Wheeler Dealers Camping Club members enjoy a variety of activities on monthly campouts. This year was different from others with frequent flooding at many of the lakes enjoyed in past years, so members had to exercise creativity in locations and activities.
November Wheeler Dealers journeyed to Coffeyville, KS camping at the Walter Johnson Park where the group rented a building for meals and games. This campout’s theme was taken from the folks song “Way Down Yonder in the Paw Paw Patch” with bread and cookies served made with paw paw’s from the campout hosts Joe and Pat Brown’s yard.
Coffeyville is named for Col. James A. Coffey who established a trading post to trade with Osage
Indians and other tribes in what was then Indian Territory later Oklahoma.
Best known as the town where the infamous Dalton Gang attempted to rob two banks in one day,
Wheeler Dealers members Friday afternoon visited one of those bank buildings, the historic former
Cordon Bank now home to the Coffeyville Visitor Center. On Oct. 5, 1892 the Dalton Gang attempted the robbery in broad daylight. However, one banker delayed the robbery saying the safe was on a time lock. This gave the citizens time to arm themselves to defend the town to end the era of the
Dalton Gang with the death of four of the five gang members.
Across the downtown plaza, Wheeler Dealers shopped at Isham’s Hardware, the store where citizens armed themselves against the Dalton Gang. Club members and Coffeyville natives Roger and
Helen Blake enjoyed dropping in on old friends and Isham’s owners sisters Jean and Jane “Dinger”
Walterscheid. Meanwhile members enjoyed finding things you can only find in an old-fashioned hardware store. Opened in 1870, Isham’s has been in the same location since then with the Walterscheid family only the second family to own it.
Friday evening members enjoyed Mexican food at El Pueblito and returned to the campground for games of Mexican Train and Catch Phrase in the campground building reserved by the group. the learned about ’
Saturday morning group Coffeyvilles history at the Dalton Defenders Museum. This included a History Channel video recreating the famous Dalton raid. In addition to artifacts about the Dalton raid, the museum contains exhibits about
Coffeyville history including a Native American room and a room honoring famous Coffeyville citizens.
Next door at Miss Kate’s Mercantile Wheeler Dealers members enjoyed sandwiches on homemade bread and salads and shopped at the small boutiques. This was followed ...
