[typed by: Pat O’Dell – genpat@netins.net]

Three pioneers in this section were hobnobbing up at the Gillihan store Friday evening. They were contrasting conditions of today with those of their memory. Hiram Norton, one of them, recalls that in 1881 his mother owned a tract of land over by Westboro—it was pasture and they stock it with cows at $16 per head. Burr Collings, another of the boys, has a letter from Gov. Morehouse of Maryville, Missouri, who was a friend of the family, urging Burr when he was 17 years of age, to buy a 160 just east of Elmo, that was priced at $10 per acre. George Webster, who completed the round table gang, who has been in this section since the year “one,” recalls that when the Jack Busher farm sold for $2.50 per acre. It’s worth passing an evening away in the company of such men. You can learn some real history of the back woods days.—New Market Herald [Page County Democrat, Clarinda, Iowa Mar 1, 1917]