The Iola Register

Iola's Celebration Captures the Biggest Crowd ever Assembled in Allen County and Everybody has A Good Time.

Thanks to the REGISTER's appeal or to the efforts of the marshal or to a change of heart in the small boy, the celebration of the Fourth did not begin until midnight of the third. But when it did begin there was no other choice than for everybody to give it their undivided attention.

The program began with a shot from an anvil, and then came a whistle from the Carriage Works which played a steady tune for twenty minutes with variations by the school bell. The whistle and the bell gave it up after awhile but the anvil pounded away all the rest of the night at intervals of about ten minutes, determined to let everybody know that our flag was still there.

Soon after sunrise the town was blazing with bunting and before long the people began pouring in from the country. But why tell it all? Everybody who saw it knows how they came and came and kept coming until every available foot of ground in the Grove was occupied, so that the people could not be counted for the multitude thereof, how the ladies of the band, gorgeous in blue and gold, played and played and were cheered and cheered, how the old war cry of the Revolutionists was read again, how Col. Johnson made a manful effort to hold his own against the artillery and musketry of the small boy and the shouts of the refreshment vendors—everybody knows all these things and it would be but a weariness to tell the tale over.

Perhaps everybody doesn't know the result of the ball game between Humboldt and Iola. It was 22 to 21 in favor of the umpire, (we wrote that Humboldt, but the devil changed it to umpire and as he was there and we weren't, he probably knows) twelve innings being played to decide the game. The boys played well on both sides for four or five innings, but they got tired then and "let up on their nerve." But it was an interesting game and a thousand people stood in the hot sun four hours to watch it.

And perhaps everybody does not know the details in regard to the races, so here they are:

The great event of the day, of course, was Col. Bruce's race against time. The horse made three mile heats with a running mate—"Little Mack," Willard Hibbs, rider—the first being made in 2:28½, the second in 2:30 and the third in 2:22. The last heat was the fastest time ever made on this track and was the prettiest piece of work that could be imagined. Twice around the track without a break or a bobble, every motion as easy and graceful as the flight of a bird, obeying with human intelligence the slightest touch or word of his driver with the fine head extended and the thin nostrils a-quiver, apparently as eager in his enjoyment of the race as any one of the spectators, the beautiful horse made a picture that will linger long in the memory of those who saw him. Two minutes and 22 seconds is good time: but plenty of men who know about such things predict that Col. Bruce will cut ten or twelve seconds off of it by fall.

The green trotting race, best two out of three, mile heats, was entered by Smalley's stallion, of Bronson, and Brightley's brown mare, of Carlyle. Won in two straight heats by the Smalley horse, time 3:00 and 2:59.

The first running race was a half mile dash, entered by "Boots," the Meade horse and the Wilcox horse. Won by Boots in two straight heats, time fifty-three and fifty-six seconds.

The second running race was between the Fitzpatrick horse and the Willhite horse, won by the latter in fifty-seven seconds.

The third running race was between a couple of ponies whose owners we did not learn, and was won in sixty-one seconds.

There were four entries for the slow mule race, but the judges thought there was too much "monkeying" and declared the race off.

NOTES.

The REGISTER has heard the crowd estimated all the way from 3,000 to 10,000. The man who estimated it at 3,000, we learned afterwards, had suffered a disagreement with his dinner and was therefore inclined to take a gloomy view of things. The man who thought there were 10,000, we found out, had started to get into the grove in a great hurry just as the crowd began coming out.

It wasn't exactly a "magnificent display" of fireworks. But it was the best that could be done under the circumstances.

It is unanimously voted the smoothest, orderliest, biggest, all-'roundest success of any celebration ever held in Allen County.

Ten thousand people, or thereabouts and not a man drunk or disorderly. It was a regular Kansas crowd, that knew how to behave itself.

Marshal Smeltzer and his efficient assistants deserve much credit for the good order that was preserved all day.

Not an accident all day that was serious enough to be talked about.

Ball at the Opera House at night.