Excerpted stories in Crawford County newspaper archives
100 years ago
February 6, 1926
City officials today received from the county commissions a signed contract for a lease on the City Hall here for county purposes, and it will be submitted to the city commission for action next week. As signed by the county commissioners, the contract apparently does not meet the approval of city officials, it was said today. Among other things, the city proposed that the county pay one-third the cost of maintaining the roof. The county board cut out this clause.
Extensive plans for remodeling the Klock and Colonial theatres at an approximate expenditure of $60,000, to be carried out during the spring and summer months, was announced today by E. E. Frazier of the Pittsburg Amusement Company. The two theatre structures will be converted into the most modern type of playhouses. The program at the Klock calls for approximately $25,000 and that at the Colonial, from $30,000 to $35,000, Mr. Frazier said.
50 years ago
February 6, 1976
The snow and ice storm that coated streets and windshields with a maddening sheet of ice didn't close any streets, highways or schools in Crawford County, but there is still more to come according to the U.S. Weather Bureau. No county roads were closed as of 10 p.m. Thursday night, the County Sheriff's office said. They said, however, that many of the roads were very slick in spots, and drivers should be very careful. They said no roads would be closed unless it snowed considerably during the night. No Pittsburg schools will be closed Friday.
The Crawford County attorney's office has found no reason to believe money was ever exchanged in a coupon collection and sales plan at St. Mary's Elementary School, Louie L. Barney, assistant county attorney, said Thursday. An effort by some St. Mary's classrooms to collect coupons to be sold for 30 per cent of their face value without purchase of the products listed on the coupons was reported Thursday. Within the limited time he has had since he became aware of the incident, County Attorney Mike McCurdy said, he has discovered no criminal responsibility or culpability by anyone involved with the school or church.
An innovative predivorce counseling program is going into effect this week in Crawford County, District Court Judge Don Musser said. The program, designed by Musser and the Crawford County Mental Health Center, will allow extensive counseling sessions in the mandatory 60-day interim between the time divorce proceedings are filed and the actual divorce hearing. Musser said the 1970 State Legislature authorized judges to refer divorce cases for mandatory counseling.
25 years ago
February 6, 2001
Art student Michael Ferris had a secret. Some of those secrets are now on public view in the Harry Krug Gallery, Porter Hall, Pittsburg State University. "I went to a conservative graduate school and my teachers there didn't approve of my more experimental work," said Ferris, who now teaches at Illinois State University, Normal. "So I did more traditional paintings and they thought I was getting better. But, at night, at home, I still worked on my secret projects." Those projects included sculptures fashioned from small pieces of wood glued together to form an inlay effect. Among them was a multiple-armed figure Ferris calls "Lucky the Immortal."
FRONTENAC - A movement to reduce the number of members on the Frontenac City Council was shot down Monday night. Councilwoman Linda Grilz was the lone dissenter in a vote to keep the council structured as it is, with four members supporting the cur-rent structure and three members absent. Grilz had advocated during the last few months reducing the number of council members from eight to six and having at least some of the seats elected by the city at-large rather than by wards.
ARMA - Up-front utility construction costs and other technicalities are putting a damper on two developers' plans to establish separate subdivisions in Arma. Arma City Council members voted Monday night to contact the Pittsburg State University Business and Technology Institute to conduct a cost-benefit study for providing financial assistance to Larry VanBeceleare for his plans to build a housing subdivision with 48 lots on 36 acres just outside the city limits off East Perry Street. As part of the deal, the property would be annexed.
