Old timers recalled that before the area was opened to white settlement, ruins of old Indian buildings stood for many years, near Council Springs, just a few miles from Tribby.  Charles W. Mooney identified this area as the place where the Seminole Nation built their first capital in 1859.  After the capital was abandoned, horse thieves used the area until members of the Anti-Hourse Thief Association ran them out of town.
 
East of the Masonic Lodge was a croquet court where Master Mason Dave Sright and many like him played heated games.  People were friendly and very sociable.

In the early days, dirt streets were crammed with farm wagons loaded with bales of cotton.  Buck Coley and his brothers were known as the best cotton pickers around.  The brothers could pick a small bale (1200 pounds) in one day.  Then in 1921, Boll weevils wreaked havoc and cotton crops and the depression years adversely affected the townspeople who lost life savings in the Wanette Bank.  Times were hard and some folks did not have enough to eat or wear, but most considered themselves blessed to have each other and a roof over their heads.
 
Relief came with the CCC camps as boys left home to work.  WPA gave men jobs building the rock wall and the Home Economic cottage at the school in 1939.  Today Tribbey is known as the site of an historic Civil War Reenactment which draws hundreds of visitors each years

Excerpts adapted from the POTTAWATOMIE COUNTY HISTORY BOOK contributions of Madge Mitchell and Charles Mooney by Beverly Coley Mosman in the POTTAWATOMIE COUNTY CENTENNIAL PROGRAM, Sept 2007.)