The Way It Was

100 years ago:

Fort Scott grants new telephone franchise

J.L. McCutchen, superintendent of the Nevada Telephone Company, has secured a franchise for a telephone exchange at Fort Scott, and tells the people at that place he will begin putting in the plant at once. He also promises long distance connections with Kansas city and St. Louis and intermediate points as soon as his lines are completed.

The Tribune says it is the impression of some that McCuthen is backed by the Kinloch Company, and by others that he means to dispose of the franchise, but Mr. McCutchen informed the Tribune that he intends to put in the Fort Scott exchange.

75 years ago:

Fire at the home of Glenn Harding

The fire department was called to the home of Glenn Harding, 1306 North Washington Street, at 5:45 o'clock Tuesday evening when gasoline from a stove exploded and set fire to the kitchen.

Fortunately, no one was in the room at the time of the explosion.

The kitchen was almost completely ruined but the remainder of the house was saved from destruction although it was damaged by the smoke and the intense heat.

50 years ago:

West Plains Sheriff probing into Wolf's past in bigamy case

Rosa (or Rolene) Bruner, about 59, formerly Mrs. Ed Wolf, of near Deerfield, today waived her right to a preliminary hearing in the Magistrate Court at West Plains and will be tried on a bigamy charge there on April 18.

Howell County Sheriff Lester Davis told the Daily Mail today that Mrs. Bruner is being charged with bigamously marrying Elmer F. Bruner of that county on Nov. 24, 1954.

According to Sheriff Davis, Mrs. Bruner has a past history of several marriages.

Her first known wedding venture was to a man named Solly in Minnesota who died several years ago, followed by her marriage to Ed Wolf, who farmed near Deerfield.

Wolf committed suicide in 1949 and shortly afterward his widow married Albert Sepp, 82, of Seneca.

Alledgedly there is no record of a divorce from Sepp before she wed Michael Arbenetis of Clinton in 1952.

Also, alledgedly without a previous divorce, Mrs. Bruner married her current husband, Elmer F. Bruner, of West Plains, on Nov. 24 of last year. It is on this last marriage that the bigamy charges have been filed.

-- Compiled by Nick Wright