The origins of Halloween go back over 2,000 years to medieval Europe, where children knocked on doors and begged for food and money. By the 19th century, youngsters in the United States celebrated October 31 by going door-to-door, singing songs, telling jokes and staging performances. Then in the 20th century, Halloween night became plagued with pranks and mischief. Most were harmless enough, but they weren’t always fun for the recipients. It is believed modern day trick-or-treating emerged as a way to bring order to the growing problems associated with the celebration, and to make Halloween safe for everyone.
One Halloween night, a group of Kaw City boys sneaked into W.T. Conklin’s barn located behind his house on the edge of town and kidnapped Conklin’s milk cow for the prank of all pranks.
First, the boys had to halter the cow and connect the lead without anyone hearing them. Next, they had to steer the cow to the schoolhouse without anyone seeing them. But the biggest challenge facing them was coaxing the cow up the wide cement steps leading to the school’s broad double-door entry—the locked double-door entry.
One of the nameless boys was able to pick the lock and in they went…cow and all! That in itself, was quite a feat, but the boys weren’t finished yet. They had only made it to the grade school level. This cow was destined for high school on the second floor.
The stairs were steeper, divided by a landing and a turn, and to this day no one knows how they managed to get that cow to the second floor without a major disaster.
The next morning Glen and Hugo Conklin went to their barn to walk the milk cow out to the pasture and discovered she was missing. About the same time, school officials found the cow and the mess she had made and notified the Conklins to retrieve their cow.
Another Halloween antic which has never been forgotten involved a different group of boys and Mr. Boon’s outhouse. This event happened before indoor plumbing was available in most houses. The outhouse—a primitive toilet facility—was a little wooden building located in the back of people’s homes. Most “outdoor johns” just had one hole, but some had two holes to accommodate larger families.
The plan was to turn Mr. Boon’s outhouse over on its side. They worked quietly to loosen it from the ground but when it fell over, it landed with a loud crash, awakening Mr. Boon. Minutes later, Boon threw open his back door and saw what they boys had done. He was angry, but didn’t want to hurt them so he only fired his rifle in the air to “scare them to death”. They ran like their life depended on it, but never received just punishment for leaving the Boons without their necessary facility until another outhouse could be built.
The Kaw City Newspaper appeared shortly after the small Oklahoma town was established. News didn’t travel as fast in those days. Every letter of every word had to be set in place by hand. Typesetters labored for hours getting each page ready for print. They had to figure out where the “copy” would go and what size font they needed to use. Once the stories and designs were complete, they were locked into the bed of the press which was then inked. Paper was pressed against the inked type to make the impression which became the newspaper. This photo from circa 1902 shows the typesetters and printers at work.
Kaw City Museum 