The Redbud City: Hard times continued in Shawnee in 1939
Clyde Wooldridge
HOTEL GAMING LOUNGE RAIDED
A full truck load of furniture and equipment from a modernistic bar and gambling lounge on the ninth floor of the Aldridge Hotel was stored in the basement of the police station Thursday, April 13, 1939. This followed a gambling raid by police and sheriff deputies.
Only two arrests were made. C.C. Coulston was booked at the police station, as was N.B. Miller, an employee of the lounge. Led by Chief F.A. Budd, officers raided a suite of rooms on the top floor of the hotel about 9:30 p.m. Other officers on the raid were Sam Martin, Bill Miller, and Mark Frazier.
The Redbud City: It happened in February
Clyde Wooldridge
Contributing writer
1851 - The Indian Appropriations Act was the name of several acts passed by the Congress. A considerable number of acts were passed under the same name throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. From the outset, the most notable landmark of the acts was the one of 1851.
The official name was the “Appropriation Bill for Indian Affairs,” passed on Feb. 27, 1851. The act allocated funds to move western tribes onto reservations. Reservations were protected and enclosed by the federal government. According to the government at that time, reservations were created to protect the Native Americans from the growing encroachment of whites moving westward. This act set the precedent for modern-day Native American reservations.
Clyde Wooldridge
JIM THORPE HOME TO VOTE ON INDIAN ACT
Jim Thorpe, famous Native American athlete, stormed into Native American politics on Saturday, Dec. 4, 1937, as he once did on the football gridiron. The former world’s decathlon champion and football All-American shifted quickly into political phrases as he returned to his hometown to denounce provisions of the Thomas-Rogers Indian Act. He urged against adoption of a separate constitution by the Sac & Fox tribe, of which he was a member.
“They want us to go back to the blanket,” shouted Thorpe as he electioneered among fellow tribe members for the defeat of the constitution in a tribal vote on Tuesday, Dec. 7.
The Redbud City: Sheriff Evans saga continues
Clyde Wooldridge
EVANS IS SHERIFF AS LYON BOND CANCELLED
The same two stage hands that rang up the curtain on Pottawatomie County’s political comedy-melodrama, wrote “finis” to the exciting episode on Saturday morning, May 1, 1937. Rufus Lyon’s $10,000 surety bond was cancelled and that left Sheriff Elza Evans as the sole claimant to the little suite of offices in the northwest corner of the courthouse basement.
Commissioners Frank Sims, and Elmer Rawlings met in adjournment session about 9 A.M., with Chairman John Gentry absent. Lyon’s bond was cancelled on Sims’ motion and Rawlings’ second. The county clerk was ordered to return the bond to the Hartford Accident and Assurance Company in Connecticut.
The Redbud City: Hospital room is scene of official s selection
Clyde Wooldridge
HOSPITAL ROOM IS THE SCENE OF OFFICIAL’S SELECTION
A political thunderbolt rumbled across Pottawatomie County, as it flashed from a tiny room on the third floor of the A.C. H. Hospital on the afternoon of February 23, 1936. The county commissioners surprised many by naming Elza Evans, former Maud police chief, to succeed the late Walter Mosier as county sheriff.
Evans, 43, was a native Maud resident, who made a run for the nomination of sheriff in 1936. He appeared to be one of the favorites but faded late in the campaign.