Christopher Rickner | Varmin, Critter, or Beast?

In the History of Cherokee County, Kansas and Representatives, the biography of Christopher Rickner includes this sentence:

Mr. Rickner has been very successful as a farmer, although in the early days he experienced considerable difficulty with the ‘coons, which ate his corn crop.

page 573

He settled in the most southeast corner of Kansas, off of Shoal Creek, before the Civil War and lived most of his life there, his wife dying in 1902 on the farm they settled.

In 1903, after his wife’s death, he was plagued yet again by an animal.

The people tell different stories about “that varment seen on Shoal Creek at Rickner’s Bridge.” Baxter people say it tore Mr. Rickner up — but it didn’t.

Galena Weekly Republican, 29 Jan 1903, page 5

Indeed, Mr. Rickner is reported having shot and killed the animal, which “has been terrorizing the people of Lowell and vicininty” in the Galena Evening Times (28 Jan 1903, page 3).

The animal, now dead, was unable to be identified by those who saw it. “Mr. Rickner was in town today and says he will send the body of the animal away to some school to have it mounted and to find out what it is.” Ibid.

Some of the people speculated that the animal had come from its den in a cave where it had been disturbed by explorers, who had ventured in some 200 yards.

The Cherokee County Republican, however, was relieved to find out it was not their dog.