LOOKING BACK in the Early Files by Lora Stull

Word was received in Mount Ayr last week that Earl Kinder, formerly a resident of this city and who for past seven years has made his home in Goodland, Kan., had been held up by bandits who at the point of a gun forced him to take them in his own car a long journey. Particulars were printed in the Goodland News-Republic of July 22, as follows: The mystery surrounding the disappearance of Earl Kinder, 35 years, who lives at 420 east Seventh Street, was explained when Kinder returned to Goodland eleven days after he left home. Kinder, according to his own explanation, was kidnapped and compelled, at the point of a gun, to make a wild drive to Tucumcari, New Mexico, by two strangers whom he has reason to believe were bank robbers. So much for the Kinder connection with the incident. But the identity of the men who abducted” the Goodland man and his Dodge coupe, remains a mystery.

On Tuesday morning, July 6, shortly before 7 o’clock in the morning, Kinder got in his car and drove to the power plant to see about a job in which he was interested as a contractor. He stopped on the south side of the plant. Two men whom he did not know accosted him. One, man, apparently 35 years old did most of the talking. The second man, five or six years younger than his companion, was stockily built and not so tall. They asked Kinder regarding crop conditions and wages. Then one of the two suddenly jammed a revolver against his side exclaiming, “Partner,” we have a little drive for you to make.

I won’t soon forget ride. And that was the beginning of a ride that Kinder likely will not soon forget.

The three of them were on the road two days and one night the Goodland resident told the News Republic, and with Kinder doing the driving they avoided all towns on the way to New Mexico except to stop at only  filling stations to buy gasoline. “They made me keep off the main traveled roads,” explained Kinder.

The short fellow was ‘hard boiled. He swore at me frequently and threatened me. The other chap seemed to be more human.  He wasn’t chummy at all, but when the other man would rough me up, he would remonstrate with him occasionally; apparently, he didn’t like to see me abused when I was helpless.”

Kinder said that on leaving town he told the men he didn’t have enough gasoline in the car to take them on a long drive, hoping in that manner to find a way to escape. When they found the tank had just been filled, they suggested that he could get out at a point six miles from town and that they would proceed with the car but that its owner never would return home alive.

Right then and there Kinder decided, he added, to continue on the disagreeable trip. There was no doubt in his mind that a refusal to comply with orders would mean his death. But this attempted ruse prompted his captors to search him carefully.  Kinder had just drawn $115 in payment for work he had finished and this the strangers took from him.  They told him they didn’t think he needed it, Kinder said.

The three men in the Dodge coupe arrived at Tucumcari at dusk of second day. Kinder was told to stop in front of a rooming house. The men jumped from the car, told him not to move for ten minutes at risk of being “pumped full of 1ead, and then ran into the house. That was the last Kinder saw of the pair who had forced him to travel across the country for two days and night.

“I didn’t wait ten minutes to gain my freedom,” said Kinder. “I left the car and ran to the doorway to escape the shower of bullets I thought would follow me. But not a shot was fired. I saw a policeman and told him what had happened. He called a plain clothes man and the three of us searched the house which I saw the ‘yeggs’ enter. But the search was fruitless. There wasn’t a trace of them to be found.”

Kinder still had gasoline in his car, and he turned towards Amarillo. He was without money, however, the “road pirates” having taken his last dollar, and on arriving in Amarillo he presented his union card as a mason and was directed to a place where he luckily secured employment for a few days. In the meantime, he had written to his family telling them what had taken place. As soon as he had enough money saved for the return trip, he started home. He arrived at Goodland July 17, eleven days following his abduction.

“What makes me think the men were bandits is the fact that one of them had his shirt stuffed full of currency in bills of $50 and $100 denominations,” said Kinder. “It was more money than I ever saw before at one time in my life. While it’s hard to make a guess as to the amount, I wouldn’t wonder if he had $100,000 on his person.

The short man carried all the money, yet it was the tall fellow who paid for gasoline and food along the way.”

Mrs. Kinder and the four children who range in age from two to fourteen years old did not notify the officers when the father and husband disappeared. Yet they were on the point of doing so when a letter came from Pampa, TX, explaining his sudden disappearance and saying he would come home within a few days.

The word from the husband was received five or six days after he had left home.

“My folks didn’t know what to think.” smiled Kinder. “They were terribly frightened, of course, but they didn’t want to inform the officers because they felt sure they would hear something of me from day to day.”

Kinder has lived here for seven years. He is a mason and contractor.

The H.A. Augustine general store at Maloy was broken into Monday night and $225 in cash and checks were taken from the cash register. The thief or thieves broke in at a door in the rear of the store.

Miss Maxine Lance will teach the coming year at Saltzman in Poe Township.

J.W. Bailey shot and killed a fox Thursday morning that had taken quite a number of their young chickens.

Paul Cain of Beaconsfield, was arrested July 23 on a charge of having liquor in his possession improperly labeled.

Marriage: July 24, Lena Canny and Armon Fitch..July 16, Juliette McIntosh and Sam Gratke.

Births: Tuesday evening, a daughter to Mr. and Mrs, Frank Cox..July 14, a daughter, Vivian, to Mr. and Mrs. H.K. Lorimor..July 22, a son, to Mr. and Mrs. Guy Strabel..Thursday, a daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Paul Stephens.

Obituaries in this edition were: Francis C. Hogue and John W. Millsted.

On July 19th seven men cultivated corn for Mrs. John Sheil. They were Howard Knight, Glenn Campbell, Garry Campbell, Frank Horne, Acel Maggard, Verne Rinehart and New Shiffer.

Friends and neighbors of Mrs. Sheil went ot her farm on Tuesday, July 31, and baled and stacked clover hay and combined oats.

A fifty year certificate of membership in the Masonic Lodge was issued to A. W. Dennis, of Poe township, Friday evening at the regular meeting of Faith Lodge No. 179.

Pamela, four-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Evans, was critically injured Monday morning about 11 o’clock, when she fell from a second-story window at the Mount Ayr Hotel.

Births: July 31, a daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Lonnie Watts..August 2, a son, Steve, to Mr. and Mrs. Nick Duros..August 8, a son, Richard, to Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Troxell..Born Thursday, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ted Burgloff.

Obituaries in this edition were: Elizabeth Cheers Halm and Wilberta Lee Geringer Garrity.