“No Sunday West of Newton:” Newton’s Bloody Sunday: Part 1

by Kristine Schmucker, HCHM Curator

August 20 marks the date of one of the most violent days in the history of Newton, Kansas. One hundred and forty-three years ago, “Newton’s General  Massacre,” captured the attention of the nation and gave the new town the reputation as “Bloody Newton.”  The events of the early Sunday morning hours of Aug 20, 1871 are still the subject of questions, books, and even, a screen play. Our next three posts will feature the event that gave early Newton such a bad reputation.

In the 1870s there was a saying . . .

There is no Sunday west of Newton . . . and no god west of Pueblo.”

In the opening paragraph of the “Newton” section in his History of Harvey County, (1881) Judge RWP Muse wrote,

It is an old saying, that a bad beginning insures a good ending, and if this be true, then will the infamous character, which the town justly earned, in the early days, fore-shadow an after career of unexampled greatness and prosperity”. 

During the summer of 1871 Newton seemed to go up over-night around Joseph McCoy’s stockyard. A cowboy passing through provided this description of the new town.

“We crossed Bluff Creek into Kansas and passed Newton during the latter part of May.  A blacksmith shop, a store, and a dozen dwelling places made up this town at that time, but when we came back through the place on our return home thirty days later, it had grown to be quite a large town, due to the building of the railroad.  It did not seem possible that a town could make  such a quick growth in such a short time, but Newton, Kansas sprang up almost over night.” (Waltner, p. 14 quoting J. Marvin Hunter, ed. The Trail Driver of Texas, Vol. I p. 369)

 

Newton, Summer 1871.

Newton, Summer 1871.

The first passenger train arrived in Newton on July 17, 1871. Judge Muse and R.M. Spivey opened a land office and aided in constructing wood structures with false fronts and awnings along Main Street. The new town soon had it’s share of  businesses that catered to the “cow-boy” along Main Street including grocers, clothing and entertainment.

A reporter for the Wichita Tribune (24 August 1871) observed that Newton had ten bawdy houses

“in full running order and three more underway.  Plenty of rotten whiskey and everything to excite the passions was freely indulged in . . . Rogues, gamblers, and lewd men and women run the town.”

Henry Lovett’s 1st Saloon, opened in the Spring 1871, and was located at the northwest corner of 4th & Main and the O.K. Saloon was located on 5th Street with two additional “houses”  located east of the OK. One writer claimed that every third building was a saloon.

The Gold Room, owned by  future Newton mayor James Gregory, was located between 5th & 6th on Main and was considered the “grandest.”

Plat Map of Newton, Kansas, 17 August 1871. HCHM Archives Map Collection.

Plat Map of Newton, Kansas, 17 August 1871. HCHM Archives Map Collection.

Described by a Topeka Commonwealth reporter,  the Gold Room Saloon  was a large, roughly constructed, frame building. Inside,  a twenty foot bar  was  left of the front door. Barrels containing all kinds of liquors and wine were behind the bar. The “mantle or show part of the bar, lined with clusters of decanters daintily arranged and polished until their shimmer is like that of diamonds” was above.  Opposite the bar, were the gaming tables. A raised platform for entertainers was at the rear. (Topeka Commonwealth, September 17, 1871).

In general, saloons in Newton had been constructed quickly.  They were often were long, narrow rooms, darkly lit, with small, not very fancy bars. Kerosene lamps provided a yellowish light; everything was smelly and dirty.

In addition to the Main Street saloons, there was an area south of the AT&SF tracks known as Hide Park “because the girls showed so much of their hide.” ** The two largest and best known were the saloons were owned by Perry Tuttle and Ed Krum and located  in the “red-light district,” otherwise known as Hide Park.

Tuttle’s was more popular, all through the night, Sundays included, there was activity.

hideparkwatermark

Plat Map of Newton, Kansas, 17 August 1871. HCHM Archives Map Collection.

 

Law enforcement in Newton was uncertain. The new town had to rely on township authorities from Sedgwick or special policemen  hired by the saloon owners.

The Topeka Commonwealth observed one “of the constables and the deputy sheriff have been appointed policemen.  They receive their pay from a fund raised by the gamblers.”   Fights were not uncommon.

Long time resident C. H. Stewart recorded memories of his boyhood in Newton during the mid-1870s.  He recalled that there were “many cow-boys in town who frequented the saloons . . . And the ‘boys’ would get drunk and come staggering along those walks with their jingling spurs and clanging boots and wild whoops”.  (C.H. Stewart, “Newton History” )

Into this environment of lawlessness comes the Texas cowboys, many of whom sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, and  northern veteran businessmen looking for a new start. The two groups mixed together on the streets and in the saloons with sometimes tragic results.

Several well-known gunfighters came through the area during July and August.  John Wesley Harden, one of the most notorious Texas gunfighters, had followed the Chisholm Trail in 1871 on a cattle drive and spent time in Newton.  Billy Brooks also was in and out of Newton as law enforcement and as gunfighter depending on the situation in the early 1870s.

Trouble started early. Muse reported:

June 15, 1871 Snyder shot and killed Welsh in front of Gregory’s saloon.  Both were “cow-boys”.   A few days later Johnson killed Irvin in the Parlor Saloon.  His pistol was accidentally discharged, the ball passing though a partition and killing Irvin.   . a man of no known character.”

August was the peak of the cattle drive season and all the ingredients were in place for violence. Muse described the atmosphere;

“About the first of August, a young man, named Lee was shot and killed in one of the dance-houses in Hyde Park, accidentally. . . Newton was indignant over the murder of a young cowboy named Lee.”

Lee was well liked,  handsome and outgoing with many friends “but the citizens of the town were helpless before the fierce, gun-totting Texans” and the incident was ruled an accident.

Ten days later another shooting.

Mike McCluskie, an Irishman from Ohio, also known as Arthur Delaney or Art Donovan, was in town. He had a rough reputation and was described as “among the hardest individuals to ever walk Newton.” Previously he had worked for the Santa Fe Railroad as a night policeman. In August 1871, he was hired by the Newton authorities as a Special Policeman to help keep order during the railroad bond election on August 11.

“Billy” Bailey, a Texan, described as a  “thoroughly offensive and officious” gambler. It was rumored that he killed at least two other men in gun fights.  Bailey was also hired as a Special Policeman for the elections. The two men, McCluskie and Bailey,  had a long standing feud, possibly over a woman, which came to a tragic conclusion August 11, 1871.

August 11, Friday – Election Day

During the day, McCluskie and a drunk Bailey argued. Later, at the Red Front Saloon, the argument escalated into a fistfight. Bailey left the saloon with McCluskie following, guns drawn. Two shots were fired at Bailey, who died the next day. McCluskie, realizing he is in danger from Bailey’s Texas friends, left for Florence by a train.

August 19, Saturday

A week later, feeling the danger had passed, McCluskie returned to Newton and went to Perry Tuttle’s Hide Park Dance Hall to gamble.

August 20, Sunday Morning

1:00 a.m.   Apparently, sensing trouble, Perry Tuttle attempted to close the dance hall.  Customers refused to leave, even after the band left.

2:00 a.m.   McCluskie remained at the faro table.  Three Texans, Billy Garrett, Henry Kearnes, and Jim Wilkerson, entered the dance hall, one joined McCluskie at the faro table. A short time later a Texas cowboy, Hugh Anderson entered, gun in hand.

Anderson was the son of a wealthy Texas cattleman, and was in Kansas working as a cowboy in August 1871.  He had recently ridden with John Wesley Hardin and had been part of a brutal killing of a Mexican cowboy earlier in the summer. Now his mind was on revenge for the death of his  friend Bailey. McCluskie’s return to Newton on Saturday was Anderson’s opportunity.

The Emporia News described the next few minutes inside Tuttle’s Dance Hall.

Anderson walked directly to McCluskie, “with murder in his eye, and foul mouth filled with oaths and epithets, he steps up to McCluskie and shot him,” striking him in the neck.  Mortally wounded, McCluskie fell to the floor while attempting to fire his own pistol, which misfired. This  account goes on to note that “shooting then became generalending with five men killed and three wounded.  (Emporia News, 25 August 1871)

shootout

1871 Shootout in Newton Ks by Frederick Remington.

Next week: “The Full and Graphic Account” Newton’s Bloody Sunday Part 2  Several reporters were in Newton to cover the cattle drive and the provided their readers “back East” with detailed accounts of the “Wholesale Butchery” that occurred in Newton, Ks on August 20.

Links to other posts.

**Note: Hide Park has also been spelled “Hyde Park“.  Muse used “Hyde“, but other contemporary sources used “Hide.”

Sources

Maps:

  • Plat of the Town of Newton, Ks, 17 August 1871. Map Collection, HCHM Archives.

Newspapers:

  • Topeka Commonwealth, September 17, 1871.
  •  Emporia News, 25 August  1871

Accounts:

  • Muse, Judge RWP. History of Harvey County, (1881) Harvey County Historical Museum and Archives, Newton, Ks. First published in Edwards, John P. Historical Atlas of Harvey County, Kansas. Philadelphia, 1882.
  • Stewart, C.H. “Newton History” February 25 1938 recalling 60 years ago (1878).  Chisholm Trail Collection, HCHM Archives.
  • Hunter, J. Marvin, ed.  The Trail Drivers of Texas.  2 Vols.
  • McCoy, Joseph G. Historic Sketches of the Cattle Trade of the West and Southwest, 1874.

Secondary Sources:

  • Davis, Christy. “Rediscovering Newton: An Interpretive Architectural History”  Master’s Thesis, WSU, 1999.
  • Drago, Sinclair Wild, Wooly and Wicked: the History of the Kansas Cow Towns and the Texas Cattle Trade. New York, 1960.
  • Dunlap, Great Trails of the West, New York: Abingdon Press.
  • Miller, Nyle and Joseph Snell.  Why the West Was Wild.  Topeka, Ks 1963
  • Streeter, Floyd B.  The Kaw: Heart of the Nation.  New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1941.
  • Waltner, John. “The Process of Civilization on the Kansas Frontier, Newton, Kansas, 1871-1873” MA These, University of Kansas, 1971.

This three part blog series is adapted from our Speaker’s Bureau Program, “Newton’s Bloody Sunday.”  For more info on our Speaker’s Bureau and programs available see:  https://hchm.org/speakers-bureau/

“Actually made far better than is necessary:” Herter’s Fishing Lure Molds

by Kristine Schmucker, HCHM Curator

Goin' Fishing! Ralph Farrell & Bob Schroeder. HCHM Photo Archives

Goin’ Fishing! Ralph Farrell & Bob Schroeder. HCHM Photo Archives

Before Cabela’s, or even Wal-Mart, where did the serious fisherman (or woman) get supplies?  From 1930 until the early 1970s, the answer was the mail order company located in Waseca, Minnesota – Herter’s.

Herter's Catalog Cover, 1966

Herter’s Catalog Cover, 1966

The owner, George Herter,  produced catalogs that advertised a wide variety of gun, hunting, camping and fishing supplies.  Herter was a master pitchman.  He wrote all the copy for the catalog, some over 700 pages,  claiming the superiority of Herter’s produce over products sold by his competitors. His products, he bragged, were “actually made far better than is necessary.” 

Recently a set of Herter fishing lure molds were donated to the museum with instructions on how to make.

Throughout the 1970s, Herter’s business declined as people shopped at K-Mart, Wal-Mart, and eventually, the ‘big box’ stores, like Cabala’s.   The Herter’s Company went bankrupt in 1981, and George Herter died in 1994 at the age of 83.

The Herter’s name is still used by Cabela’s on a line of  pistol ammunition and some clothing.

 

K-Mart, Sporting Goods Dept.  1801 W. 1st, Newton, 1979

K-Mart, Sporting Goods Dept. 1801 W. 1st, Newton, 1979. HCHM Photo Archives.

Doug Lodermeier, Minneapolis, MN, noted the importance of Herter’s, not only to Minnesota, but the whole industry.

“This Minnesota institution changed hunting and fishing in the state . . . It caused an explosion in the popularity of these activities . . . It put Minnesota on the map as a sportsmen’s paradise.  And, it dramatically changed the economics of retail. . . Herter’s was the beginning of a model that is still being perfected today and has caused the rapid decline in smaller, family-owned stores. . . Cabela’s wouldn’t exist without Herter’s.”

Do you have a favorite Herter’s product?

Sources:

  • http://discovery.mnhs.org/MN150/index.php?title=Herter’s%2C_Inc.
  • http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/07/books/review/Collins-t.html?_r=0
  • http://gunlore.awardspace.info/gunknow/herter.htm
  • http://austinthompson.org/Thingmaker/FishingLures.shtm

Ruins of Fire: August 4, 1914

by Kristine Schmucker, HCHM Curator

“At last the weary watchers see the spiteful tongues of flames sink lower and lower and the fire is conquered.  But where is the  most populous block in Newton? In ruins!  Nothing now can be done save rebuild . . .”  – Marie Tayer, NHS sophomore and winner of essay contest about the “Newton Fire” published in the Evening Kansan-Republican , October 2, 1914.

ruins-2

Postcard, “Ruins of Fire Newton Kan. Aug 4, 1914”

On the morning of August 4, 1914, Harvey County residents woke to devastating news that a massive fire was burning  “the most populous  block” in Newton. By the time the fire was put out the entire east side of the 500 block of Main was in ruins.  This disaster changed the face of Newton’s Main Street.

Newton Evening Kansan Republican, 4 August 1914

Newton Evening Kansan Republican, 4 August 1914

Fire Protection in Newton, Ks:  “A good demonstration was given.”

Fire was a very real danger to the Newton community almost from the beginning.  Dry, wood buildings tended to burn quickly and fire at the various livery stables was a constant concern.   After a November 7, 1872 fire, the Newton Hook and Ladder and Bucket Company was formed. A volunteer fire dept was created in November 1877 with B. McKee as the fire chief.  Josiah Foltz became the first “partly” paid fire chief in 1899.   In 1910, Israel Richardson became the first fire chief to receive  a salary for full time work.

In 1914, the City of Newton purchased an American LaFrance Type 12 triple combination pump, hose and chemical automobile fire engine.  It was fueled by gasoline.

demonstration

Demonstration of the new fire truck, July 9, 1914.

To show the  power of the new engine the Newton Fire Dept gave a demonstration by the Sand Creek Dam on July 9, 1914.  The new engine cost $8,500.00.

The new machine was soon pressed into service.

Newton, Ks Main Street, 500 Block east side pre-1914.

August 4, 1914: “Fire Destroys a Block of Business Buildings”

The most devastating fire in Newton’s history started at 2:00 a.m., August 4, 1914 in the City Auditorium at 124-126 E 5th.  From there the fire quickly spread to the north and west.  Even though the fire fighters were able to get there in minutes, after an hour of trying to gain control, they made the decision to call the Wichita Fire Dept., which arrived on the train at about 5:00 a.m..  A fortunate shift in the wind kept the fire from spreading even further.

This was the first test of the new motorized fire engine purchased in May.  The pumper ran continuously for 16 hours, breaking the old record of 8 hours of continuous pumping.  At times the heat from the fire was so intense that the paint on the engine blistered.

ruins-4

Photo August 4, 1914. New American LaFrance Pumper Fire Truck.

Despite the hard work of the firemen to fight the fire,

“it was evident that the odds were against them.  The wind blew the burning embers about.  There was not sufficient hose to play the water on so many places at one time and not enough men to manage the hose. Their work was most fatiguing, but they stuck in it, even through the day. “

fire-2

Photo of August 4, 1914. After the fire, men are loading hoses onto a horse-drawn wagon.

The Newton Fire Dept. consisted of Chief O.N. Eberle, driver Ed. C. Warhurst, fireman Israel Richardson and seven volunteers.  In addition to the Wichita Fire Dept, members of the Santa Fe Railroad Fire Dept and many volunteers. also helped fight the fire that day.

1914 Newton firemen: E.C. Warhurst (Driver); Guy Kemper (Fire Chief); O.N. Eberly (Volunteer Fireman); E.P. Moore & Israel Richardson (Firemen),

1914 Newton firemen: E.C. Warhurst (Driver); Guy Kemper (Fire Chief); O.N. Eberly (Volunteer Fireman); E.P. Moore & Israel Richardson (Firemen),

“Several Injured During the Fire”

Remarkably, no lives were lost in the fire and very few injuries.

An alert Santa Fe switchman, Patrick Hays, was working “at the Sand Creek switch yard early Tuesday morning, when he noticed flames in town.” Thinking the Santa Fe roundhouse was on fire, he ran to help only to discover flames coming from the Auditorium Hotel on east 5th.  Hayes was one of the first ones on the scene and he immediately started helping the firemen. He was even able to hold  “the hose direct from the engine for an hour without relief.  . .  work  that usually took  four men or at least two.” Hayes fought the fire until he collapsed from fatigue and was taken to Axtell Hospital.  It was noted that Hayes had been renting “a room at the Auditorium hotel and had lost all in the fire.

Another fireman, Aster Early, was “overcome by the heat” and suffered from smoke inhalation. He was taken home and soon recovered. W.C. Moore also received  minor injuries.

Aftermath of the Fire: Postcards

 

The fire destroyed the east side of the 500 block of Main and several businesses located in the 100 block of E. 5th and 6th. Buildings on the west side of Main were damaged, mainly with broken windows and smoke damage. Volunteers set up a brigade and “worked so persistently on the tops of buildings on the west side of Main street.”  They were credited with saving the buildings.

Aftermath of Fire: Photographs

 

Murphy Studio Photograph looking west to the back of the Main Street Buildings after clean up had begun, August 1914

Murphy Studio Photograph looking west to the back of the Main Street Buildings after clean up had begun, August 1914

Sources:

  • Kansan, 7 November 1872
  • Newton Evening Kansan Republican, 4 August 1914, 5 August 1914,  6 August 1914, 7 August 1914, 17 August 1914, 22 August 1914, 8 September 1914, 14 September 1914, 15 September 1914, 17 September 1914.
  • Evening Kansan-Republican , October 2, 1914.
  • HCHM Photo Archives
  • HCHM Postcard Collection
  • Warhurst, Elvin E. “Early Fire Protection in Newton, Kansas: 1872-1922”, 1995 HCHM Archives, Newton, Ks