In afternoon they gathered again to listen to "Pap Tyler" and Pete Tom tell of the early days. But the usual 4th of July storm scattered the celebrators and spoiled the evening display of fire-works.
WYMORE
Is beautifully located near Indian Creek and Blue River. It was almost an undisturbed prairie until the B. & M.R.R. came this way in the spring of '81, and then, Topsy-like, it "dis growed right up out of the ground," and became a railroad division town. The plot covers 640 acres, a part of which was Samuel Wymore's homestead, who settled here sixteen years ago, and it does appear that every lot will be needed.
One can scarce think that where but two years ago a dozen little shanties held all the people of Wymore, now are so many neatly built homes and even elegant residences sheltering over 2,500. To tell you what it now is would take too long. Three papers, three banks, a neat Congregational church; Methodists hold meetings in the opera hall, Presbyterians in the school-house; both expect to have churches of their own within a year; with all the business houses of a rising western town crowded in. A fine quarry of lime-stone just south on Indian Creek which has greatly helped the building up of Wymore. The heavy groves of trees along the creeks and rivers are certainly a feature of beauty. The days were oppressively warm, but the nights cool and the evenings delightful. The sunset's picture I have looked upon almost every evening here is beyond the skill of the painter's brush, or the writer's pen to portray. Truly "sunset is the soul of the day."
It is thought that in the near future Wymore and Blue Springs will shake hands across Bill creek and be one city. Success to the shake.
The Otoe Indian reservation lies but a mile south-east of Wymore. It is a tract of land that was given to the Otoe Indians in 1854, but one-half was sold five years ago. It now extends ten miles north and south, and six and three-fourths miles east and west, and extends two miles into Kansas. I will quote a few notes I took on a trip over it with Uncle John, Annie, and Mary.
Left Wymore eight o'clock, drove through Blue Springs, crossed the Blue on the bridge above the mill where the river is 150 feet wide, went six miles and crossed Wild Cat creek, two miles south and crossed another creek, two miles further to Liberty, a town with a population of 800, on the B. & M.R.R., on, on, we went, going north, east, south, and west, and cutting across, and down by the school building of the agency, a fine building pleasantly located, with quite an orchard at the rear. Ate our lunch in the house that the agent had occupied.
A new town is located at the U.P.R.R. depot, yet called "the Agency." It numbers twelve houses and all built since the lands were sold the 30th of last May. Passed by some Indian graves, but I never had a "hankering" for dead Indians, so did not dig any up, as so many do. I felt real sorry that the poor Indian's last resting place was so desecrated. The men, and chiefs especially, are buried in a sitting posture, wrapped in their blankets, and their pony is killed and the head placed at the head of the grave and the tail tied to a pole and hoisted at the foot; but the women and children are buried with little ceremony, and no pony given them upon which to ride to the "happy hunting-ground."
This tribe of Indians were among the best, but warring with other tribes decreased their number until but 400 were left to take up a new home in the Indian Territory.
The land is rolling, soil black loam, and two feet or more deep; in places the grass was over a foot high. From Uncle's farm we could see Mission and Plum creeks, showing that the land is well watered. The sun was very warm, but with a covered carriage, and fanned with Nebraska breezes we were able to travel all the day. Did not reach home until the stars were shining.