Harrington news

Harrington Public Development Authority met January 19 at 7 p.m. at city hall with President Josh Steward, Jay Kane, Allen Barth, Bunny Haugan, Paul Charlton and Heather Slack present. The PDA has received a grant from Lincoln County Rural Development for $9,615.18. The project will supply broadband service (NoaNet) in the business district on Third Street between Sherlock and Glover streets. The anticipated cost is projected to be $12,820.24, and 25 percent of the cost in matching funds ($3,205.06) will be donated by Spectrum Online, LLC. Steward said Spectrum expects the supplies for the project to arrive by January 25. Bob Iverson with Spectrum will contact Mayor Haas regarding final plans, since the NoaNet connection is located in the basement of city hall.

As this project begins to unfold the PDA will contact Margie Hall of the Lincoln County Economic Development Council for assistance in advertising this service to potential businesses interested in connecting.

Allen Barth announced the dates of his upcoming car shows as May 21, July 4 and September 21. He discussed the need to increase the number of activities, events and vendors in town during each of these shows to increase the appeal for a diversified audience. Again the theme of "Promoting Harrington is a team effort within the community" was stressed as it has been with the Harrington Happenings meetings. The next PDA meeting is February 16 at 7 p.m. at City Hall.

On January 16, the Harrington Historic Preservation Commission met at the home of Celeste Miller at 10 a.m. with Karen Allen and Anita Harmon attending. The primary topic of discussion was the desire to get more of the business district buildings on the local historic registry. Following such an accomplishment, the commission would make locating grants for these properties a priority. The group is looking for grants that would be applicable for private owners to obtain in order to make needed repairs to these old but historic buildings, which would promote new business opportunities. The commission has demonstrated in the past a desire to help fill out the papers to aid in the process of registering the buildings. The next meeting will be February 6 at 10 a.m. at 310 Linden.

Harrington's history is replete with the surname Armstrong, most notably W.B. Armstrong and his involvement in the development of the town of Harrington. William Buriage Armstrong was born March 18, 1882 in Miami, Oklahoma, the firstborn child of George A. Armstrong and his wife Mary Eliza Goodwin. They brought their family of seven children to this vicinity in 1901. George A. "Doc" Armstrong outlived his wife and two sons, George A., who died in WW I. and W.B., who died in 1938. W.B. "Bill" Armstrong was a farmer and family man, living with his wife and daughter four miles west of Harrington when his country home burned to the ground. They moved to another home they owned on another piece of farmland. Bill and his wife Maude Estelle Turner had seven children, two of whom died in infancy. The five surviving children were Rowena Scheyer, Winifred Baker, Herbert Armstrong, Marjorie Tanke Peters and Dean Armstrong.

Although Bill farmed extensively, they lived in town most of the time. At age 43, Bill was the driving power behind the formation of Harrington Mule Days, an event held yearly from 1925 through 1929. He served as mayor in 1919, councilman and mayor between 1927 and 1932. He was active in fraternal circles and in church. At the time of his death he was serving his second term as commissioner of the second district.

Marciel Armstrong Cronrath, local historian and granddaughter of Bill Armstrong, compiled their family genealogy prior to the common use of computers, tracing their ancestry into the 1700s. She contributed greatly to the history of Harrington by compiling a booklet of Harrington's first 100 years and the Harrington section of "Lincoln County: A Lasting Legacy." Her father Herb Armstrong, born in 1913, farmed in Lord's Valley where, in addition to wheat farming and cattle ranching, he raised and trained thoroughbred horses. Most notable of his horses was "Sir William" who was entered in the Kentucky Derby. But days before the derby he broke his leg. The horse survived the break and was able to be used for breeding, but lost the opportunity of the winner.

Common among the natural farmers, those raised and farming locally as children, there was the perpetual need for "farmer fixes" which oft times were only enough to get the farmer through the critical season of planting or harvesting, when time was of the greatest urgency. Some of them were much more than temporary fixes, legitimate inventions in fact that made things easier for the farmer. Among them are the Harrington Harvester by Charles Erich, the Talkington Hitch by Brant Talkington, the Schandoney Equalizing Hitch by Peter Schandoney, Luper's Weeder (sweep) by Berry Luper, the Gooley Spring-Tooth Harrow by the Gooley Bros. (Clarence and Ed, Jr.) and the Armstrong Bale Loader by Herb Armstrong. Herb Armstrong was the father of Marciel and the son of W.B. Armstrong and also the nephew of Edgar "Sleepy" Armstrong, the race horse enthusiast.

Herb Armstrong married Louella Zicha in 1937, and they lived and farmed at Valley Farm in Lord's Valley, four miles southeast of Harrington. As with his father before him, he raised wheat, cattle and thoroughbred racehorses. He was of that generation that watched wheat farming transition from using horses and mules to the varied stages of mechanized equipment. He knew well as he worked his fields that what one has is not all there can be, and he envisioned making his work easier. Although several inventions are attributed to him, the details are vague. But what made the newspapers was his "Armstrong Bale Loader." He applied for the patent in 1946, had wide distribution by 1948 and received the patent in 1951.

A partial description from the patent states: "The present invention relates to certain new and useful improvements in a baled hay loader and provides means for individually picking up bales of hay off the ground and elevating them to a convenient height for loading onto a truck. It has become widespread general practice to cut and bale hay and straw in the field where it is grown. The baling machine travels through the field and bales the crop, the individual bales being dropped along the path of travel. This practice is highly desirable, as it is much more economical to haul the baled hay away from the field than to haul the loose hay to a baling machine. The invention is essentially an inclined conveyor having means for detachably pivoting its rear end to a platform type of automobile truck. The conveyor is driven by a pair of ground wheels which support its forward end which is slidably connected to a guide bracket extending downwardly from the platform of the truck, so as to accommodate irregularities in the path of travel." The long document goes on to say, "When the truck becomes loaded, it is desirable to detach the loader and apply it to another truck which can be loading while the first is making the haul."

The original Gordon-Throop-Wolfe Company was sold to Dunning and Erich and later became the Harrington Manufacturing Company. By 1948, it was the Grainbelt Manufacturing Company at Harrington. It was making the Armstrong Bale Loader and had about 50 dealers in Washington, Idaho, Arizona, Oregon, California and British Columbia. The Amga Corporation in New York City contacted the Grainbelt Manufacturing Co. seeking exclusive privilege of exporting the Armstrong Bale Loaders to Mexico and Latin American countries. In February of 1948, the New York corporation was granted a six month trial contract.In addition to placing display models at each of the 50 dealers' plants, "During the past four months, the Grainbelt Manufacturing company has shipped out approximately forty Armstrong Bale Loaders."

All this business and patent activity occurred during the same time period that Armstrong had his airport running in full glory with Kenneth Nelson in charge of his flying school. In 1947, in addition to the trainer plane owned by Wallace Air Service, there were five private planes tied down at the Armstrong Air Field. Those planes belonged to Royce Williams, Harold Turner, Herb Armstrong, Don Lucht and Gordon Timm. Of these, H.A. Turner, the Insurance Man of Harrington and city clerk, was the only one to land on the electric wires causing a crash landing, destroying his new uninsured Luxcombe plane.

The accompanying diagram of the Armstrong Baled Hay Loader from the patent papers was provided for this article by Brian Armstrong, grandson of Herb Armstrong.