Learning From the Past: What They Knew 116 Years Ago

Dish It to Downing

I came across an Abilene newspaper from 1893 the other day. Abilene only had one paper back then; the Abilene Reporter, and it came out in the afternoon.
Now, what made this interesting was reading the front page. You’ve got to remember that Abilene was just 12 years old then and it had growing pains. The railroad had come through and the only thing lacking in the “Future Great City of Texas” was a “great future”.
The editor of the paper, though, did something pretty cool. First, he had reporters out collecting the latest “happenings” in our town. They didn’t write a lengthy story, just a sentence or two about the latest little tidbits of news. “Jimmy Smith is back from visiting his sister in Syracuse and shared a railroad car with some survivors of the big floods in Mississippi. They say the death toll has been great and it will be a logtime before the State returns to its southern greatness.” That kind of stuff. It wasn’t just local either. It was the kind of material that people would sit on their porch and talk about in the evening. Second, and perhaps even more important, the paper kept a running tally of the needs of our city: electric lights, paved streets, better plumbing, etc. One column said “WHAT WE HAVE”: the other said “WHAT WE NEED”. You should remember that lots of little towns up and down the railroad were having the same problems growing that we were. But, even if we already had a furniture store, the paper was sharp enough to understand that a second furniture store impacted the tax base and meant competition and competition not only help the city grow, but was beneficial to the consumer, as well.
These people were visionaries and I couldn’t help but think about them as I watched the story about the push for a new Career Tech High School in Abilene.
On July 13th, a group of Abilene businessmen and community leaders began soliciting signatures for a letter to be presented to the school board. Some members of this group have served on school district committees studying the need for a Career Tech High School. Just over a year ago voters rejected the idea for this kind of facility. Career Tech supporters believe the voters rejected it because it was part of a larger bond package. They want the board to put this one, single issue before voters in November.
I learned a long time ago in this business not to second guess the will of voters. They may have had all kinds of reasons for their vote, but they did vote and in this country the majority wins.
What follows here is neither an endorsement of the project nor a criticism. But this much I do know:
- Abilene is a great place to raise kids.
- And, it’s a great place to retire.
It’s what happens between those events that we need to be concerned about, I think. About the time kids get out of high school, they move off to attend college in some other town or leave Abilene altogether to get a job where there is better pay and better opportunities. The only kids who stay here are those who seem to think they have no future. Meanwhile, those who move away are benefitting someone else during their most productive and creative years.
I guess what concerns me is that it seems okay to most people. That’s the way we like it here - “friendly”. We even have a name for it: the “friendly frontier”. It’s laidback, pastoral, peaceful. It’s “where the deer and the antelope play”. For the record, “Home On the Range” was written about Kansas, not Texas! We have spent a lot of time hung-up over “branding” and it seems to have taken it’s toll. I think that if you went back and talked to those people who settled this part of the country, they’d tell you that the frontier was anything, but “friendly”. Living here meant overcoming a lot of adversity, but they were able to do it with the help of their friends, working together. For most of the people who settled here, THIS WAS THE END OF THE LINE. The drive and desire to seek a better life and the determination to make it happen had to take place right here.
I wonder what they would say to us in these tough economic times we live in today. Perhaps, “It’s okay to be “friendly”, but don’t forget that sometimes you have to kick a little back side. So, let’s dust ourselves off and get back in there and start pitching again.
These are times that demand innovation and creativity. If we can’t do that, we are doomed to continue a pattern that sadly has become our legacy. I think our future and our children are worth fighting for – don’t you?
Those are my thoughts… what are yours?

Downing Bolls