The community was actually started originally on Prairie Dog Creek, but moved to the Woodruff townsite a mile south and renamed a few years later. By 1906, when the "WOODRUFF BUDGET" was born, there were nearly 40 business establishments. In Volume 1, Number 1 of the "BUDGET" the following businesses were listed:
A bank,hotel,doctor,railroad, elevator, dray line, plumber, drug store, livery barn, lumber yard, opera house, harness shop, meat market, paper hanger, grocery store, confectionery, furniture store, blacksmith shop, cement manufacturing company, two painters, two restaurants, two hardware stores, two plasterers, two barbershops, two livestock buyers, two insurance agents, two real estate agents, five carpenters, three stone masons, three genreral stores and a notary public in addition to two churches and a fine school.
The town moto was: Live and Let Live; Boost, Don't Knock.
Among some of the highlights from the BUDGET's columns that week, was an estimate that more than a million bushels of corn would be raised in the immediate vicinity, and a list of livestock feeders with the number of head of livestock fed:
WERTZ Bros., 1500; Frank KISER 30; WRISE 200; B.B. BOSTWICK 20; T.R. FIMPLE 40; W.S. DAY 90;
C. DAY & Sons 206; Wm. KISER 100; Walter GREEN 50; H.A. BICKETT 40; Frank CARMEAN 40; J.F. ZIEGLER 100; Jim REEDER 40; B.M. SPERRY 35; N.J. HORRELL 40; Chas. O'NEILL 40; Jas. COFFEY 50; R. HETH 30; W.A. JACKSON 20; P.R. BOND 50; H.V. MORRIS 300; Frank DIXSON 140;
George TANNAHILL 100; HAGEMAN Bros. 40; and Phil TURNEY with 3000 head of sheep.
John STEENIS was listed as the champion cornhusker in that area, having husked and cribbed 2030 bushels of corn in 18 days, for an average of 113 bushels per day. And it was evident that boys will be boys in 1906: Alfred YOUNG and Garfield HAGERMAN were spilled out of a buggy coming from the HAGERMAN farm by attempting to turn a square corner at a 2-40 gait. "The demolished rig," reports the BUDGET, "bears witness to the fact that they didn't light in a very soft spot either." The BUDGET was published by John A. BARKER, who also operated a drug store in connection with his newspaper.
The Evangelical United Bretheran church at Woodruff was organized in January 1887, as a result of a revival meeting held by Rev. T.J. FEE, assisted by the Methodist minister in the Old Sod house of the town. Charter members included Mrs. John CHEADLE, Mr. and Mrs. W.H. JOYCE, Rev. and Mrs. FEE, Billie and Nellie FEE, "Grandma" STROH, Eliza and Ed STROH, MR. and Mrs. Samual FULTON. Services were held in the frame school house building until 1903 when it was replaced by a brick school house building and in 1946, a merger changed the name to Evangelical United Bretheran. Services were discontinued when the population thinned. Source: PHILLIPS COUNTY REVIEW Thursday, October 30, 1997. Vol 72-No. 45
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