In July 1911, the Sabetha Commercial Club embarked on a county-wide tour. As part of the journey, the Seneca Commercial Club escorted the Sabetha group from Baileyville to Seneca. This event is commemorated in a historic photo of Baileyville’s Main Street and documented in the July 27, 1911 issue of the Courier Democrat.
Seneca’s Good Will.
On Thursday, the Sabetha Commercial Club, advertising their Chautauqua, made a booster junket in eighteen automobiles via the towns of Bern, DuBois, St. Benedict, Axtell, Baileyville, Seneca, and Oneida.
On Wednesday evening, members of the Seneca Commercial Club met in the clubroom and declared in favor of making up an escort of Seneca cars and piloting the Sabetha tourists from Baileyville into this place. Fifteen cars in all responded to the call, and led by C. C. K. Scoville’s big Buick, lined up promptly in Baileyville at 2:30 after a delightful run west.
The Sabetha cars were a little late pulling into Baileyville, and it was considerably past three when the Sabetha Band formed in a circle and rendered several selections for the assembled townsfolk and the Seneca escort.
Leaving the Baileyville streets, the thirty-two cars formed in alternate Sabetha and Seneca order and proceeded eastward. At Seneca, the Chautauqua boosters were piloted through the prettier Seneca streets and finally brought to a halt in front of the bandstand, where Judge Emery, as president of the Commercial Club and in the absence of Mayor Rucker, extended a short address of welcome.
The Judge made a good speech and expressed in a frank and forcible way the goodwill which Seneca bears toward its sister city and endorsed the Sabetha Chautauqua in high terms.
Rev. Hamilton of Sabetha made a response, expressing the appreciation of the Sabetha people for the reception tendered them and extending a cordial invitation to Seneca people to take advantage of the eight-day open-air entertainment, which opens there Sunday, July 30.
The Band, and Sabetha has a dandy this year, occupied the intervals with several well-played pieces. A few minutes later, the eighteen Sabetha cars took a leisurely course out of town, no doubt convinced that their excursion would be fruitful in one town at least along the route.
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