The Christian Church was crowded to capacity for the Memorial Day Service. A parade was headed by the Elk City Band followed by American Legion members in uniform and several organizations represented with floats and decorated cars. The American Legion float was a cemetery scene in Flanders Field with its twenty-four white crosses and a Red Cross nurse scattering flowers on the graves. The United Daughters of the Confederacy, the KKK and the American Legion Auxiliary were also represented. Following the service, the firing squad fired a salute over the graves at the cemetery and taps were sounded. All ex-soldiers’ graves were decorated.
The Ku Klux Klan held another parade several days later. It was estimated that 25,000 people were in Elk City that evening. Over500Klansmen were in the parade. Women of the KKK also participated dressed in their white robes as well as some young boys belonging to the Junior organization. All were unmasked! Seven hundred fifty cars passed the railway tracks in 35 minutes. An aeroplane traveled above the parade exhibiting a large, electric fiery cross. Fireworks and “bombs” were thrown from the plane. There were several horses dressed in their white regalia, their riders carrying red crosses. The red torches carried by the Klansmen made a scene not soon to be forgotten. There were 117 initiated.
Over at Carter, most of the lumber and timbers arrived for the new bridge and work was to begin as soon as the hammer to the pile driver was unearthed. During the high waters of the previous week, a large sandbar covered the hammer, and it was hard to extract as the sand turned out to be quicksand.
Near Cheyenne, Charlie Carl died at the hands of his father-in-law, Mann Casady, and two of the Casady sons, Walker and Cliff, were injured. Casady had acted strangely several days before but had apparently recovered. One morning after milking, he asked his daughter what Charlie, her husband, was going to do for the summer. She answered he would go to an automobile school in Kansas City. He argued that Charlie should stay at home and farm and abruptly walked out of the kitchen. He got an ax, walked around the house and into the room where the son-in-law was asleep and struck him with the butt end of the ax, crushing his skull. He proceeded to the next room where the two sons were sleeping and struck the oldest son with a glancing blow. The younger son, Walker, awoke and grabbed his father at the same time calling family members for help. In the melee, the father grabbed a butcher knife, which he had concealed, and slashed Walker. He cut through the son’s outer tissues of the jugular vein and cut his own throat slightly on either side. The family finally succeeded in securing the crazed man’s hands and feet with two belts and fastened him to the bed, then put one around his neck so that they could choke him if he attempted to get up. They then telephoned the sheriff. The son-in-law never regained consciousness from the blows and died a few hours later. Casady’s actions were attributed to worry over finances and the condition of his wife’s health. She had just returned home the previous day from Oklahoma City where she was being treated for cancer. He said he intended to kill all his family.
Unable to secure a motor driven auger to bore squirrel holes in the shinery brush, “W. E.” over at Canute ordered a dozen woodpeckers from South America to do the work. He said they were great labor savers and much better at handling hot weather than hand driven augers. He thought by giving them some special training, he would be able to use them to make holes in shale rock for planting sweet Clover.
Deputy Sheriff S. F. Sparks received information of a big still operation near town. He secured a search warrant, deputized enough men to manage the situation and drove to the farm of J. F. Lewis one and a half miles south of Elk City. He served the warrant on Mr. Love, a renter, and began his search. Upon raising the boards on the floor on an outbuilding, he discovered a cellar which had been dug under the chicken house and there it was--a mammoth still with all the accessories, sugar, chops, whiskey, tubs, eighteen barrels, gas lanterns, pressure tanks, etc.! Deputy Sparks sent a hurried call to town for Elk City’s largest truck, and soon he arrived at the city jail with the entire outfit. It proved the largest and most complete still ever captured in the history of “booze-dom” in this county!
Luanne R. Eisler authored this article, which was taken from items published in The Carter Express, The Elk City Press and The Elk City News-Democrat; you can find these newspapers on microfi lm at the Elk City Carnegie Library.
