Correspondence to Miss Mary Woodside from S.M.B., July 21, 1878

A letter written on stationary from the Custer Hotel in Beloit, Kansas from a man to his woman friend in Iowa. The writer talks about Beloit being a small, regular western town, about the temperature being really warm, and about the fact that he is lonesome, but will soon be traveling on to Colorado.

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Transcription:

[Letterhead] HOTEL built and furnished in 1878 with all modern conveniences to accommodate 100 with quarters and to subsist 300 or more with the substantials and luxuries of a first-class house. Three Sample Rooms on the first floor, for Commercial Tourists. Location, unsurpassed and convenient to Court House, Post-Office and depots of the Kansas Pacific and Central Branch Railroads terminating at BELOIT. Stages leave the hotel daily for the North, South, East and West. Livery transportation-for speed and safety unexcelled. BOARD AND ROOMS $2 PER DAY

Custer House, Hopkins & McMecken, Proprietors, Beloit, Kans.

July 21st 1878.

Miss Woodside My Dear Friend

Your kind and much welcome letter was recd last evening and I suppose you would not believe me if I would tell you the pleasure I derived from perusing your sweet letter. It is the only letter that I have recd from Eldora since I left and I have felt very lonesome at times without you but you have been ever present in my mind, if not in my sight and so you say that you have a friend in Kansas Well I am not surprised at that fact for I think it is so and I think I would have one to if you were here tonight and still more I would go to church with you as there is one here. This is quite a town it is lively you might say. It is small but it is a regular western town. The people here do not care for anything a man's life is worth two cents and still the weather is very warm The Thermometer ranged at one hundred & seven here in the shade yesterday. I do not know when I will return to Eldora. The prospects

are that I will have to go to Colorado before I return I will bid you a due for this time. I will start west to night or in the morning on my Indian Pony. Good bye

Yours Truly SMB

Envelope: Miss Mary Woodside Eldora Iowa Hardin County Cancellation stamp has Beloit Kansas Jul 15 1878