The Way It Was

100 years ago:

A peculiar variety of ancient corn found; may have been in its hidden receptacle for centuries

T.W. Vandiver brought the Mail an ear of corn grown by Thomas Kennedy at Capinger's Mill.

The seed for this corn were sent to Mr. Kennedy by his brother-in-law, and it is said to have been taken from a sealed jar found in a cave in the southern part of Colorado.

It is supposed to have been deposited there by Aztec or some other tribe of Indians hundreds or possibly thousands of years ago.

It is not known how long the sealed jar had lain in the cave before it was found and its content brought to light.

75 years ago:

Bourbon County officers hunting for Lester Jobe

Fort Scott officers believe they know the man who has committed a number of thefts in Bourbon County and in Vernon County. The following relative to the finding of considerable property on a farm near Parker, Kan., occupied by a man said to be a former resident of the Deerfield vicinity, appeared in the Friday evening issue of the Fort Scott Tribune:

Officers yesterday not only located the home of a man long "wanted," but also an indefinite quantity of what they believed to be stolen goods -- and all through the clues offered by a lost bank deposit slip and a strip of wood broken from the endgate of a truck.

50 years ago:

Fort Scott lady charges hubby chained her up

County officers said today a 28-year-old wife has signed a statement in which she says her husband beat her "almost daily" for the past two months and chained "her to his body ever night with a cow chain" for a week.

County attorney Daniel O. Lardner and Sheriff L.L. Queen said Mrs. Doris Blackmore signed the statement at Main Street Mercy Hospital here late yesterday. Her condition was listed as critical.

Her husband, Cecil Blackmore, 33, a World War II veteran, is held in the county jail. Lardner said he planned to arraign Blackmore on two counts of assault to do great bodily harm.