Cattlemen’s Day in 1938 was held on Friday, Oct. 28. That afternoon Eureka High School played a football game at 2 p.m. against Augusta and all businesses in town closed from 2 to 4:30 p.m. The featured speaker for the banquet was Tom Collins, a writer for the Kansas City Post. The banquet was held in the old Eureka High School gym and the dance was held at Memorial Hall. There were more than 650 cattlemen at the banquet. Music for the banquet and ball was furnished by the Henry Miller orchestra from Lawrence. Officers of the Greenwood County Livestock Association (that’s what it was called in 1938) were L.A. Ladd, president; Ward A. McGinnis, vice-president and M.W. Allen, secretary.
Here is the story Mr. Collins wrote about his upcoming trip to Eureka: “On October 28 I’m going to cut my way through the tall grass jungles of Greenwood County, Kansas and attend the annual banquet of the stockmen in Eureka.
“The long grass country around Eureka is absolutely jungle-like with grass as tall and thick and lush as in the tropics. Greenwood County is proud of its bluestem grass and the stockmen there claim it is the best grazing grass in the world. It has made a celebrated stock raising community out there in the Flint Hills, which are really limestone hills.
“The Hotel Greenwood in Eureka has been the meeting place of cattlemen from all over the Southwest for more than half a century. Millions of dollars of cattle have changed hands in the lobby.
“In years past the devastating broom weed and the drought have ruined the grass and wrecked the cattle industry out there. This year the miracle has happened. The bluestem grass is better than it has been for half a century, according to Theo Lampe, secretary of Martin, Bloomquist and Lee Commission Company, who knows this bluestem country as well as he does the palm of his own hand.
“Mr. Lampe’s father owned a meat shop in Eureka in 1885 and sold bear meat as a staple. Mr. Lampe always attends this meeting of stockmen. Reports to the height of the vegetation cause many around here who know the country to hoot with disbelief.
“W.H. Edwards, of Hamilton, Kansas sent a sheaf of grass as proof to the Drovers Telegram. The bluestem grass he sent measured 8 feet, 7 inches from foot to head. The sample was plucked from an ordinary field and was average and not unusual. Mr. Edwards also sent a photograph showing an automobile going through a pasture of this grass with its top barely visible. Another picture shows a man on a horse tying the grass ends over his saddle horn.
“There is a current story from this tall grass section that runs like this: “A stranger spied a native of the bluestem region in a pasture of the long grass. Just the fellow’s eyes and the top of his head were to be seen. The stranger called and asked him, if he wasn’t finding it difficult to keep his footing while he walked through such high grass. The native replied: “I’m doing ok, but this hoss on whose back I’m standing is having one heck of a time.”
“So, I sharpening up my sickle and oiling my lawn mower and preparing to mow my way through that tall bluestem grass to Eureka. I’m looking forward to it because when stockmen are happy, they’re more fun than anybody I know. With grass like that for their critters to eat, these stockmen will be as happy as a boy with a slingshot in a heaven of greenhouses.”
