The Garden City Telegram
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David R. and Maretta Menke
Published 10/31/2009 in History Page : Historical Page
Most Finney County residents know the names of the four founding families of Garden City: William D. and Luticia Fulton, James Fulton, John and Ciddy Fulton Stevens, and C.J. "Buffalo" and Martha Jones. They were not alone in settling the town, however. Many others came to the area and stayed through good times and bad. One such family was the David Menke family.
Mr. and Mrs. David R. Menke and three children, George, Harry and Olivia, arrived in Garden City on Aug. 20, 1878. There was no railroad station and the "town" did not even have a name. There were only two unpainted frame buildings and a lone tree in sight when the Menke family left the train a half mile up the tracks.
Very soon after his arrival, Mr. Menke opened the first store in Garden City. He was determined to carry a high-grade of canned and bottled goods. He also added a shipment of boots and shoes to the general stock. After arranging his merchandise in a pleasing manner, he stepped outside to look around, and for the first time it came to him that there was no one to buy his fancy groceries and boots. The few living in Garden City could afford only flour, dried beans, coffee and work shoes.
Since Menke couldn't sell his canned goods, he served them on his own table, not because he could afford to eat such food but because his family had to be fed. His boots did not sell very well either, but one day some cowboys stopped at the store. One of them took a fancy to a pair of the boots and paid with a $10 bill. Mr. Menke didn't have enough money to make change, so he stepped across to W.D. Fulton's hotel. Uncle Billy couldn't help him, so Menke made the rounds of the other men in the settlement, but there was not enough cash among them to change a ten.
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The David Menke Family in their suite at the Windsor Hotel. From left: George, Maretta (Mrs. David), two women whose names are unknown, Olivia, Mildred Lemert (daughter of Olivia), David and Harry. The name of the woman seated in the chair is unknown. Photo courtesy of the Finney County Historical Society
Menke was appointed postmaster of Garden City in October 1878 at a salary of $2 a month. He recalled: "After our post office was established, no trains were allowed to stop for our mail and we had to carry it to and from Sherlock (now Holcomb). The section boss there took care of it until a post office was located in Sherlock, sometime after the first of the year 1879."
About all the men in town were sworn in as carriers and took turns, without pay, in going for the mail. Mr. Menke usually gave the carriers an order for the mail, but one time he forgot.
"The carriers were all known to the postmaster in Sherlock and I thought he would let them have it without an order, but he refused, and the carrier, N.F. Weeks, came back without it. There was a very bitter feeling between the people of Garden City and Sherlock, at that time, and Weeks and I went back for the mail with the expectation of having a scrap. I was mad enough to do the scrapping myself, but I changed my mind when I saw the big, six-foot postmaster for the first time."
In the spring of 1879, Menke built a two-room house on his homestead of 80 acres northeast of the town and moved his family there. He engaged in farming and sheep raising and remained in active charge of the post office for three years. He planted the first alfalfa seed in the county, having ordered it as samples from Washington, D.C.
After a depression hit the area, the Windsor Hotel came into the hands of an eastern trust company, which hired Menke to manage the hotel. The family moved to the hotel and lived there for a time. In 1898, Menke persuaded the trust company to build a small electric light plant to provide electricity to the Windsor and others in the town who were interested. After Mr. Menke became involved in the running of the First National Bank, he decided that a telephone system would be a convenience. Three telephone instruments were installed in the fall of 1900, one in the bank, one in the Windsor Hotel and one in the Santa Fe depot.
Along with 16 other men, Menke formed the Garden City Ditch Co. in 1879 and purchased the ditch south of the railroad tracks built by W.H. Armentrout. They extended the ditch to the northern part of town and the first extensive irrigation system came into being. In 1906, Mr. Menke and others who had worked tirelessly on the project saw their dream of a $1 million beet sugar factory fulfilled.
Maretta B. Urie Menke was described as a "truly loyal and staunch helpmate to Mr. Menke through those trying pioneer years. Her daughter, Olivia, said of her mother, "I have often heard my father say that he owed a great deal to mother; that she was always behind him in any undertaking and helped him in every way. Mother always did her part in any movement which was for the betterment of our little town. Another outstanding thing about her was the fact that she was so confident in the future of this country and kept hopeful and cheerful through all the trails of the early days when the country was new."
The spacious brick home, Sunnyland, at 501 N. Fifth St., which Mr. Menke built for his wife in 1909, still stands as a monument to one of the families who helped lay a firm foundation for the city of Garden City.
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