(Source pending – Chronicle, between 1938 and 1940)
Some interesting facts about newspapers of Odebolt and nearby towns are contained in a letter received recently by Mrs. Edward Wilkinson from Frank Kelley of Keeline, Wyo. Mr. Kelley had noticed Mrs. Wilkinson’s picture and a story about her newspaper career in the Publishers’ Auxiliary, a trade publication published in Chicago.
I have just received the Auxiliary of this date and am greatly interested in the article concerning your connection with The Odebolt Chronicle. My interest in Odebolt dates back some 34 years before you commenced newspaper work there. My object in writing you is to relate some facts of those days with which you may not be entirely familiar and which I think will interest you.
“In the fall of 1876 the first newspaper was published in Odebolt by Mr. W. W. Yarham, a veteran of the Civil war. To go a little farther back, I had bought a printing outfit of the Ida County Pioneer, and taking Mr. Yarham, who was an old printer, as partner, started the Sac County Reporter at Sac City. I soon saw that this was a bad move and induced Mr. Yarham to buy the paper which I sold on long time, never expecting to realize a dollar from my investment of what I had saved as a country school teacher.
“On my way from Sac City to Ida Grove the train stopped for an hour at the new town of Odebolt, and I had the opportunity to size up the place. As soon as I arrived at Ida Grove I wrote Mr. Yarham to move the outfit to Odebolt which he did and on arriving there a collection was taken to pay the man who had hauled it from Sac City in a lumber wagon.
“I taught a country school that winter near Battle Creek in Ida county. Toward spring Mr. Yarham wrote me that he would never be able to pay for the plant and insisted that I should come and take it over. I did everything possible to induce him to stay, assuring him I would never ask for the money due until he was ready to pay me, but to no avail. He was determined to go. So I paid him for the work he had done, and very much against my will, started as editor and publisher.
“I secured a good young man as printer and the paper paid its way. About a year later Jas. N. Miller of the Sac Sun offered my printer more wages than I could afford, and from that time on my wife and myself did all the work.
“In the fall of 1879 I sold the paper to a farmer named Taylor, who died a few months after and the paper was sold to my former printer, A. J. Mann, and a chum of his from eastern Iowa. After two winters and one summer in Dakota territory on a homestead I bargained with Mann and his partner and was about to start for Odebolt when the spring flood from melting snow tore up the railroad tracks and the telegraph poles on the Big Sioux river and I could not get across nor telegraph nor send a letter. They waited two weeks, and not hearing from me sold to Frank L. Dennis who had a paper at Wall Lake.* So I never got back to Odebolt.
“Two other papers were started there, one was called the Odebolt Observer. It was ten years after I sold the Reporter that Hamilton started The Chronicle. I think these dates are correct, but there may be some errors.
“I will mention some old-timers: Ed O. Hatch, a young lawyer, later went to Sioux City where he was shot and killed by his partner in a gambling house; John Wright, a banker; Uncle John Bruce, a lumber dealer, a shrewd old Scotch friend of mine; John M. Zane, a lawyer; Rev. Jesse Helsell; and others whose names I cannot now recall. Most of them were older than me, and probably few are still living. I will be 83 next month. George W. Kelley, my son, born in Odebolt, is a successful newspaper man on a big daily in Duluth. Other children are all successful and have done remarkable [sic] well.
“I still continue writing for the press and have a page to fill monthly in the Wyoming Stockman-Farmer of Cheyenne.
“The owner of a big farm east of Odebolt was a good friend, but his name escapes my memory. He went to Texas and lost his fortune. An addition to Odebolt bears his name. [H. C. Wheeler, who owned Wheeler Ranch.]
“If I were to go to Odebolt now I would be more of a stranger than was Rip
Van Winkle when he returned to his native village after his twenty years sleep
in the mountains.”
The last Reporter contained the valedictory of Bro. G. A. Hickok, he having sold the office to F. L. Dennis, of the Wall Lake Journal. Mr. H. gives as the reason for this step, that he wishes to devote the next year or two to study. We bid good bye to Mr. Hickok with regret, and hope his retirement from journalism is but temporary. We congratulate Bro. Dennis on his purchase of the Reporter and becoming a citizen of a live town. Both gentlemen have the OBSERVER’s best wishes.
(Researched and submitted by B. Ekse)