Small Town Americana

The Gazebo at Old Town Poway Park

     Yesterday, we drove a few miles down Interstate 15 in order to listen to the Shoreline Symphonic Winds play at the Pomerado Community Band Festival in Poway.  The band set up in the gazebo of the Old Town Poway Park.  As I was enjoying the band play, I was reminded of images of Small Town Americana. 

     The music was great and in spite of the recent nearby fires, the sky was clear and weather was great.  

     As the band played I though back to our ancestors who played in community bands like L. J. Kilbourn and J. F. Bell in Hugoton, Kansas¹.  It is too bad we can't go back in time to listen to them play.

     

         Why did we drive for an hour to listen to an hour of music?  It might have something to do with our son, Luke, who played the baritone sax in the Shoreline Symphonic Winds.

1. "The Early 1900s." The History of Stevens County & Its People. Hugoton, Kansas: Stevens County Historical Association, 1979. 

Dust Storms

Dust Storm in Oklahoma
Possibly in Hooker, Oklahoma

     The Dust Bowl of the 1930s was a series of severe dust storms that swept across the midwest.  This disaster was caused by poor farming techniques as well as the severe drought that the region experienced. The drought devastated the farmland and that together with the Depression was certainly one the reasons that Jayme’s maternal grandparents left Kansas and moved west.  

Dust Storm in Kansas
Probably in or near Hugoton, Kansas

     As one who enjoys his daily shower, I can't imagine having to live through one of these storms.  The fine dust made it inside the houses and covered everything.  The dust coated people's bodies but because of the drought, showers were not a daily affair.  
     If you missed the PBS Ken Burns Documentary, you ought to watch it.  It is available on DVD.
     Lewis Joseph "Jake" Kilbourne and Clara Bell Kilbourne (Jayme's great-grandparents) homesteaded land in Stevens County, Kansas but later moved into Hugoton.  Henry Claydean McBee and Ella Mae Tarr McBee (also Jayme's great-grandparents) lived in Hooker, Oklahoma.  Both Hugoton, Kansas and Hooker, Oklahoma felt the full force of these dust storms.

1. Burns, Ken,  The Dust Bowl. PBS Documentary, 2012 http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/

Drilling for Water instead of Oil

                    



     In the wake of the Dust Bowl the United States Geological Survey together with the State Geological Survey of Kansas undertook an investigation of ground-water in Morton County, Kansas.  At the end of the study¹ is an acknowledgement to Jake Kilbourne for providing data on wells drilled by him in Morton County.
     In 1906 Lewis Joseph “Jake”  Kilbourn (1879-1947),  (Jayme’s great-grandfather) homesteaded 160 acres in Stevens County close to the border of Morton County.  He ran cattle and drilled wells as a sideline.  About 1922 “Jake and his family moved to Hugoton and after that devoted much of his time to drilling water wells in the Hugoton Gas field”².  


1. Morton County Geohydrology  Kansas Geological Survey 
Accessed 16 Aug 2013   http://www.kgs.ku.edu/General/Geology/Morton/03_intro.html

2. "Jake Kilbourn Passes Following Long Illness." Hugoton Hermes, Nov 7, 1947.

In the foreground
Jake Kilbourn and Clara Bell Kilbourn