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Preston S. Loofbourrow

    Preston Loofbourrow was born in Adams County, Indiana, on March 11, 1838. He was raised a farmer, and educated at Liber College, Jay County, Ind. In 1861 he established the Jay Torchlight, a newspaper, which he continued to publish until April, 1864, when he enlisted in Company E of the One Hundred and Thirty-ninth Indiana Volunteer Infantry.

   In November, 1864, he sold the paper and engaged in the boot and shoe trade. He came to Kansas and taught school in Doniphan County until the spring of 1870, when he came to Clay County, settling on a homestead, where he lived until 1877, when he sold his farm and moved to Clay Center. There he engaged in the insurance and collecting business. He was a Justice of the Peace in Grant Township three years. In April 1880, he was appointed by the Governor as Justice of the Peace for the city of Clay Center, and in 1881 was elected to the office, and re-elected in 1883. He is a member of G. A. R. and Good Templars.

   He was married to Mrs. E. A. Montgomery on March 9, 1861, in Jay County, Indiana. They had one daughter. Mrs. Loofbourrow died in 1864, and he was again married December 31, 1865 to Miss Sarah M. Arnett. They had one child.

   In December of 1883 he start a newspaper in Clay Center called The Monitor. He published there until March 1884 when he moved his newspaper and equipment to Leonardville 15 miles east on the Kansas Central Railroad, a "narrow gauge" railroad. His equipment arrived there on March 20. He set up his new shop and on Thursday, April 3, 1884, he published the first issue of The Leonardville Monitor.

   In his first issue, the new editor called for property owners to plant trees "to add more to the beauty, comfort and health of the town"; building a brick yard and kiln; constructing brick buildings and sidewalks; establishing a flour mill and elevator; and urged the city to employ a herder to tend cattle running at large during the day and corralling them at night.

   The motto for his paper was "Be Sure You're Right, Then - Pitch In." He supported good morals, religious influences and temperance; he was a staunch Republican and greatly opinionated; his editorials were often ornate and verbose and he didn't mind stepping on toes.

   He promised the readers that the Monitor "will be issued each week from this date forward until long after the 'narrow gauge' shall have become a broad gauge, and the booming little city of Leonardville shall have grown to metropolitan proportions. We have arrived and have come to stay."

   He stayed for ten years. He said his good-bye in the March 15, 1894 issue, (see the next column - Valedictory) where he thanked the businesses and people for their support and closed "with malice toward none and charity for all, I bid you farewell."

   He and his wife, Sarah, moved to Willow Springs, Missouri in 1894.  He died there in 1898. Sarah returned to Leonardville some years later, and married P.J. Stafford, whose first wife, Julia, had died in 1900.  Shortly before Mr. Stafford died in 1933, Sarah returned to Willow Springs and lived with a daughter, Anna Swenson.  At the age of 94, she died and was buried beside her first husband, Preston.

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    With this issue my connection with the Monitor ceases and I take my leave of its readers. It has been my fortune, or misfortune as the case may be, to be its editor and publisher for over ten years, most of the time, and nearly the full ten years, at Leonardville. During this time I have endeavored to make it a clean, respectable and readable paper, and I believe all of its fair-minded readers will admit that I have succeeded fairly well in the accomplishment of this purpose. It has been conducted with a view to the promotion in the community of good morals, religious influence, temperance, and the highest interests of the people in general. It has not reached as high a standard as it might have attained had the financial support been more generous. But I realize that it is something of a burden on a small town to support a newspaper, and I am not disposed to find fault now. But in this connection I wish to acknowledge my appreciation of the faithful and liberal support of those who have stood by me with their patronage and influence in my efforts to keep the Monitor afloat and at the front among the newspapers of the vicinity. Their fidelity will always be remembered with sincere appreciation and gratitude.

   I am aware that I have not always pleased everybody, and I am free to admit that I may have made mistakes. In politics I have been radically Republican, and possibly in the heat of campaign excitement may have been a little too bitter, yet I have always been sincere and have endeavored to be fair. I trust that no wound has been inflicted upon any of my political opponents that time has not already healed. I take my leave of all of them with the most kindly feelings on my part, and best wishes for their future prosperity in business affairs.

   It is with feelings of sadness that I close my relations with the people of Leonardville and vicinity after ten years of daily association with them. It involves the severing of many strong ties and pleasant relations of the past. But considerations of health and financial interest render it imperative, and I have reluctantly taken the step.

   I take my leave with full consciousness of the rectitude of my life and purposes among you, and with unwavering confidence in the fairness of the estimate you will place upon the part I have acted.

   In conclusion I trust you will give Mr. Amos, who succeeds me as editor of the paper, a liberal and hearty support, and that you will hold up his hands while he holds up and defends your interests.

   With these thought, and "with malice toward none and charity for all," I bid you farewell.