Editor’s Note: As Emporia’s 150th anniversary of its founding nears, history is on the minds of many. Today, The Gazette launches its annual Profile edition by looking back at 150 years of Emporia.
History has always fascinated Ivan Fowler, so when he began digging up pieces of the past, fascination slipped easily into obsession.
Fowler has his wife to thank — or blame — for setting him onto a hobby that occupies much of his free time when the weather is good. For his birthday about 15 years ago, Loetta Fowler bought her husband a nice-quality metal detector on sale for $99 at Radio Shack. She thought he might enjoy looking for old coins and pieces of history. She was right.
Next week, Ivan Fowler will bring his collection out of storage and put it on display at the 150th anniversary celebration of the founding of the city of Emporia.
Fowler’s ancestors are deeply rooted in Lyon County. They lived southeast of Emporia’s’ townsite before anyone had even thought of founding the city. Fowler has hunted treasure on family property and all around the county as well, taking care to get permission from the property owner before beginning his search.
“Here’s the latest-greatest thing I found,” he said last week as he pulled out a 3-cent piece dated 1852. “That was a big thrill.”
A 2-cent piece from 1818 is the oldest coin in his collection, and he has a variety of different “large cents,” which are 1-cent pieces about the size of a modern-day 50-cent piece.
Some of the coins have had holes punched through them by square nails, so fabric or twine could be laced through the holes and coins could be kept tidily together.
“This is the way the Civil War boys carried their money,” Fowler said. “It wasn’t done for jewelry purposes.”
Some of the holes, though, were made for jewelry or toys.
A dime with two opposing holes may have been part of a bracelet, or it may have been suspended on string and made into a “spinner” toy. With a string in each hand, the dime would have been whirled repeatedly until the string was tight. Then, the child would release the taut string, pumping it in and out with his hands to keep the movement going.
One packet of artifacts holds a special place for Fowler, who used his detector on his grandfather’s land.
“This happens to be what I have so far from his log cabin site where he homesteaded,” Fowler said.
Another batch of artifacts is related to his grandfather, too. A 1854 half-dime — which was the first thing he “hit” with the detector — came from the front yard of the late Buster Wheat’s property, which formerly had belonged to Charles Whittington. The elder Fowler had come past Whittington’s place when he brought his family to Lyon County and was looking for a place to settle.
“He’s the one that told my grandpa to turn at the junction of the river,” Fowler said. His grandpa did as suggested, and much of the land in that particular area southeast of Emporia has been in the hands of Fowler descendants ever since.
Fowler has made finds on most of that property. Some of the coins in his collection appear to be in shards or pieces.
“Money was so scarce, they actually cut it up in pieces to make change,” he explained, holding up a piece of a coin.
“The Spanish silver dollar was cut into eight pieces. We’ve all heard ‘Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar!’ Well, that’s a ‘bit,’ ” he said.
Fowler has found oddments from Tunisia, Spain and the Boy Scouts of America, among others. There are switch and clock keys, rings, broaches, painted china marbles, small white Indian marbles, pins, toy cars, cotton-bale seals, Civil War belt buckles and bullets, U.S. Cavalry mementos and fancy-cut pieces of metal that had once been hammered into place on shoe soles.
“We live right in the middle of all this history,” Fowler said. “It’s the history part of the hobby that has been so enjoyable.”
He has found proof that even early-day Emporians had problems with dogs at large. Among his collection is a small display box containing dog license tags dating from as early as 1895. Some are imprinted with the word “Emporia.”