Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1910 — ONE PUMPKIN FIE, $1.60. [ARTICLE]

ONE PUMPKIN FIE, $1.60.

Record Prtce tor Delicacy la Paid at Auction ta Oklahoma. It is an evidence of the prosperity of the people of & community when an ordinary pumpkin pie sells for $1.60. To the south across the Kansas line lies Beaver County, Oklahoma, ninety miles In length and thirty-five miles in width, formerly constituting No Man’s Land, a region without government or anything else, for that matter, except the wandering herds of cattle which pastured on the bleak prairies and the bands of cowboys sent there from Texas ranches to care for them. It was in the center of this once desolate country that the people of Pleasant Valley neighborhood assembled a few nights ago to dedicate a new schoolhouse erected near the site of the old structure which housed the children of the pioneers of No Man’s Land more than twenty years ago, a Liberal (Kas.) correspondent of the St. Louis Republic says. The dedication services consisted of a supper and music program, and an auction of several cakes and a pumpkin pie. The proceeds of these sales are to apply on the purchase of a dictionary for the school. The bidding on the pie was spirited, it being stipulated that the purchaser must eat the pie in the presence of the assembled neighbors. This honor fell to John Bliss, a bachelor, who, with true Texas chivalry, Invited Miss Wilson, the teacher, to join him in making way with the pumpkin pie. The settlers who invaded this region without law and government thirty years ago broke the prairie sod with their guns strapped to their plows. Several worked together for better security of person and property. At times, when danger was imminent from bands of highwaymen, who went to No Man’s Land for protection and safety, one would act as a sentinel, guarding the women and children in the dugout homes, as well as those who were turning the sod. They plowed in fear, planted in hope and often reaped in sorrow. It was the beginning of a civilization on the plains that has marched on to prosperity through the greatest adversities that have followed any people in the great central West. Railroad facilities were far away—7s to 100 miles for a box of matches or a plug of tobacco. A Journey to the nearest station in winter meant danger and suffering. Streams without bridges, fords deep and treacherous, wagons stuck, loads to be carried out by teamsters through icy waters that chilled to the marrow, and left for years the aches and pains of rheumatism, sleeping in the drifting snow, far from any friendly cabin, were but few of the many dangers that beset the men in their long and dreary journey to the railroad station.