The way it was 8/19

100 Years Ago -- August 19, 1903

FROM RICHARDS -- burglars broke the glass front door of the Post Office last night about midnight. About $100 in stamps was taken, according to Postmaster Thomas Smith. There is no clue to the burglars and no one is under suspicion. Richards seems to be a favorable point for burglars and hardly do the citizens of that town begin to sleep easy before an explosion of dynamite or nitroglycerine again calls them out. The Bank of Richards has been robbed twice as have several business houses. It has only been a few weeks since Stokesbury was aroused at midnight by its Post Office being robbed. Sheriff Harkreader left Nevada early Wednesday morning but did not say where he was going but after hearing of the Richards robbery, his deputies believe he went directly to Richards.

75 Years Ago -- August 19, 1928 MARVIN CHAPEL -- R.C. Jones and wife left Friday on a motor trip to visit their daughter, Mrs. Ed Kelso and other points in the north. Mrs. Lloyd Belshaw was here last week from Kansas City to visit her mother, Mrs. Barbara Haas and family in Nevada, old friends and neighbors in this section. She was a Marvin girl until moving to Kansas City a few years ago. 50 Years Ago -- August 19, 1953

FINAL UPDATE -- Nevada's "Rainmaker" failed and deep was the gloom over Vernon County today. Almost as though nature was aware of the 8 o'clock deadline this morning by which the rainmaker was to have brought two inches of precipitation to this area, the clouds, which had shrouded the county for two days, began to dissipate. By mid-morning a bright sun was shining. "The World's Famous Rainmaker" L.P. Weatherford was gloomy too. After all, he had failed to qualify for the $250 check signed by Tom Thorpe. He wasn't humbled by his failure. " I am still considered without an equal in the rainmaking field," said the self-styled "World's Greatest Rainmaker" this morning. Asked what went wrong with his "metaphysical" system for making rainfall, Weatherford listed three obstacles: first, I didn't get enough cooperation or enough moral support. Too many folks doubted my ability to create rain. Whenever I came out of seclusion to get a bite to eat, all I could hear people talking about whether I could make it rain or not and I didn't hear anyone say he thought I could. Because of financial difficulties, "I didn't have enough to eat at any time during the five days," he continued.