Excerpted stories in Crawford County newspaper archives 100 Years Ago March 13, 1924 A telegraphic request from John L. Lewis, international president of the United Mine Workers, to district officials that they refuse to pay Alexander Howat and other deposed district officials salaries amounting to approximately $8,000, as voted by their convention this week, resulted in a lengthy debate in the miners’ convention yesterday. President Lewis ruled the expenditure illegal. The Kansas City Southern Railway Co. will, upon the completion of present extension projects underway in the Pittsburg shops, have made these shops “the most up-to-date roundhouse and back shops in the United States," L. F. Loree, chairman of the executive board of the company, today told a group of Pittsburg businessmen assembled at a luncheon in a dining car in their honor on the KCS tracks.