PITTSBURG, Kan. — With Pittsburg celebrating its 150th birthday and the nation’s 250th, it seemed timely when Pittsburg native Susie Angwin Heflin swung by The Morning Sun and Ryan-Dittman Insurance last week to donate old newspapers and other keepsakes her father, Maynard Angwin, had saved during his life.
The donations to The Morning Sun included a framed copy of the 1935 edition of the newspaper that reported the death of Will Rogers and Wiley Post along with loose copies of the front page on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated and other Headlight and Morning Sun issues from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Heflin also gave advertising materials that her father’s insurance agency used, which included emery boards, knives, matchbooks, key rings and business cards.
Angwin was well-known in the Pittsburg community as he operated a bus service, owned a local insurance agency and was active in community organizations.
Angwin was born in 1903 in Ozark, Missouri, Heflin said, and enrolled at Kansas State Teacher’s College in 1924. He worked part time at the Sinclair Service Station, then went on to work at Skelly Service Station at Rose and Broadway streets. He quit college to manage the station and then was promoted to a traveling supervisor until 1932. Angwin returned to college and graduated in 1933.
While he was in college, he wrote an article for The Collegio that shared the history of the Joplin Pittsburg Railroad and the streetcar service in Pittsburg . This article inspired him to start a bus service with his brother Gordon Angwin. They started the Gordon Transit Company in 1933 with the help of the City Attorney Ben W. Weir. Angwin purchased his brother’s portion of the company in 1936, and the bus service continued until 1952.
The Gordon Transit Company employed many college students as drivers, and four buses operated various routes through Pittsburg.
In 1950, Angwin purchased the Jack G. Cherry Insurance Agency at 107 E. 4th Street then expanded to include 105 E. 4th. Gus Blair joined the agency in 1960, creating the Angwin-Blair Agency. Blair died in 1963, and in 1965 Ray Stanley joined Angwin and the business was renamed Angwin-Stanley Agency Inc. In 1974, the Raymond Ryan Agency merged with Angwin-Stanley and created the Angwin-Ryan-Stanley Agency, which according to records, was one of the largest in Southeast Kansas at the time.
Angwin retired Jan. 1, 1978, after more than 27 years in the insurance business. The insurance agency later became Ryan Insurance then Ryan-Dittman Insurance.
Throughout his life, Angwin was involved in the community, including the Lion’s Club, Chamber of Commerce, Elm Acres for Children, College Alumni Association, College Endowment Association, Mo-Kan Area Boy Scout Council and other organizations. In 1970, he and Gordon received the Kansas State College of Pittsburg Meritorious Achievement Award.
Heflin said her father loved Pittsburg, and his name was in the newspaper nearly every single day.
“He would go to the post office then walk across the street to the newspaper office every day,” she said.
Her father would be thrilled, she said, to know his former office is now part of the university’s Block22 project because he was passionate about helping college students.
Heflin resides in Texas with her husband but still visits the area occasionally.
This reporting is made possible, in part, by the Support Local Journalism Project Fund. Learn more at: southeastkansas.org/Localnews.
