Chase County’s lakes, dams featured in 2024 historical calendar

Now in its eighth year, it is a tradition for the Chase County Historical Society to produce a calendar with the pages dedicated to the county’s history.
The 2024 calendar edition is out now, making its first appearance for sale last weekend in Imperial at Hill’s Family Foods, Super Foods and the Lied Imperial Public Library.
In Wauneta, they are for sale at Walgren’s Super Market.
Historical Society President Charley Colton said the calendars will be featured at the Vision of Trees at the Community Center in Champion on Dec. 2-3.
The 2024 edition spotlights lakes and dams in Chase County with Enders, the only remaining lake in Chase County, featured on the January and July pictures.
There are also a number of historical events listed on the day they happened throughout the calendar, along with business advertising of old.
Every year, there are usually a couple of photographs we use for the monthly pages that pique my interest, Colton said.
A photo of Wauneta Lake taken in 1911 is one of them. It graces the page for June. Wauneta was made for recreational purposes, like swimming and baptisms, not for irrigation or flour mills as most were, he said.
Another interesting one, he said, is the photo used for September, showing Champion Lake in 1921. The Mill Pond was made in 1887 and it provided recreational opportunities and water for powering the mill. In that photo a high dive platform is seen. In the summer months swimming suits could be rented out and during the winter ice skates could be rented out as well, he said.
Beard’s Lake in Champion is featured on the August page. Beard’s was developed just for irrigation and eventually became privately owned and was used for fishing.
There was a body of water called Nolan’s Lake that was five miles west of Champion that existed from about 1900 to the 1990’s, when it was flooded out. There are no known photos of Nolan’s, he said.
“When I moved to Chase County in 1980 there were five man made lakes here, now it is down to just Enders,” he said.
Seventy-five calendars will be for sale at $15 each.
“We do the calendars to get our historical photos out and get people excited about the history of Chase County,” he said.
Samie Johnson did all the prep work and design, and they were printed at The Imperial Republican, Colton said.
The calendars can also be acquired through contact with any of the Historical Society board members—Colton, at 308-883-8584 or Becky Carman, Diann Schilke, Manette Brown, Jeannine Cox, Vicky Beard, or Kelen Fortkamp.
In previous years the calendar themes have included town views, schools and churches. Charley Colton has not yet decided what the theme will be for 2025.