In 1881, a company known as the Postal Telegraph Company will be established by MacKay, leveraging the market position of the undersea cables and built with the remnants of some defunct companies. It was a private company that at times financially struggled and finally was acquired by Western Union through an agreement with the US Government.

The Rogers company, on average, would produce about 70 shows a summer. Most of operations focused on small town America where local communities would pay a fee for the Rogers company to design a celebration plan for them, that included not just an outdoor historical pageant, but would also give them an organization “plan of action” with which the townspeople could use to stage the entire year-long celebration. Those festivities always included beard contests, vintage clothing sales, commemorative dinner plates, historical programs and photos, wooden nickels, and other souvenirs of the community’s celebration. In the final six weeks of the event, the company would assign a director-business manager to the town to direct the pageant and generally oversee the celebration to ensure that company procedures and fiscal policies were being followed.   This writer became very familiar with the Rogers Company when I went to work for them in the summer of 1969, as a wet-behind-the-ears 20-year-old freshly minted “director”.

Did you know: The Stogie was invented in Wheeling, Virginia, West Virginia. In 1819, Joseph Kirk of Wheeling began manufacturing cigars and in 1825, he was listed as a Cigar and “Stogie” manufacturer. Mifflin Marsh in relating the history of the Stogie tells us, “Some inventive genius here in Wheeling, (Kirk maybe) conceived the idea of making a cheap smoke for the (Conestoga) driver.”

It was the Marsh Wheeling Stogie. Founded in 1840 by Mifflin Marsh, Marsh Wheeling (from Wheeling, Virginia at the time it didn’t become West Virginia until the Civil War) initially made cigars that were affordable for the average person. Marsh made cigars that sold for less than a penny a piece. Marsh also was the first marketer in the cigar business, handing out free samples to Conestoga wagon drivers on the National Road—which ran from Baltimore to Wheeling connecting the east coast with the Ohio River – and to Captains of the river boats that dotted the Ohio River and he then sold the rest to passengers of the boats and wagons. The following year, the Wheeling Suspension Bridge was completed across the Ohio River. As a result, Wheeling’s business really took off and as did Marsh’s. In 1848, Marsh developed what became the icon, the Stogie. At the time, the cheapest cigars were Boston Cheroots selling for $3.50 to $4.00 per thousand. They also were made out of scraps. Mifflin came up with an affordable long filler cigar named in honor of the Conestoga wagons that traveled through Wheeling taking pioneers and settlers out into the west. The Marsh Wheeling Stogie was the result, measuring 7 inches with a 34-ring gauge. (And yes, the use of the word stogie today to mean a cigar comes from the Marsh Wheeling Stogie.) Marsh also came up with the slogan because of the Stogie’s length “longer enjoyment.”

covered wagon

He might also say "haw" to tell the horse to turn to the left or "gee" to tell it to turn to the right.

A finished wagon, approximately twenty-six feet long, eleven feet high, weighing between three thousand and thirty-five hundred pounds, and capable of holding five hogsheads or thirty barrels of flour, cost the equivalent of about $250— an incredibly low figure by today’s standards. By contrast, the four to six powerful Con- estoga horses that pulled the wagon were valued at about $170 to $200 each.

Death of Thomas Tregombo At his home in Riverview yesterday .' occurred the death of Thomas Tre- ; gombo, aged 80 years.