By KEN CARPENTER
Great Bend Post
The city of Great Bend is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. Many of the earliest residents in the area are still remembered for their efforts and dedication in building the town despite numerous hardships.
Some of the first settlers were members of the A.C. and Naomi Moses family. They arrived in 1871. Justin Engleman, a local historian with the Barton County Historical Society, explained what Moses experienced when he moved to Barton County with his family.
“There were no roads, there was nothing out here but prairie and buffalo and some occasional encounters with the natives,” Engleman said. “Nearly immediately after coming out here, he began laying a foundation for a house two and a half miles north of Great Bend. It was the first frame house built in Barton County. He hauled lumber 40 miles from Russell to be able to build this house.”
Engleman was a guest on 1590 KVGB and 95.5 FM's Pages in Time on Monday. He described how Moses helped develop the town.
“In 1872, he opened a mercantile business in Great Bend on the northeast corner of Broadway and Main where the post office would later be built in 1912,” Engleman said. “That building is still there today.”
That building currently houses the Family Crisis Center.
According to Engleman, Moses' store was near the Southern Hotel, the first building constructed in Great Bend, on the southwest corner of Broadway and Main.
Outside of his business, Moses was also involved in public and community service. He was chosen to be Great Bend's first city clerk when the town was founded in 1872. He was also involved in starting the community's first public school as superintendent of public instruction. He helped organize the Congregational Church, the first church in Great Bend, which met for a period of time at his store.
Moses died in Great Bend in 1887 at the age of 60.
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.