new Santa Fe Trail, it misses Larned and Great Bend. Larned and Kinsley each have had signs up directing traffic away from the other but they each claimed that some outside town on the other road had put up the sign. The inhabitants of each town are almost afraid to be caught in the other town because of the situation. We have delegates from each place due at our meeting here tomorrow and from the look of things we have reestablished good relations and will have all the cities in this neighborhood pulling for our National Old Trails, which is what we came for.

I have met some real characters on this trip. This Old Man Moses I rode down with on the train from Kinsley and in the auto to that place is not the Kansas Milling Co. Moses but is a financier of these parts. He owns (or did until he gave them away) four department stores and three banks besides generous portions of the business sections of Geat Bend, Larned, Pawnee Rock, and various and sundry other towns. Davis tells me he's worth a million or two. He has two sons and some granddaughters in whom he seems to be very much interested. He gave his department stores to the managers who had been with him longest and organized a finance company to run his banks and gave them to his sons. He is still burdened with his real estate. His wife died in June, but he told me that they had seen everything on the American continent and most of Europe before she died and that he intended to keep their big house in Great Bend running just as if she were alive for they both believed in getting everything out of life there is in it. He came here from Sedalia, Missouri, in 1874 after taking a much shot-up trip across Colorado to San Francisco and Portland. He said his brother was sheriff of Great Bend when he arrived and that the chief deputy killed a man that night and his brother had to kill one the next day. I'm meeting some fine old Kansas Red Legs, as my mother would call them, and they're not half bad.

We came down from Kinsley on Santa Fe No. 5, which arrived here at 10:05, stayed fifteen minutes and left at 9:20. You can't beat that and I'm sober too.

I'm hoping I get a letter from you tomorrow. I'll sure be disappointed if I don't. Be sure and kiss my baby. I'll be home Friday evening and gone again Saturday at 10:00 A.M.

Loads of love from Your Harry