1947 - Wayne Lohmeier Bought Becker Cafe from Henry Becker

 These ads appeared in The Clay County News on May 8, 1947.

1947 Clay County Track Meet

The 1947 Clay County Track Meet was held on the Hastings College track and won by Harvard.

This article appeared in The Clay County Sun newspaper in Clay Center on May 1, 1947.

Sutton Relief to South Russia - 1922

The Sutton News carried several stories about the work of Rev. R. Birk as he organized relief for people living in South Russia in 1922. Rev. Birk concentrated on the villages of Worms and Rohrbach, the former home of numerous Sutton area families.

 

Camp Fire Girls Mark French Dugout - 1922

Sutton Camp Fire girls celebrated the 50th anniversary of Arbor Day by planting a tree on the site of Luther French's dugout on the banks of School Creek.

The story appeared on Page 1 of the April 28, 1922 issue of The Sutton News.

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A couple of things:

Marking the anniversary of the founding of Arbor Day offers some choices. J. Sterling Morton suggested such a thing in January 1872. The day was first celebrated later in the year - a couple of dates show up in accounts. The day was officially named a Nebraska holiday in 1874.

Secondly, this account places the French dugout on the south bank of School Creek. I've had seen references that it was on the north bank. Several of my contemporaries, town kids, tell of working their way through tall weeds to visit, and play in the dugout. Us farm kids were spending our time on tractor seats so weren't involved. Anyhow, I've had fellows tell me the dugout was on the north side, others say the south, not a few can't remember. 

The article begins by referring to "April Day." I'm guessing the editor meant Arbor Day and used that reference in my account of the article for the column in the April 27 issue of The Clay County News. I wonder if that was accurate.

1932 Burlington Rail Pass Found Blowing Around Town

This 1932 Burlington rail pass was found in a plastic zip-lock bag blown up against the fence of a dog run in Sutton this week (early April 2022). 

Among the fun consequences of being associated with a local historical society is that this kind of thing finds its way to our attention. Our learned,  and developed curiosity then kicks into gear.

William Chandler was born in Smith County, Kansas on 24 Oct 1904 and died in Harvard on 27 Nov 1969. He is buried in the Harvard cemetery.

William Joseph Chandler appears in the 1920 census as the 16-year old son of Vern and Rosa Chandler in Clay Center. He was in Harvard in 1940 with his wife Lottie and two children. He identified himself as an assistant welder for the Burlington railroad. 

The rail pass has been well preserved and from all appearances, has been kept for almost 90 years as some kind of memorabilia. So how did it come to be blowing loose on the streets of Sutton in 2022?

I dunno. Contact us if you lost this item, or have information about how or why it is still around.

Sutton Girls & Boys Won the 1997 Clay Co. Track Meet

The April 10, 1997 issue of The Clay County News covered the county track meet won by the Sutton girls and the boys.

1997 Academic All-State Winter Sports Athletes from Clay County

The Journal Star named these county athletes to their 1997 All-Staters for winter sports.

1997 Clay County Junior High Track Meet

Sutton's Junior High kids won the Cay County Track Meet in 1997.

 

The 1947 County Assessors Go To Work

The April 3, 1947 issue of The Clay County News described the work and the guidelines for the county assessors as they prepared to evaluate county property.

Release of the 1950 Census

The 1950 census is available at the government's census archive at:   https://1950census.archives.gov/  accessible at no cost. Read on for some guidance to use the archives.

The 1950 census was released on April 1, 2022, 72 years after the official date of the '50 census. The delay is prescribed by law.

The census is not indexed so can not yet be searched by name, or other data information. Private enterprises, ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, etc, have teams interpreting the handwriting of the enumerators to build digitized data bases that will be searchable.

In the meantime, the raw data is available at the government archives. At the archives website you can select a state or county and some breakdown within the county. A list of "Enumeration Districts (ED) will appear that are chucks of the county you can browse.

It may be cumbersome to find the ED you need. This website will help: https://stevemorse.org/census/arc1940-1950edmaps.html?year=1940  But be careful to select 1950 then follow the links to maps that are marked with ED names (numbers). For instance, Sutton is divided into ED 18-30 (east of Highway 5) and ED 18-31 (Sutton city - west of Highway 5). (For those under a certain age, Highway 5 was a state highway that went from Highway 41 through downtown Sutton and on to Henderson. Sometime when I was living elsewhere, the state must have taken those signs down and turned the road back to the counties.)

Outside of town, School Creek Township is ED 18-27 and Sutton Township is ED 18-32. 

Grafton Township (Fillmore County) outside of Grafton village is ED 30-21. Grafton village is ED 30-20. 

All Clay County ED's are listed HERE.

Have fun.