By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
The A.C. and Naomi Moses family became some of the first settlers of Great Bend in the 1870s. Along with the seven sons, the Moses family helped build the town that Great Bend citizens know today.
Justin Engleman, on the Board of Directors for the Barton County Historical Society, said Clayton and Edward Moses were the only two sons that stayed in Great Bend their entire lives.
"In 1872, a year after they moved to Great Bend, 21-year-old Clayton and 17-year-old Ed started buying grain," said Engleman. "They shipped one of the first railroad cars of grain out of Great Bend that year. In 1874, Clayton joined his father in the mercantile business and also purchased his father's interest. In 1877, Ed joined Clayton in the business."
While the brothers moved the mercantile business on Main Street a couple of times in 1877, they also erected a new grain elevator along the Santa Fe railroad tracks that would store 25,000 bushels.
"In 1898, the elevator burned," said Engleman. "At the time they were handling 20 carloads of grain a day. The next year they got a new elevator built and it had a 75,000 bushel capacity. They could then fill 50 railcars a day."
In 1900, the Moses brothers built a flour mill next to the elevator. The mill had a capacity of 500 barrels of flour in a 24-hour period. They produced Moses Best Flour, known all over the United States and abroad.
In 1902, the brothers purchased 33 additional elevators along the Santa Fe line. Clayton and Edward merged the mill and elevator in Great Bend in 1912 with six of the largest milling firms in Kansas. Three years later, a tornado destroyed much of the southeast part of Great Bend, including the mill and elevator.
Both the elevator and mill were rebuilt on the same site and still stand today on south Kansas Avenue, just north of the train depot. The mill is no longer operational but the elevator is used by the Great Bend Coop.
You can hear the entire Pages in Time program about Moses and his family below. Pages in Time airs on Mondays at 11:05 a.m. on 1590 KVGB & 95.5 FM.