From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Oct. 5, 1915:

• “Beginning about 10 o’clock yesterday morning and continuing until 1 o’clock this afternoon the Postal Telegraph Company had trouble with two wires out of Topeka into Lawrence, and under orders from the Kansas City office a lineman, W. M. Hayes, was sent out by auto from Topeka to run the trouble down. He found it and accumulated some of his own. A mile and a half west of Stull, in a coulee in which grows scraggling timber and vines, Hayes found a large snake lying across the two wires that have been giving such erratic service for twenty-seven hours. The snake was about an arm’s length or less from the crosspiece of a pole which Hayes climbed and then reached the reptile. The snake was evidently pretty numb from the effects of the electricity, but was not anywhere near dead…. Hayes reached out and seized the snake by the neck, the smallest place, and pulled. The snake was heavy and resisted, and Hayes lost his balance…. In a second man and snake were on the ground. In the meantime, when Hayes pulled the snake loose from the wires the reptile’s natural activities returned and in a flash it was wound around his arm and neck and thrashing about wildly…. Mr. Hayes and his assistant had a lively five minutes killing the brute with clubs. It measured an even eight feet. Whether or not the reptile was venomous is not known, the men not making any effort to note its distinguishing peculiarities, except that it was black, with brown mottling from end to end.”
• “Today the freshmen of the City High School are being coached in the use of the Public Library by Mrs. Nellie G. Beatty, the librarian. This is an annual ceremony of greater importance than might be casually ascribed to it, as familiarity with the library on the part of the young folks is a valuable and desirable acquisition…. It was wisely thought advisable to perform this obvious duty as soon as possible, as the needs of the children for the library are pressing from the opening of the schools in fact.”
• “Harry Coleman, a young man who works for the Al Smith stock farm north of town, had a narrow escape from going over the Kaw river dam this morning when a team he was driving ran away across the bridge. Coleman was thrown from the top of the wagon built high with sideboards and would have been thrown into the river, but for the fact that he struck one of the uprights on the side of the bridge…. Coleman was not hurt by his experience. Some of the oats went off the bridge and floated down the Kaw. The remainder was gathered up by employes of the Bowersock mill.”