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Submitted: 6/2/06 • Approved: 7/14/12 • Last Updated: 2/16/13 • R6469-G6468-S3
The following information comes from an article by George Ledbetter in the Chadron Record newspaper, Chadron, Nebraska: the 2012-Fur-Trade-Days Supplement.
Mary Hayward Smith was born in Pennsylvania in 1842 and traveled west to see the places she had read about in books. Arriving in Chadron in 1885, before the railroad had extended here, she established a homestead west of town. A few years later she married William Hayward, a prominent Chadron citizen, but maintained her independence as well. She opened a dry goods store at the corner of Second St. and Chadron Ave. in a building that is still standing. She became an organizer in the movement to get voting rights for women and lived to be 96 years old. In 1909, the Dawes County Commissioners had a fountain erected on the courthouse lawn in honor of all the work Smith had done for the community in its early years.
Contributed on 6/2/06 by JimNebraska99
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Record #: 6469