Salina Post proudly presents Flashback Friday in partnership with the Smoky Hill Museum. Enjoy a weekly tidbit of local history from the staff at Salina Post and the Smoky Hill Museum as we present "Salina-Flashback Fridays."
By SALINA POST
In early February, 1858, Colonel William A. Phillips, Alexander M. Campbell, and James Muir, seeking a location for a townsite, explored the banks of the Smoky Hill River. They drove the stakes and found Salina in the immediate area.
Founders Park commemorates that event. Early settlers harnessed the power from the flowing Smoky Hill River, which soon ran mills that sawed trees into wood and ground grain into flour. Salina's milling industry was born and steadily grew to the third-largest flour-producing city in the world.
The millstone displayed in the park is believed to be the original stone from Phillips Mill, the first steam-powered grist mill in Salina, opened in May, 1861.
The founders motto for Salina is inscipted on a plaque located in the park it reads- "Religion first, Education second, Business third"
The original town of Saina founded in 1858 contained 320 acres. Boundaries were North to South & Front to Ninth Streets. By 1902 this block included the Grand Central Hotel and Opera House.
In 1976 as part of the Bicentennial celebrations, 100 Salinans gathered at Founders Park for the entombment of a steel cylinder full of memorabilia from that time.
According to an article by John Schmiedeler from the Salina Journal in November 1976, provided by the Smoky Hill Museum. The Committee for the Tricentennial Celebration placed a message inside the capsule which reads:
"There is no way to capture and contain in this capsule the Spirit of '76 that has encompassed our national celebration. Ours has been a period of searching our past for the purpose of assuring our future. We have become acutely concious of the consumption of all of the natural resources, land, water, air, forest, and minerals, and we have tried to sound an alarm to halt abuses. We have examined the tents of democracy and the role of the United States in world affairs. We believe that our forefathers had a great idea that this system of government can work."
Among the items found in the time capsule, which will be unearthed in 2076, are an automobile license tag, a description of the newly revitalized Saline County Historical Society, lodge pins by the handful, school year books, theatre programs, pictures galore, tapes of radio broadcasts, advertisement gimmicks among other items.