In the spring of 1907, a stranger approached John Winterbottom as he was planting corn on his farm in the upper part of Osage Township. The man asked Winterbottom if he’d be willing to part with his land, which lay just east of the Katy Railroad. For the right price, Winterbottom said, he would. The man then approached another farmer, a next door neighbor as it were, Hiram Lieurance, and posed the same query, and was honored with the same result.
Within days, the stranger — soon well-known to the area’s residents as Sam T. McDermott, vice-president of the Great…
