Volume 11 , Issue 44

Insight Into Grandpa McGill

We were looking through our old family photos this last week and found this old photo of our Grandpa William J. "Bill" McGill in his younger days seated on a courthouse lawn with one of his girl friends and another young couple. We can identify Grandpa without much trouble, but who are the others? AND ? Where is this courthouse and lawn?

If you look close in the photo you will see the backsides of old model-type autos with the canvas tops lined up along the side of the courthouse square.

BUT ? What courthouse? Where is it? Is it Woods county's courthouse or a courthouse in another part of Oklahoma? Kansas? Texas? Missouri?

At first glance, I thought the young lady with grandpa was young Constance Warwick, but I am not sure and absolute about that assumption now.

I do know that Grandpa Bill McGill went to Friends University in Kansas, around the 1904-05 era and played baseball at Minneapolis, Kansas.

We also know that the McGill ancestors came through McPherson, Kansas and settled around Pratt, Kansas before settling in Northwest Oklahoma.

Bill McGill traveled between Alva, Oklahoma Territory to Austin, Texas to play baseball with the Austin Senators around 1906 -- in 1907 he played baseball with the St. Louis Brown's, Major League.

So ? perhaps this courthouse could be anywhere from Alva in northwest Oklahoma all the way down south to Austin, Texas and East towards Missouri and North towards Kansas.

Did Grandpa have a girl in every port he passed through? He was a distinguished looking gentleman, at that!

If anyone can help us identify the others in the photo or the old courthouse, we would love to hear from you.
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