Bruce Frahm's
famous colby of the past
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When I'm on the ham radio bands, or traveling and mention my hometown of Colby, oldtimers are likely to bring up one of three subjects: KXXX, Murphy's Cafe or Sod Town.
Still operating, KXXX AM 790 is a 5000 watt farm-oriented single-tower station just east of Colby. It's operated since the mid-50s. "Weatherman" Vern Snider WØWOB was chief engineer until his death in the 70s. Our local ham radio club now has his callsign in memoriam. Ed Mason was the manager in those days, and had one big claim to fame -- working side-by-side with Paul Harvey at a small town station in earlier times. Rich Hawkins, the big on-air talent at that time, moved on to KRVN 880 in Lexington NE and was heard from time to time until just recently. In the old days KXXX used a Beverage antenna to pick up programming from KMMJ and rebroadcast on 790! With the increase in FM broadcast popularity, the fame of KXXX has diminished since, but it's still a viable force in nwKS media.
Murphy's Cafe used to be (seemingly) almost as well-advertised in the western US as Harold's Club. You could find the little, long MURPHY'S CAFE COLBY KS b&w signs scattered throughout the west. Located just west of downtown, the cafe served good meals back in the days before I-70 thinned the US 24 traffic, and McDonalds and company helped us become a nation of hurryers. Ella Murphy ran the place with an iron fist, and anecdotes about some of the goings-on there are legend with oldtime Colbyites. It was widely known around town that there were two menus at Murphy's; one with western KS prices for the locals, and one with Denver prices for travelers. The banquet room sported chairs marked with names of famous occupants, including John Wayne and actor Ronald Reagan. My parents' 40th wedding anniversary dinner occurred there near the end of the cafe's heyday.
Sod Town was a sorta tacky hodge-podge of sod houses, farm implements, Indian and pioneer artifacts east of town, near the KXXX tower. Proprietor Vernie Kear regaled visitors with various tales of life in the early days. I remember being a kid looking with anticipation into a covered barrel labeled BABY RATTLERS. Inside I found just that -- 3 blue ones and 4 pink ones! Marked in red on countless atlases through the early 70s, I got more questions in those days from foreign ham operators about Sod Town than any other aspect of my life.
Another attraction no longer prospering is the Geographic Center of the contiguous 48 United States. It's located 135 miles east of here near Lebanon KS, and is an attractive limestone cairn with flagpole. It always fascinated me how anybody could decide that was THE place. Now with the addition of Alaska and Hawaii, its novelty is largely but not completely gone. In addition, the sands along the intercoastal waterway move considerably with the passage of time, and I suspect the actual point is now a fair distance away from the marker. I still mention it to my foreign radio contacts.
Ahhh, the good old days......