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The old Rayville post office, near the state line, was established by petition circulated in 1884 by George Washington Rhamey. He asked that it be named Rhameyville, but that was too much like Reamsville in Smith County, so the Postal Department named it Rayville. Mr. Rhamey was postmaster several years, and Rayville also had a general store. When he sold the store to Mrs. Austin Savage, the post office was moved to the Charles Starks sod house a mile west and a mile south where Mrs. Starks was postmistress for several years. Jacob Reitzel was the Star Route carrier.
Rayville boasted the post office, a general store, a millinery store, a blacksmith shop, and a drug store, the latter two being on the Nebraska side of the state line. Charley Perry owned the drug store. Nebraska was a “wet” state, and Kansas was “dry”, and neighbors related the drug store did a large liquor business on the side.
Rayville was a good rural trading point, and the old store building stood for many years.
Charles Savage, a bachelor owned the place and lived in the old soddy for many years after the store closed. (See Savage biographies for more information.)
Charles SAVAGE
Charles Homer Savage was born in 1879 and died about 1946. He lived at Rayville, KS. After his mother’s death, Charles lived alone. He had stayed with his mother for years to take care of things for her. He had very little schooling, but learned to read, write and figure arithmetic. Charlie took a correspondence course in mechanics. He had no car, but rode a bicycle to town and to farm sales.
He installed a gas pump at Rayville and Mel Cummings from Almena supplied gas for the pump. He sold gas, old parts, and iron from items he bought at farm sales. He recorded everything and was greatly interested in nature with a special interest in butterflies.
He lived in a sod house at Rayville, and had piled boards against the walls to keep them from washing away during hard rains.
In 1945 Charlie developed pneumonia and Dr. Herbert Bennie brought him to Almena to live in an old store building. The land at Rayville was sold to Rollin Hawks with the understanding that the corner where Charlie lived was not to be disturbed until after his death.
After Charlie died in 1950, a brother came and sorted through his belongings, saved the things that were valuable to them, and bulldozed the house and wood into a pile to be burned. The corner where he lived is now farmland.
Austin and Martha SAVAGE
In the spring of 1876, Austin Charles, his wife Martha Iona (Sawtelle) Savage, and their baby daughter Gertrude A., left Greensboro Bend, VT and traveled by train to Nebraska, then by ox team and wagon to Kansas. They homesteaded on the Kansas-Nebraska state line nine miles northeast of Almena, and later settled at Rayville, KS. They lived in their wagon while they were building their home. They plowed sod for the house and clay was dug from the creek banks to plaster it. Some lumber was hauled from Ft. Kearney by ox team also. They moved into the new house in March of 1879 and Charles Homer was born, and by 1888 three more children had been born; Arthur I. Savage (married Etta Gregory), W. Adelbert “Bert” (married Elva Gregory), and Alzora I. (married Wilbert Rodenbaugh). Their oldest daughter, Gertrude (married name Hill), lived in and around Almena for many years, raising a family four and one-half miles south of Almena.
They planted wild plums, wheat and corn, millet for the chickens, and cane to make molasses with. Huge herds of cattle were being driven from Texas to Nebraska past their place, and they were paid to keep the weak and young cattle from the herds. The drovers picked up the cattle the next spring on the trip back through.
Martha Savage started a general merchandise store in 1889 near the road and later added a post office. She had a good business because it was quite some distance to another town. The little settlement of Rayville had a church and school where they held square dances, literaries, and soup suppers.