USA > Kansas > Reno County > History of Reno County, Kansas; its people, industries and institutions, Vol I > Part 18
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The new company found they had but sixty days to build the twenty- three miles of road to the southern boundary of Reno county. All the material had to be hauled hundreds of miles. Weather conditions became very bad, for it rained continually. One fortunate feature for the company. however, was that the rain feil during the night, the days being nice and bright. and no work was stopped because of the weather. The track was laid on the road at the rate of a mile a day. It was completed to within a mile of the county line and only one day remained of the time to earn the bonds. Then it was discovered that there was no more material on hands
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to finish to the Kingman line. So the only thing left to do was to tear up all of the sidings and put them down as part of the main line. This was done and the county commissioners of Reno county accepted the road and ordered the bonds paid.
The road was built on to Kingman. There was plenty of time, how- ever. to reach that city, as the time limit did not expire as soon as it did in Reno county, and the company proceeded in a more leisurely way to build . that portion of the road.
When it came to selling the bonds of the road and paying for the material, some difficulty was found in disposing of the bonds. There had been a series of short crops in Kansas. Political agitations, arising out of the inflation of values and the over-mortgaging of the lands, had sent the credit of the West down and it was found difficult to market the bonds. They were finally sold to the state school fund at a discount.
.\ difficulty arose over the division of the proceeds of these bonds. Wise and Christy undertook to squeeze out Lusk and Collins. They had eliminated St. John at an earlier period and thought they could in a similar manner get Lusk and Collins out of the deal and have the entire proceeds for themselves. Lusk met Christy and Wise in a bank in Hutchinson to talk over the matter. It became apparent that the Chicago men were anxious to get all of the bonds for their own use. Lusk knocked Christy down, then had both Christy and Wise arrested, and they would have spent the night in jail had not a Hutchinson citizen gone on their bonds. That night Collins went to the hotel where Wise and Christy were stopping and. after getting into their room, he locked the door and put the key in his pocket. He told them in very forcible language that they could not freeze him out in the manner they proposed and that he was there to get what was coming to him. They both knew Collins and knew he would make good his threat. Collins left the room satisfied. Just what they paid him, how they settled with him, neither they nor Collins would say. All that Collins ever said about it was that he got what he went after. Later, a suit was brought over the issuance of the bonds Hutchinson had voted. While the "terminal facilities" promised were never built, the city council thought that. even though the bonds were never earned, yet it enabled the road to be built and Hutchinson to have the trade it brought to the city. Wise and Christy had. after completing the road to Kingman, a railroad thirty-two miles long, built ont of the subsidies, with no bonded indebtedness.
While this road was being built, another change took place in the man-
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agement of the Union Pacific. The old idea of building to the Gulf again animated the officers and a new company was organized, called the Omaha, Hutchinson & Gulf railroad. A survey was made from the city of King- man to the south line of the state. Elections were held and bonds voted. The subsidies allowed by law had been reduced from four thousand dollars to two thousand dollars a mile and the "terminal facility" bonds from King- man, Harper and Anthony were also voted. The proposition to continue the building of the road was presented to the new management of the Union Pacific, with the provision that when the fifty additional miles that would be necessary to reach the state line were built, that all the subsidies, should be the property of the promoters and the entire eighty-two miles of road should be bonded for twelve thousand five hundred dollars a mile, the Union Pacific to advance seventy-five per cent of this value of the bonds when the road was built . and in operation from Hutchinson to the Indian Territory line. The Union Pacific was to have the privilege of taking over the road upon the payment of the other twenty-five per cent of the bonds. This proposition was accepted and the road completed to the state line on June 2, 1890. The road was then reincorporated and was known as the Hutchin- son & Southern railroad. The entire amount of the bonds issued was seven hundred sixty-eight thousand five hundred dollars. The stock was put up with the bonds and the control of the road passed to the bondholders. The net profits to the builders of this eighty-two miles of railroad was over a quarter of a million dollars. It was the intention to continue the building of the road to Denison, Texas. Oklahoma had been opened for settlement. Townsites were available and bonds were as easily secured as in the early days of Kansas. Indian contracts of great value could be secured and the prospects for the road for building farther south were bright. An applica- tion had been made to Congress for a right-of-way across this territory. when another convulsion took place in the management of the Union Pacific. The Dillon interests had again crowded out the Adams interests. They were antagonistic to the entire southern proposition and promptly repudiated the contract that had been made for building the road southward. They refused, further, to take possession of the newly-built railroad and left it.in the hands of the builders. These builders sought money elsewhere. when it became apparent that no further aid could be expected from the Union Pacific. But it was hard work at that time to get any money for railroad construction. Nearly all of the western roads were in the hands of receivers and a receiver was appointed for the Hutchinson & Southern. The man
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sent to Hutchinson to have charge of the road was L. E. Walker. His appointment was the payment of a political debt of Senator Thurston, who was then attorney for the Union Pacific. Walker came to Hutchinson and took charge of the road. Soon afterward he selected W. A. Bradford, a Boston man, as general manager of the road. The idea of extending the road appealed to them and they undertook to duplicate the job of build- ing the road from Hutchinson to Kingman, from the terminus then at Cameron. on the state line, to Blackwell, Oklahoma. They got bonds wherever possible. They took the receipts of the road and used them. They had receiver's certificates issued by the United States court to pay taxes and other expenses and they left the taxes unpaid. using the money to continue the building of the road. They succeeded in getting to Black- well and the road was becoming an exceedingly valuable one. They started to build a depot in Hutchinson, now the Missouri Pacific passenger depot. They built a bridge across the Arkansas river, so they would not have to use the tracks of the Rock Island road. They were getting along nicely. They had an offer of a million dollars for the road from the Choctaw rail- road, which was anxious to get a line northward. Their success turned their heads. Instead of accepting the Choctaw proposition, that would have made them a big profit, they held on to their road, expecting to make a great system out of it. However, the Santa Fe looked at the road with longing eyes and bought the bonds of the Company. The stock was up as additional security, which stock carried with it the control of the road, and on December 20, 1889, the Hutchinson & Southern became the property of the Santa Fe. Bradford and Walker made but little out of the sale. They had put nothing in. They sold the depot to the Missouri Pacific for ten thousand dollars and the track from the river to the depot and the bridge across the Arkansas river. that were not covered by the bonds of the road. This was all they had when the Santa Fe took control of the road.
So the Hutchinson & Southern was built. The early promoters made a fortune out of it, but none of them made much of their profits. They all died poor. None of the early builders are living. Some of the men who helped build the road are still in Hutchinson. Among them, O. . P. Byers, who was superintendent of the road until it was built to Kingman. He now is president of the Anthony & Northern railroad. Fred Carpenter. of Hutchinson, was road master for many years and is still road master of this road. It is a great feeder for the Santa Fe. It runs through a rich territory and is a great help in the development of the Great Southwest.
CHAPTER XXVII.
EARLY FARMING.
Perhaps those who live in Reno county fifty years hence will look upon farming as it is done today with the same view that the farmers of today look at the methods of the pioneers of Reno county, the men who broke the sod and drove the wildness out of the soil. From the standpoint of farm- ing as it is done today, the pioneer was exceedingly crude in his methods and small in his attainments. Perhaps the reason for the smallness of the acreage was the lack of a market, although in 1878 and for a few years thereafter there was a hay and corn market in Reno county that was very heavy. The volume of the hay business exceeded that of the present day. It was in the mining days of Colorado, that created such an immense hay business. C. B. Myton was the manager of the company that shipped much hay from Hutchinson. It was prairie hay and the general price paid was three dollars a ton. Myton baled the hay and shipped it to Colorado min- ing towns. His hay stacks were built on Second avenue west, about where the gas plant is now located. Much of the grass that was hauled to market was blue stem from the bottoms and a fuzzy topped grass that grew in the uplands. As was shown in another chapter, as soon as the buffalo quit graz- ing on the grass, the buffalo grass disappeared and the tall blue stem and other varieties of grass followed it.
The farmer of today wonders at the wastefulness of getting a ton of grass to the acre, when his alfalfa fields now yield him four to five cuttings that will average more for each cutting than he got for his entire hay crop for a season. The price of the alfalfa is three to four times as much as he received for his prairie hay when Myton was shipping it west.
The year 1872 developed twenty-four farmers in Reno county who put out corn, the total number of acres planted that year being two hundred fifty and one-half. The Ijams family were the big corn raisers that year. the family altogether having in fifty-five acres of corn. The family are still among the enterprising farmers of Reno county and still raise corn: That crop the entire family put out in 1872 would hardly be a start now for some of the younger members of the family. Isaac Ijams was easily
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the king of corn raisers in 1872, for he alone had thirty-five acres of corn in cultivation. The crop that year averaged from twelve to fifteen bushels per acre. This, of course, was all sod corn and had no cultivation. About all that was done to raise the crop was the plowing of the ground and the planting by hand of the corn, and then, in the fall, the harvesting. Corn sold in the fall of 1872 and spring of 1873 from a dollar to a dollar and a quarter a bushel, the latter price being generally paid for seed corn.
One of the chief encouragements to farming was the passage of the Herd law. Prior to the enactment of this statute there was no protection from stock and none of the farmers had money enough to fence their land. But farming developed rapidly as soon as the law became effective. There was also one other thing that hindered the development of farming, except close to Hutchinson, and that was the driving of immense herds of Texas cattle northward to Abilene and, later, to Ellinwood. Until the passage of the law governing the driving of herds, which allowed Texas cattle to be driven across the state, but fixed as the eastern boundary a line that was the western boundary line of Reno county, no one risked planting much in their fields. Some gardens were planted and some families that lived in the Ninnescah bottoms. near where Arlington now stands, did a thriving busi- ness in selling green vegetables. Lettuce, onions and everything they could grow were readily sold to the cattle men who were driving their herds north- ward. Anything in the fresh vegetable line found a ready sale with the cattlemen. While the law fixing the boundary line for driving cattle north was passed in 1872, it was not rigidly enforced, as there were but few settlers outside the bottom lands. Realizing the fact that while the statutes prohibited the driving of cattle across Reno county, on their way from the Texas ranges to shipping points on the Santa Fe, the county commissioners modified the order to a certain extent in allowing cattle men to make a short cut across the southwest portion of the county, as there were but few farmers in that section of the county. So they authorized a route to be laid out along which cattle could be driven. This, however, was not used long. As soon as the Santa Fe railroad was built to Dodge City, another and more southwesterly route was used by the cattlemen and the driving of Texas cattle through Reno county ceased entirely.
The growing of wheat in 1873 started the agitation for a grist-mill from water power obtained from Cow creek. Obtaining flour was a hard task then. The nearest grist-mill in 1872 was operated by a man by the name of Dick, at Cedar Point, on the Cottonwood river. nearly a hundred
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miles east of Hutchinson. It took a week to make the trip with a load of wheat, returning with a load of four. The first wheat in Reno county was raised by J. W. Kanaga on his farm southeast of town. Charles Phillips took the first load of wheat from Reno county to the mill at Cedar Point. A short time later a steam mill was started at Conesburg, now Peabody, and this materially shortened the distance to mill. The Kanagas had an old fashioned "dropper", which they had brought with them to Reno county. In the summer Kanaga sold ice and he took his pay for cutting his neighbors' wheat in the labor of those neighbors in putting up ice in the winter. It is recorded that the ice of the winter of 1873-1874 was "very good", as good perhaps as the wheat crop harvested the summer before.
The long distance to mill was a great incentive to the establishment of a mill in Hutchinson. In the summer of 1874 C. B. Myton built a grist- mill alongside the Santa Fe tracks about where the passenger depot now stands. He ground wheat and corn, but the flour was of an inferior quality. At this time the nearest mill to Hutchinson was at Wichita. Myton had all of the trade of the territory adjoining Hutchinson. His charges were excessive. At that time wheat was very low in price and it was very much to the advantage of the farmer to exchange part of his wheat rather than sell the wheat and buy flour. Myton's charges were fixed on the basis of "all the traffic would stand." Farmers complained of the excessive tolls taken by him for grinding. Some of the men took their wheat to Wichita rather than pay the excessive tolls Myton exacted. So strong was the pro- test against these high charges, that in 1875 a mill was projected, to be run with water power. A mill that would be of any capacity worth considering would require one hundred horse-power to operate. To obtain this power it was found necessary to have more water than Cow creek naturally fur- nished and it was found necessary to raise the water eight feet above the surface of the ground at Avenue C and Main street, where the mill was to be located. It was further found necessary to get as much water from the Arkansas river as Cow creek afforded. It was found after the mill was con- structed that whenever the river failed to supply this extra amount of water. it was necessary to shut down the mill. To get this extra water a ditch was dug from the river to Cow creek four miles northwest of town. It was found that the water in the river was seventeen feet higher at a point directly west of Cow creek than the water in the creek. By bringing the water from the river to the creek, enough power was obtained to run the mill. The two years following the completion of the mill were wet ones
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and it was found then that had the banks of the head race been raised another foot, there would have been enough water in the creek to run the mill. It was found in the winter time, when the water was most needed to supple- ment that of Cow creek, that the water would be low, the river sometimes going almost dry. It was found also that in the winter ice would form on the river much sooner than on Cow creek: that Cow creek, being fed by springs, never ceased flowing until zero weather was reached, and then the ice would soon disappear after a few warm days. This mill was started in the fall of 1876 and for a few months did a very successful business, grind- ing grists for farmers who had driven long distances to get a chance to exchange their wheat for flour. It was no uncommon thing for the mill to receive as much as one thousand bushels of wheat a day to grind.
The mill greatly helped the merchant. It brought men to town for Hour who became customers of the stores of the city, and when the water failure, a few years afterward, caused the mill to shut down it was a hard blow to the merchants, who had profited greatly by this new business. It was likewise a hard blow for the farmers, who had had fair treatment from the mill company.
Another thing which made farming uncertain in the early days was the frequent prairie fires. There was little plowed ground, most of the country remaining grass land, and a fire, fanned by a high wind, was something to be greatly dreaded. One of these swept over the state in the fall of 1872. It started in northern Kansas and was not stopped even by the rivers, as the high wind carried burning tumble weeds over the water and started fires on the opposite bank of the stream. These great fires were of yearly occurrence. They were not all as extensive as the one referred to, but they would often sweep over a space as large as a county before a changed wind, a rain or some natural obstacle like a stream would intervene. One of these big fires is spoken of in the county records. An election was called in Valley town- ship for November 12, 1872, but the election was not held, for a memor- andum on the commissioners' records states that, "owing to a very destruc- tive prairie fire sweeping over Valley township, no election was held."
Another such fire occurred in Grant township in the fall of 1876. A funeral procession had started to the cemetery then located at the corner of Seventeenth and Monroe street, when a man in one of the wagons of the. procession dropped a lighted match in the grass. In a moment the prairie was burning. Difficulty was experienced in getting the procession out of danger of fire. Teams were hurried up, a place of safety from the fire was
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reached, then the women in the party held the teams, while all of the men helped to put out the fire. After fighting the flames till almost sunset, the men, almost exhausted, resumed their places in the wagons and the procession moved on to the cemetery, where the burial was performed after dark.
No one who has seen a prairie fire at night will ever forget the sight nor the impression it made on him, especially if he has seen the fire in the sand hills, when the wind had died down and in the darkness of the even- ing, the flames would hover over the hills in long lines of bright creeping fire. Fires that were ten to fifteen miles long were no uncommon sight. There would be no smoke visible in these night fires; only the creeping flames could be seen. Up one side the light could be seen, then down the side of another hill, half hidden, would appear a glow on the otherwise invisible smoke, flaring up as the flames reached some high blue stem in some low bottom spot between the hills; then creeping, creeping along, an endless array of light, dying, but to brighten again; fading, but to be reflected on some dark, hidden veil of smoke. It was a fascinating sight. All night this slow fire would gnaw its way over the hills. On the following day only the smoke could be seen. On a still day in the short grass it would burn, appearing again on the second night, perhaps dimmer because its flames had devoured all the grass between-burning until some stream was reached. or till the hills hid the light of the slow burning fire beyond.
The plains are devoid of timber because of these prairie fires. When the settlers reached Reno county there was some timber on the higher knolls of the hills, trees that had gotten a start where the wind whipped the sand around until the grass was covered. Getting a start in these places, the trees soon grew until the fires could not burn the bark, as the ground would be shaded and no grass would grow, to add to the fuel of the flames. In addi- tion to these scrubby trees. there were three trees on Cow creek in Grant township, on what was known then as the Peter Shafer place, but in the valley there were no trees, because of the prairie fires.
The diversity in farming was not one of the virtues of the pioneer farmer. Garden vegetables were very little cultivated, as it was thought impossible to raise much but corn and wheat. The Santa Fe railroad put out a large variety of trees in an early day, on a tract of ground west of Cow creek, doing so in order to convince the early settlers that trees would grow on the prairies. Many varieties of trees were started and the success of the enterprise encouraged the growth of other timber. Especially was the planting of cottonwood and mulberry hedges general. There were but few.
1
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however, who put out orchards. In the Arkansas valley there were some farmers who believed that fruit would grow in the valley. Among the most enterprising of those who had faith in the soil and planted out apple and other kinds of fruit trees was W. R. Pennington, in North Reno town- ship in the Cow creek bottoms. He was one of the pioneers in planting apples and his rich harvest has brought the reward for his work.
None but a pioneer can appreciate eating of the "first fruit" of an orchard. "The planting of the apple tree" means something to them that their children cannot appreciate. The years of waiting and watching, in years of drought. the watering, the pleasure at secing the bloom come on the tree in the spring, the watching of the apple as it grows till the ripened fruit is gathered. The editor of this history remembers well, although many years have passed since it happened, the first apple of the orchard planted and watered and watched. His father bought the "first fruit" and it was cut into five pieces, one for each member of the family. Since then, many crops of luscious fruit have been gathered from that orchard, but no apple gathered since has had the flavor of that first apple that was gathered from that orchard. It was an experience that comes only to the pioneer, an experience that made a deeper impression on the mind than anything like it in later days.
Another who made a success in horticultural lines was George Cole. ITe was an Englishman and his place, while he lived on it and cared for it, was one of the show places of the county. Evergreens were planted in abundance and his lawn was one of the beautiful places of the county. Mr. Cole was among the earliest to grow grapes. His vineyard yielded liberally and he had the market to himself for several years, laying the foundation of a competence that he enjoyed in his later life.
Among the things most neglected by the earliest pioneers was one that it would seem were the easiest to obtain, and that was butter and milk. One of the carliest of the pioneers of the county remarked that there was but one milk cow in Hutchinson when her father reached Hutchinson. This cow furnished the milk for the town. She was an aristocrat among the thousands of cattle on the plains, but even she failed to maintain her station, as she was "dry" six months in the year.
Cours, however, later came to be common. The "town herd" became an institution. For a dollar a month, the proprietor of the "town herd" would come and get the cow, drive her to pasture and return her at night. This gave employment to one man and to several of his boys. The pasture
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was generally rented for a small sum and for the summer and fall months for seventy-five to one hundred and fifty cows were herded together and returned to their owners at night. This system was kept up for many years. until the ground close enough for a range was plowed up, when the "town herd" disappeared and the milk wagon started on its rounds. It was soon found more economical to buy the milk than to keep a cow the year around and the growing city abolished the keeping of cows in town, as impractical.
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