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Dr. Ronald P. Rogers CHIROPRACTOR Support for your body's natural healing capabilities 270-384-5554 Click here for details 
  
Columbia Gas Dept. GAS LEAK or GAS SMELL Contact Numbers 24 hrs/ 365 days 270-384-2006 or 9-1-1 Call before you dig 
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Of Rainmakers and Pioneers By Mike Watson Adair County has been the home of far more inventive folk than people give credit. From the earliest settlement right up to modern times the inquisitive minds of local men and women have conceived of patent-worthy products, from agricultural improvements to ground-breaking medical concepts, procedures and instruments. Mankind has always wanted, and often attempted, to control the weather. We have had no great need for rainfall this season, but there are those times when just about any methods would be entertained to bring that lifesaving liquid from the heavens. Rainmakers have existed in one for or other for centuries, if not longer. Today we hear of the seeding of clouds to create rain. The concept was in existence long ago, thought perhaps not carried out successfully due to the restraints of earth-bound entrepreneurs. Here is such a tale from : "An Old Rainmaker--Special to the Gazette--Guthrie, O.T. [Oklahoma Territory], Nov 28 [1891]--J.M. Smith, of Seward, O.T., who is nearly ninety years old, states that he remembers well a Samuel Brent, of Columbia, Ky., who sixty years ago conceived the idea of causing rainfall by using explosives, and for that purpose erected a high tower from which he exploded large quantities of powder. So successful was he that he obtained a large following and created a great sensation throughout Kentucky and bordering states. His experiments were not financially successful, however, and after expending large means, his efforts fell into innocuous desuetude and were forgotten by a fickle public. "Before the age of balloons and dynamite he appears to have caused rain to fall by the same means sought by Melbourne and others. Then why should he not be accorded the credit of discovery, instead of these modern 'rain kings,' who simply follow in his footsteps, causing rain by atmospheric disturbances, but using later discovered means instead of powder in accomplishing the same subject?" -- The Fort Worth Gazette, Fort Worth, TX, 29 November 1891, Sunday. Samuel Brents was a resident of Green and Adair Counties during the late years of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century and was a lawyer by trade who practiced his trade all over South Central Kentucky and in particular in Columbia. He was the name sake of a son of John Field, early Columbia merchant, first Adair County jailer, first Columbia postmaster, etc. John's son, Samuel Brents Field, became a physician and practiced his trade in this and surrounding counties until after the Civil War. He, too, was an innovator, credited with introducing commercial fertilizer to Adair County at a time when farming had just about exhausted the soil. This story was posted on 2019-07-28 12:54:35
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Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know. More articles from topic Mike Watson - History:
June 1969--50 Years Ago This Month Watson says put history up front in Tour 120 this weekend Adair County Teachers, 1939 History Bite: Pollard's Chapel Remarkable Memories--Bible Verses Memorized A Wild Onion Tale...or a Rite of Spring... Beware, there is a slitherer in here... The Libraries of Columbia and Adair County Historian Mike Watson to speak at ACPL Monday, 4 March 2019 The Bloody Harpes: Part III View even more articles in topic Mike Watson - History |
 
115 Jamestown St. Columbia, KY. 270-384-2496 
  
   
 Provided by the Adair Co Fiscal Court and the Adair Co. Emergency Mgt. Agency 
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