Francis Marion Kimmel was not a native of McCook, but was one of the very early settlers, and for many years, one of McCook's most influential citizens. Frank Kimmel was a native of Pennsylvania, but came to McCook in August of 1883, when he bought the McCook Tribune from Judge J.D. Israel.

1882 is the date we officially use to mark the birth of our community, yet the new town went unnamed and without a governing body until December of 1883. For that first year the Railroad and the Lincoln Land Co. provided the organization for the new little city. People were arriving every day and everyone was just too busy with the work of bringing business to town and building a new community to take time for the niceties of an organized government.

Late in the fall of 1883 Frank Kimmel reported in the Tribune: " … the Board of the Red Willow County Commissioners met at Indianola on Nov. 24, 1883 ... appointed V. Franklin, J.E. Berger, G.W. Daniels, H.C. Rider, and G.L. Laws to the office of trustees … Berger was elected chairman of the board …, Kimmel, by unanimous vote, was elected clerk, and the community became the Village of McCook."

At the same time, Mr. Kimmel assumed the role of unofficial conscience of McCook. For the next 45 years, until his death in 1928 there was scarcely an issue of the weekly Tribune that did not offer a Kimmel complaint about a morality issue in the community or some suggestion as to how the community might be improved.

One of the first actions by the new village government was to address the problem of liquor in the community. There were twelve saloons in the two-block area of Main St. (Norris Ave.) and liquor was seen as the cause of growing problems, by the new city fathers. There were over a dozen individuals seeking new liquor permits -- too many to suit the council, and by June of 1894 the price of a liquor license was raised to $800 -- to provide for "civic improvements".

One of the first actions by the Council to make the city more respectable (and cleaner) was to appoint the first City Street Superintendent, George Leland, and accept a petition for sidewalks for the downtown area -- "$200 for pine sidewalks, not less than 10 feet long and two inches thick, on stringers two inches by six inches." Mr. Kimmel, in the Tribune, praised merchants for voluntarily burning trash "in the back of their stores," while at the same time urging citizens to keep unattended hogs off the city streets.

Liquor caused continuing problems. Kimmel told of "the audacious manner of several cowboys" who irked railroaders to the extent that they took the revolvers away from the cowboys and "compelled them to give an exhibition of dancing and then vamoose." On another occasion he decried cowboys who rode through the town at neck-breaking speeds, using vulgar and obscene language. He called such riding "dangerous and childish such language ... ungentlemanly."

On one occasion in 1884, Mr. Kimmel told about a father and son, who had been picked up after a drinking spree, "A young man and his aged sire who were on our thoroughfare in a maudlin state of inebriety -- their brains and bodies paralyzed."

On another occasion he told about "a little fracas at the Colvin House," when the proprietor whacked a man over the head with a baseball bat after the intoxicated individual "became abusive and pugilistically inclined."

Early on the city employed a Town Marshall ($50/month) and one other policeman ($45/month). Other policemen were hired, as needed. For instance: seven extra policemen were hired, at $3 each, to be on hand for the 4th of July celebration, 1885. Extra policemen were hired again for the county fair in October of that year, and the Town Marshall was given the added task of checking on the growing problem of prostitution in the city. To give policemen more clout, the Council authorized a purchase -- two billyclubs, two pair of handcuffs, two police stars, and one lantern.

In 1885, Mr. Kimmel had gained an ally in his war against 'evil rum" -- the WCTU (Women's Christian Temperance Union"), but liquor seemed to aggravate other vices in the city in the middle 1880s.

Gambling was another sin that Mr. Kimmel warned about in the Tribune. "There are four or five gambling institutions in the city…with tables and other gambling paraphernalia" One of these establishment was "in the rooms over Farley and Donahue's Meat Market…with Faro dealers, chuck-luck men, tinhorns, fakirs, etc. out of Hastings … a tougher meaner outfit would be hard to imagine."

The gambling problem really got out of hand during the '85 "Horse Fair," which brought the strongest field of horses ever assembled in the state, from Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado and Iowa, for the McCook Driving Association's races at their new speed track and amphitheatre.

According to the Tribune, most of the gambling in town occurred away from the track. "The pernicious damnable effects of public gambling become more painfully evident each day."

The Tribune's Frank Kimmel continued to rant against the "Bawdy Houses" in the city and felt that the City Council could and should do more to clean up the city. He lamented, "To eradicate demimonde (women of doubtful reputation), tinhorns, and hoodlums entirely, is impossible. To reduce their numbers … is attainable. But a radical change in public feeling must occur before … this shall come to pass."

In the fall of 1887, the problem still plagued the city fathers. Finally, at a September Council meeting a resolution was passed stating "the dens of vice and infamy are not only tolerated in our city but allowed to run openly in defiance of all common decency, and by the wishes of at least nine-tenths of the population, are declared a nuisance, alike injurious to the moral and material interests of the city.

And it be further resolved that we ask the mayor to immediately take such action as will bring the more brazen characters to justice and drive them beyond our corporate limits."

However, some citizens of that one-tenths of the population were unhappy with the Council's stand and one night one of the Councilmen was attacked and beaten, on his way to a Council meeting.

Finally, in April, 1898 the McCook City Council actually passed the law, which made prostitution illegal in the city.

One might suppose that Frank Kimmel might have rested on his laurels after his "victory," over the "Bawdy Houses." But in September of 1888 Editor Kimmel wrote in the Tribune, "One of the vulgar customs of our time is chewing gum.

A woman could be ever so pretty, but with a big quid of gum in her mouth she is deformed. Regular gum chewing develops the masseter muscles, unduly enlarges the mouth and increases the size of the salivary glands and, eventually, it changes the entire expression of the mouth. It is a thoughtless, vicious, ugly practice at its best, and parents should see to it that it is not fastened upon the children!" Frank Kimmel had a new demon with whom to do battle.

Source: McCook Gazette Centennial Edition 1882-1982; McCook Gazette Bicentennial Edition 1976; Portraits of the Past, McCook's First 100 Years, by Gene O. Morris