His first jobs took place in wheat fields, where he would appear with his box camera and wait until the harvest crews took a break. He’d then line the men up and take a group photo, go back to town and develop the film, then return to the field to sell them to the workers, most of whom wanted a picture to send back home.
Ten years later he expanded his photography business to include that new-fangled contraption called ‘radio’, and with a partner he formed a manufacturing company to produce the Al-Ard radio receiving set. This interest continued and ultimately expanded into developing the first broadcasting station in the area when KIUL came on the airwaves. The station is still on the air today, serving Southwest Kansas, thanks to the pioneering spirit of ‘Pop’ Conard.
That spirit was also the spark that fired up a highly successful sideline to his photography career. The 1930s brought financial ruin, drought, and dust storms to the Great Plains. They also brought a plague of grasshoppers to Garden City in 1935. Conard had been creating picture postcards of the high rolling clouds of dust that enveloped the area, but with the arrival of the hoppers he got the idea of adding an element of humor to this image of the ‘worst hard times’.
With his knowledge of photography and a sharp etching knife, he created huge grasshoppers and jackrabbits in his pictures. Post cards featured grasshoppers pulling farm implements, loaded on rail cars, and cowboys riding monstrous jackrabbits.
Soon Conard employed a labor force to create thousands of postcards that were sold by a troupe of travelling salesmen. In service stations, cabin camps, and tourist stops these cards sold for a nickel apiece. They were popular items in Duckwall and Woolworth stores throughout the Midwest. The dealers received 2 ½ cents for each card sold, and ‘Pop’ Conard got the other half.
The cards were not ever meant to intensify the area’s dust bowl image. Rather, they were an ingenious way to make a living and mix some humor in with the sorrows of the Great Depression. Their popularity outlived that dark time in American history, and in the late 1940s a commercial firm began printing the cards for Conard. Copies of some of the cards that told such tall tales are still available at the Museum Shop at the Historical Museum in Garden City.
Pop Conard enriched the lives of many Southwest Kansas residents, building various business ventures, helping to create the historic band shell in Stevens Park, and giving a literal voice to the area. He sold his photography shop in 1963, and within three years both he and his wife Mabel had passed away, leaving a legacy filled with pictures of the past.
Thanks to Laurie Oshel and the Finney County Historical Museum in Garden City for contributing information used in writing this story. For a look at one of ‘Pop’ Conard’s famous postcards, you can go to our website at hppr.org. For High Plains Public Radio, I’m Mary Regan.
High Plains History is a production of High Plains Public Radio. Special thanks to Lynn Boitano for additional production assistance.
