The History
The Sun-Democrat
Written January 15, 1950
By: Bill Powell
The bearded giant of a man drew a square on the ground with a stick and then he scraped a heavy line through the center of the box. He studied the pattern a long time before turning slowly to survey the land around him.
He was standing in a field covered with tall grass and bushes. A house or two could be seen through the trees and a country road split the field nearby.
The well-dressed man nodded his head in approval of an idea he had, then walked away briskly to his buggy and drove away.
It was the spring of 1901. The big man nearly six and a half feet tall was R.U. Kevil, an enterprising businessman from Princeton. The heavy line in the box was an imaginary railroad that turned to steel less than two years later, and the box was a miniature outline of what is now Kevil.
The contract
R.U. Kevil bought the lots at auction in the Summer of 1901. The contract conveying the lots to Mr. Kevil by the original owners J.W. and R. W. Stephens was written and signed in the home of Mr. & Mrs. Frank Wyatt. The contact, a four-page document was written in longhand on narrow nickel tablet paper. The people of the new town were grateful to Mr. Kevil for the part he played in seeing the potential of the site and therefore named the town after him.
Kevil was incorporated March 1, 1910.
The Wyatt's kept the original contract for the next 60 years. In July of 1961 Mrs. Wyatt mailed the contract along with a letter to the then Mayor Richard Burnley. In her letter she spoke of the "good old days" she also included the photo seen here and asked the mayor to take care of the contract another 60 years. Mayor Burnley did just that. The 121-year-old contract is currently displayed inside Kevil City Hall.
Mr. & Mrs. Wyatt review the original contract in which Kevil townsite was conveyed to R.U Kevil.
Photo Gallery
