Iolan Roger Carswell will speak about “Noted and Notorious” Kansans Tuesday for the Allen County Historical Society’s spring meeting. Carswell, who retired in 2021 after serving 28 years as director of the Iola Public Library,…

The Iola Public Library is set to embark on a month-long celebration of everything chocolate. The activities will culminate with the library’s annual Valentine’s Day Chocolate Sale fundraiser sponsored by Friends of the Library. The…

Former Jefferson Elementary School teacher Linda Brocker remembers when she switched from third grade to first. She was dismayed to realize the younger children “didn’t know anything.”  But by the end of the school year,…

Former teachers at Jefferson Elementary School will offer tours and nostalgia Thursday. The Allen County Historical Society will feature Jefferson Elementary at its annual meeting. A business meeting starts at 6:30 p.m.; the tours will…

Steve French was bracing for the worst, but was pleasantly surprised the more he worked. French, who works as a licensed contractor when not busy as Iola’s mayor, was in charge of removing the tin…

HUMBOLDT — Dennis Piatt’s newest hobby — restoring cemetery headstones — is a treat in many ways, he notes. For one, it allows Piatt, a retired Army veteran, to pay homage to those who served,…

It takes a little more than a massive windstorm to keep people away from a Friday night seafood buffet. Gena Clounch was working as a waitress at The Greenery restaurant on Aug. 1, 1986, when…

A macroburst storm in 1986 will be the topic of the Allen County Historical Society’s spring meeting at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the John Silas Bass Community Building, 505 N. Buckeye St.  The storm hit…

Rewind a couple of decades or so to 1995. The Allen County Historical Society, under a project spearheaded by Iola attorney Clyde Toland, had raised enough money to bring the old, crumbling boyhood home of…

In early summer 1971 someone mentioned while having their hair cut by John Zahm, at his shop next to the Iola post office, they had seen some flint chippings in disturbed ground along Deer Creek…