"Did You Know This About Geary County History?”
By Dr. Ferrell Miller
Geary County Historical Society Board Member
“Bertha Church Went To Town With Wild Bill Hickock”
Bertha Church lived at what was then 120 East Second Street and was probably the only person in Junction City who could boast that the location of the Municipal Building marked the site of her birthplace. Bertha was born in a frame building when Wild Bill Hickok was making regular visits to Junction City.
She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. Church and was born on June 13, 1868. She lived in Junction City all of her life. Her birthplace was a rooming and boarding house operated by her parents. The old house had been added onto and came to be known as the Central Hotel. There were eight rooms in the hotel.
Wild Bill Hickock was a frequent visitor at the Central Hotel when he came to town from Abilene. When Bertha was a baby, occasionally Bill would push her around town in her baby buggy. Bertha stated that she was “too small to remember much about it, but he used to take her downtown. Every other place in town was a saloon in those days and sometimes he would take me into a saloon with him.” Bertha also said that “Some of her mother’s friends, used to tell her mother that she shouldn’t let Bill take her with him because of that, but mother wasn’t afraid for me. He was a gambler, but he was a good man and a gentleman.”
Bertha also recalled that “there were few buildings in Junction City when they lived in the rooming house. To the east was the city jail, located about where the new fire department is situated (this is now the Opera House). Above the jail was the school room where Mrs. Charlotte McFarland taught the children. Bertha did not attend this school, but attended the “Ninth Street School”, which was built in 1918 (east side of what is now theH.D. Karnes Building).
She also mentioned that “The old town clock, (which was on the tower of the Opera House) has fooled me many times. Working as a telephone operator I used to pass it every day. I’d look at one side of it and think I was late. Then I’d see another side and I’d still have plenty of time. Sometimes the hands of the clock would stick due to icy weather and cause the clock to display different times. It just depended on which side of the clock you were looking up to on the tower as to the time.”
Bertha married A.W. Bentley February 17, 1895 at her parent’s home on Humboldt Creek. A.W. and Bertha lived on East Sixth Street in Junction City.
Geary County’s Mormon Trail”
Gaylynn Childs, retired Executive Director of the Geary County Historical Society, published an article in Set in Stone titled “A Shortcut Cross the Prairie – Geary County’s Mormon Trail”. The following is a portion of that article.
Geary County’s Mormon road, known as the “South Fork,” traversed the length of Geary County from the southeast corner to the northern reaches of Fort Riley. Blazed by the Mormons in the early 1850s and used heavily by these religious immigrants during 1854, this trail also played a significant role in the settlement of this part of Kansas and was used by other travelers and merchants throughout the territorial years.
One of the earliest descriptions of the route was found in a letter written by Major E.A. Ogden to his superiors in Washington D.C. in 1854. “The Mormons are now engaged in a work of great utility to us in opening a good wagon road from the town of Kansas – on the south side of the river to a point opposite Fort Riley where they cross by ferry and pass over one long (land) bridge to the south side of the Pawnee or Republican. Their road thence follows the divide between the stream of “Solomon Fork” for about two hundred and fifty miles and crossing the north side of the Pawnee follows Deer Creek to the source and fully into the ordinairy (sic) emigrant road at the crossing of the south fork of the Platte eighty-five miles this side of Fort Laramie. This is one of the divergent military routes from Fort Riley which in my report of November ’52, I urged the importance opening at an early day.”
Early day merchant Theodore Weichselbaum, who settled in Ogden, also describes this route in his account of his first journey into this area recorded in 1908 and published in the Kansas Historical Collections, Vol. XI. “In December of 1857… I loaded up my goods in three wagons and left Kansas City for Ogden. I followed the Santa Fe Trail with my three wagons until I reached the station at 110-mile Creek. From there I took the Mormon Trail and traveled three full days, and never saw a person or a house. On the morning of the fourth day I saw a house within three rods of where we had camped the night before. I went to the house to find out where I was and found I was on the head of Humboldt Creek in Davis (Geary) County. From there I had to drive to Fort Riley and crossed the Kansas River at Whiskey Point just opposite the fort. There was quite a little town there then – saloons, stores, etc. I only knew the road as the Mormon Road. Before and after I came to Ogden the Mormons traveled on that road, turning onto it from the Santa Fe Trail. They crossed the Kansas at Whiskey Point … and climbed the hill on the east side of where the hospital (post headquarters) now stands at Fort Riley and thence across the county to Kearney, Nebraska and from there to Salt Lake City. I don’t remember any other immigrants than the Mormons using that road.” It is well documented that this first major road became a main avenue of travel for not only immigrants of many backgrounds, but also for merchants, traders, teamsters, settlers, farmers and the military also.