The Depew Independent March 5, 1920 Team Runs Away Friday afternoon the team of George Stark ran away, running north from the corner of Main and Malley Avenue. They ran into a mud hole and one of the horses bogged down until they had to pull him out. In trying to keep them from getting away George was considerably bruised up and as a consequence has been hobbling around. It will be a couple of weeks before he will be able to go to work again. Another Class of Odd Fellows Tuesday night the Depew Odd Fellows’ order was increased an even dozen in new members. The Stroud boys came down and put on the four degrees, finishing up about 2 a.m. We Lose Our Preacher Rev. N. T. Peak is moving to Shamrock, where they have just completed a new church and demanded the entire time of a preacher. Another will be sent to us shortly. The Independent regrets to see Rev. Peak leave Depew, but as Shamrock is in need of preachers more than Depew we will have to accede to their wishes. We can heartily commend Brother Peak to the folks of Shamrock. He will do them good if they will give them half a chance. ------- From the amount of paper blowing around town Wednesday evening one would think a paper house had blown down. There should be an ordinance against throwing paper out to blow over into the other fellows yard. Fact is there should be a herd law on old paper and it should be a fineable offense to turn them loose. The town looked like a garbage Dump Wednesday evening. ------- The minions of the law a few days ago searched the residence of James Joseph and took there from about 27 suits of underwear, several other articles and about $40.00 in money. We understand that they did not have a search warrant at the time and through the County Attorney were ordered to return them to Mrs. Joseph, James having been absent from town since his store was closed. ------- Knockers never build a town. It takes boosters to do anything and besides they say that even the devil hates a knocker.

Oil News The Prairie test is down about 1400 feet in the well two miles south of town. We understand that the formation looks mighty good, but they are not down deep enough yet to reach any of the sands, but without an accident by this time next week they will be into the Layton or Wheeler sand, and here is hoping that it comes in "wet." A large steel tank went through town Wednesday on a truck. It was headed for some of the wells south of town on Deep Fork. The rig is being put up on the Doctor Lumm farm by the Prairie in the Northeast Quarter of Section 8, Township 14, Range 8 east. A Small Blaze A fire was discovered in the warehouse of the P & H Hardware store Friday morning. Considerable damage was done to the contents of the building before the fire was discovered. With the able assistance of Robert Messing and Ralph Couch, Mr. Parshall soon had the fire extinguished. ------- The bridge across Little Deep Fork on the railroad to Shamrock caught fire Friday evening and required some time and effort on the part of the train Crew to extinguish. The traffic was not interrupted for any length of time. ------- With this issue of the Independent we complete eleven years of service to the public. These years have brought many changes to Depew and to the writer. There are but three or four businesses that are under the same management that they were eleven years ago. Mr. Kinch was running a lumber yard here. The First State Bank, though the owners have changed is still doing business. J.M. Bryden was in the merchantile business and W.C. Greene is still in business-changing from a blacksmith shop to a mill. Dr. Coppedge was running a drug store here eleven years ago and we had a post office then and outside of these the Independent has seen them coming to town. ------- We have certainly been having a variety of weather this week. Monday was a dandy spring day, Tuesday ditto. Wednesday afternoon we experienced a real sand storm with wind speeding at the rate of about 80 per. Yesterday and today we are having real winter weather with a prospect of a continuance of the same for some days.