A funny little feature story published in the Ridgeway Journal on August 9, 1934, Hershey Goodwin and his cow famous nationwide. Hershey kept his cow in a pasture on the northwest side of town and every morning and evening he would drive in his “motor car” to milk her. He would then honk his horn to call her. “No matter where bossy is in the pasture or whether she can see Mr. Goodwin or not, she heads at once for the southeast gate to be milked.” Mr. Goodwin didn’t explain how he trained her to come at the sound of his horn but “several veracious witnesses attest that she does”
The news wires picked up this little story and over the next couple weeks, the Journal staff got letters from Ridgeway folks in far off cities telling how they read about the cow in their local papers. People first read about the cow in Des Moines and the story spread nationwide: “Mrs. Sam Whitehead received a letter from a friend in Shreveport, Louisiana, in which she related seeing the story of Mr. Goodwin's cow in their local paper, and telling how surprised she was to see an item under a Ridgeway date line down in Louisiana.” Mr. Goodwin got a letter from Long Island, NY from someone who had read about his cow and Dr. Lake Brewer got a letter from Raymond Kearny of New Jersey who found the story in the New York Evening Sun and “was surprised to see an account of Hershey Goodwin's cow under a Ridgeway head line.” (Ridgeway Journal, Aug 30, 1934.)
