The way it was

100 Years Ago - March 16, 1904

There will be a free lecture given in the Auditorium of the Weltmer Institute Thursday evening.

The subject treated will be "How to handle Criminal Cases," and will be delivered by Rev. Newton of Ventura, California. Newton has devoted some of the best years of his life to work among the criminals of the country. To a person who has never given this subject serious thought, or who has never viewed the inner working of any of our large penal institutions, Newton's lecture will be a revelation. The lecture is free and everyone is cordially invited to attend.

75 Years Ago - March 16, 1929

Sheriff Butner received a message late Friday afternoon notifying him of a holdup in Bourbon County, Kansas, just over the Missouri line and requesting him to watch for two men who committed the crime. Butner sent two deputies out on the Nevada-Fort Scott Road and they stopped two men in a Ford car.

The car resembled the one used by the bandits however, the men stopped proved to be two well-known residents of Fort Scott, ex-Officer Northcutt and his son, who Sheriff Butner has known for many years.

50 Years Ago - March 16, 1954

One of the oldest and most familiar features of rural life is fast becoming just a memory. Like the blacksmith shops and the old water-powered mills, the small rural schools are disappearing from the Vernon County landscape. Sometimes just a building remains but it has been remodeled into a home, a church, a clubroom or a barn. The time has gone when every few miles a traveler would pass a small square building surrounded by trampled playground and identified by its painted flagpole.

Now the traveler is more familiar with the orange and black school buses, carrying school children of several districts to and from large modern consolidated schools. From a peak year in 1915 when 131 rural schools dotted Vernon County every two or three miles, the number has gradually diminished until only three operating rural school districts remain. There are still nine organized school districts but six of them, Roberts, Robinson, Coal Creek Belvior, Blue Mound and Lefler send their children to consolidated schools in Schell City, Walker and Harwood.

The oldest operating rural school and one of the oldest in Vernon County, is Flatrock, District 39, four miles west of Schell City.