Cloud County Shorts is a compilation of biographies, letters, and news clippings spanning seventy years of the Short families of Kansas. Local newspapers chronicled the lives of the nineteenth-century Shorts in surprising detail. In part because William and Jacob Short were political figures. Also, the papers vied to report every detail of life in the budding townships. This book is about the Short family fortunes that ebbed and flowed in the Republican River communities of Clyde, Clifton, and Concordia. They were soldiers, politicians, ranchers, craftsmen, and, most importantly, pioneers. The one constant in each of their journeys was their faith–in their ability, their community, and their God.

As a fixture in Concordia politics for nearly 30 years, William T. Short helped transform the prairie dog town into a thriving community. William served three terms on the city council; two terms on the Board of Education; President of Concordia Fire Relief Association (1899); twice, Cloud County, Kansas Representative (1899, 1901); Concordia Fire Chief (1901); and twice, Concordia City Mayor (1913, 1915). His most lasting monument was to supervise the construction of the Brown Grand Theatre.

The Concordia Press wrote of William’s passing, “Very recently some of his friends requested that he write from recollection his impressions of the first fifty years in Concordia, and had he lived, the book would probably have been written and would also have been very interesting as well as instructive.” It is my hope this book will satisfy that wish, at least for the Short clan. As I accumulated over 2,500 news clippings involving eighteen family members, I imagined discovering an old trunk in the attic of William’s bungalow, and within it finding these articles.