Ferguson Features

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A few weeks ago I said there had only been three owners of the Watonga Republican, I was wrong. Saturday while I was at the Ferguson Home I looked at an old newspaper that was so brittle I was afraid to handle it too much and read that there were two other owners. There were the Fergusons, Charles O. Fry, A. Leslie Chambers, and then the Curtin family. I apologize for this. The article said there were 4 newspapers being printed in Watonga at the same time. Of course most didn’t stay in business but a few years. The Watonga Rustler is credited for being the first newspaper printed in Watonga. The editor was a Democrat so some of the features between the rustler and the republicans were sometimes very heated on the topic of politics.

I also read some other interesting information about how the newspapers were printed. World news or U.S. A. news was printed at larger city newspapers and the Ferguson’s would buy pages of that news printed on one side and then they would print local news on the back side. By the time that information made it to Watonga it was old news but still unknown for the locals here since there wasn’t radio or TV to get currant news. Also riders would take some of the papers with them to distribute where ever they were going. People didn’t make it to town often so they welcomed getting the paper. I don’t know if they paid the person bringing the paper or paid for the newspaper when they did come to town or maybe had a subscription.

We had a couple join the Friends of the Ferguson this week. We welcome them. She has volunteered to clean out the flower bed as she gets time and came Saturday to look them over and get an idea as to where to start. Thank you Sandra.

I noticed a match box holder on display. It had a space for the larger box of matches in the middle and two smaller places on each side. The small space on the left was labelled “Extra Generated” and the right small space was labelled “Wicked Cleaned”. The one my parents had growing up just had the space for the large box, Mom still uses it.

I counted people that had the signed in as guest in July while I was there Saturday and it was 40 something. It is such a good feeling that visitors are starting to show an interest again, since the country was in shut down because of Covid-19 and the exterior of the home not looking so good. The inside was and is still beautiful.

Clay was out a couple of days this week working on the front porch. He told me Thursday he hopes to get a coat of paint on it in a few weeks and then can work on getting the columns put up.

Shirley was here again this week entering data on the computer for us, we thank her.

The next Ferguson Market will be Saturday, August 7, 2021, 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM. Anyone interested can bring their garden produce, baked items, crafts, or whatever you have to sell. We hope to have produce to buy this time since gardens should be growing well by now and gardeners could have a surplus.

Thank you to everyone that has complemented me on the Ferguson Feature and telling me they enjoy reading about the Fergusons, what we have displayed and the work being done. I was afraid I was to long winded.