This writer was among the few who took advantage of the opportunity to visit the Cowboy Museum when it was open during the festival.
The museum displays the private collection of Steve Werner, an 80-year-old Superior resident who inherited the collecting bug from his grandmother.
When I signed the guest book, best estimates put me at about visitor number 50. In the company of Jim and Mel Rempe, our tour guide was the collector, Mr. Werner. And what a superb guide he was.
As he showed us around, we were not only looking at stuff, we were hearing the story behind the stuff.
I learned that saddle size has changed throughout the years because the size of saddle horses has changed. In the 1880s the average saddle horse weight 700 to 800 pounds. Now a common size is around 1,300 lbs. Saddle sizes have been adjusted to fit the larger horses.
The age of a woman’s side saddle can be dated by its design. The early side saddles had only one peg or horn for the rider to throw her leg around. Later a second peg or horn was added.
Saddles used by the cattle buyers working the stockyards usually lacked saddle horns. Perhaps there are two reasons for this. The buyers probably rode old, gentle horses and the horns were not needed either for roping or for hanging on. Without the horn, the saddle provided a firm place where the buyer could write notes.
At the time the U.S. Army was fighting Poncho Villa along our southern border, 500 experimental saddles were made for the army. The design was not satisfactory and most of the saddles were destroyed. One of only three known to exist is displayed in the Cowboy Museum.
Before he became a movie star, Gene Autry sold guitars and music lessons on the radio. One of his original guitars, case and four music lessons are displayed at the musem.
Remember Festus and the television series known as Gunsmoke? Spurs of the type worn by Festus are on display.
I thought I was looking at riding crops but my tour guide pointed out they were both a crop used to give directions to a horse and also a weapon used to protect the rider. Hidden inside some of the crops were daggers.
A saddle bag contained a flask with a silver shot cup.
I could devote days listening to the stories that accompany the items on display.
Keeping the items in pristine condition requires lots of work. For example, twice a year the saddles are oiled. On average the owner’s granddaughter can apply the preservative to a saddle in about 20 minutes. Considering the number of saddles on display, that is not a small task.
The collection includes items used in the movies or by movie stars in addition to items belonging to common folk.
Want to visit the museum when it is not open, a phone number is posted on the door. Dial the number and if Werner is available, he will be down to unlock the door and give a guided tour.
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As part of the Mankato Sesquicentennial observed Memorial Weekend, the celebration committee compiled historical information about all current Mankato business firms for inclusion in a time capsule. A call to the Jewell County Record asking for the founding date sent me in search of information. Previous research indicated an 1890 founding date but that may not be correct.
For newspapers, the name Jewell County Record is a relative youngster. As applied to the current newspaper, the name was first used in 1940 when the Boyd family combined other publications to form the Jewell County Record. Most newspapers now being published in this part of the United States were first published 100 or more years ago. The first issue of The Superior Express came off the press in January of 1900, The Belleville Telescope, the first paper published in Republic County, was established Sept. 20, 1870.The Smith County Pioneer was established in 1872. The Red Cloud Chief was established in 1873. The Beloit Call dates to 1905. In the 1990s the Boyd family sold the Record and the name was changed to the Jewell County Post. The next two owners continued publication as the Post though the name was never officially registered. When this writer assumed responsiblity for the newspaper, the name was returned to the more traditional Jewell County Record.
Name changes for the Record were nothing new. Over the years the publication has had various names and a number of owners. Often as ownership changed, the name changed.
The Jewell County Record lineage goes back to the Jewell City Weekly Clarion which was first published in the spring of 1872.
The Clarion was a small four-column paper, published for a year before the name was changed to the Jewell County Diamond. The Diamond apparently was consolidated with the Jewell County Monitor in 1878 to form the Jewell County Monitor and Diamond. In 1880, the name reverted to Jewell County Monitor. In 1904 the name was changed to the Jewell County Advertiser. In 1907 the paper’s name was returned to Jewell County Monitor. A newspaper called the Jewell County Record was published at Jewell in the month of August, 1897, and then ceased publication.
The Monitor was established in Jewell Center (the community we now know as Mankato) on May 19, 1874.
While it appears there were papers published in Jewell County prior to the establishment of the Monitor, I found a source which indicated the Jewell County Monitor was the first paper of record in Jewell County.
Newspaper of record is a legal term and I am not sure in the 1870s what a newspaper had to do to qualify. I suspect those standards were set by state legislatures just as they are today and took into consideration the number of years the publication had existed, its office of publication and the number of subscribers within its circulation area. Each state sets the standard.
The Library of Congress places the founding date of the Jewell County Record as being in 1890. I find nothing to substantiate that date and no longer believe it to be true. If it is wrong, it is not the only mistake made by the Library of Congress. Though the Boyd family sold the paper in 1991, the Library of Congress still lists the Boyd Family as the newspaper’s publishers.
The Library of Congress, notes the Burr Oak Herald, founded in 1892, was consolidated with the Record in 1972, but does not name the other papers combined with the Record including the Jewell Republican in 1991.
While the Record still maintains its own subscription list, since the arrival of the COVID-19 Pandemic, The Jewell County Record and The Superior Express have printed a joint issue. This joint issue has helped to hold down production costs and allowed the two newspapers to have one of, if not the lowest, advertising rates in the area.
Regardless of the founding date, the Jewell County Record is among the oldest continuously operating businesses in Jewell County. For the time capsule, I picked the 1874 founding date of the Jewell County Monitor as the newspaper’s founding date as that is the earliest date for a Mankato paper founding in the Record’s line.
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