USA > Kansas > Reno County > History of Reno County, Kansas; its people, industries and institutions, Vol I > Part 27
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The next building was a hotel known as the Arlington House, erected by P. Howell. The first postoffice was established on February 7, 1878, when H. H. Purdy was appointed the first postmaster. The first store estab- lished in this town was that of M. C. Rogers. The first school in Arling- ton was established in 1878. It was taught by Miss Juliet Courtright in a small building, privately owned. In the fall of 1879 a frame building was erected for school purposes and later on a brick building was erected.
CASTLETON.
Castleton is located twelve miles south of Hutchinson. It was laid out in 1872 by W. E. and C. C. Hutchinson. When it was first started Castle- ton was the first stop out on the Hutchinson, Kingman & Medicine Lodge state route. Today it is an important stopping point on the Hutchinson & Southern Railroad. The first building in the town, erected by William Wallace, was begun in July, 1872. It was used by William Wallace for years as a general store and residence. It received its name from Castleton, Vermont, where C. C. Hutchinson's wife was born. Today it is a point for the shipment of grain and cattle. It has good country around it, but being so close to Hutchinson, its growth is necessarily limited to local demands.
HAVEN.
The town of Haven was laid out early in the year 1886. F. W. Ash, C. W. Peckham, Levi Charles and William Astle made an agreement with the Eagle Townsite Company, of Wichita, whereby two hundred acres of land was purchased on which to build the town by the resident member of this town company. Part of the contract was that the Wichita rail- road, now the Missouri Pacific railroad, should be built to Haven, and in consideration of this the Eagle Town Company received fifty-one per cent. of the land purchased for the town. The town was named Haven after a postoffice located two miles east of the present town of that name. A.s soon as the new town was started the postoffice was moved to the present town of Haven. The old postoffice called Haven was one of the oldest in the county.
The first lots in Haven were sold on April 12, 1886, and within sixty days Haven had sixty residences under construction and a bank organized. A creamery and lumber yard soon were added to the activities of the town.
The first railroad train ran into Haven on July 4, 1886. The build-
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ing of this road was a great convenience to the farmers, whose nearest market for their grain was Hutchinson, many of them having to haul their grain fifteen to twenty-five miles. Haven voted bonds to the amount of $25,000 to the railroad and took stock to an equal amount of the bonds. This road took up this stock on a reorganization plan and paid Haven township sixty per cent. of the face of the stock of $15.000, under an arrangement similar to the one spoken of in the chapter on Hutchinson, a city of the second class.
Haven was incorporated in 1891 and C. W. Astle was its first mayor. Haven is surrounded by some of the best land to be found anywhere in the West. It is a great wheat-producing territory and a grain market has grown up in that country that handles nearly a half million bushels of wheat a year and half that amount of corn. In addition to the grain market, Haven has a fine live-stock market. Haven is a clean home town, prosperous and healthy. It has a fine system of schools, which the citizens foster and sup- port with a good deal of care. It has a good live newspaper and is one of the most prosperous towns in Reno county.
PARTRIDGE.
Partridge is located close to the geographical center of the county. It was called, in the early days, Reno Center. There was a stage route through Reno Center in 1873. following the old trail to Medicine Lodge, one of the oldest trails in Reno county. Partridge now has both the Kinsley branch of the Santa Fe, and the Rock Island railroad. These roads from Hutch- inson diverge at Partridge, the Santa Fe joining the main line of that road at Kinsley and the Rock Island going on southwest to the Pacific coast.
The name of the town was changed from Reno Center to Partridge in March, 1886, when the latter town was incorporated. Partridge has.a good country surrounding it, has elevators and facilities for handling grain and live stock and is one of the best of the smaller towns in Reno county.
ABBYVILLE.
Abbyville is located on the Kinsley branch of the Santa Fe, west of Partridge. It was incorporated as a city of the third class on April 6, 1888. Like Partridge, it has a good country surrounding it and is the center of a prosperous community.
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PLEVNA.
Directly west of Abbyville, on the Kinsley branch of the Santa Fe, is Plevna. It was established as a city of the third class on November 28, 1891. It has the usual facilities of a small town-a good school, churches, a bank. an elevator and an enterprising people.
LANGDON.
Langdon was incorporated on April 20, 1887. It is located west of Arlington on the Rock Island and has a bank, churches, schools, and a lun- ber yard and meets the needs of the surrounding country.
MEDORA.
Medora's townsite plat was filed for record with the register of deeds on April 20, 1887. The town is located at the crossing of the Rock Island and 'Frisco railroads eight miles northeast of Hutchinson. It is a shipping point for grain and live stock.
BUHLER.
Buhler is located in the northeastern part of the county in the German settlement. The plat of the townsite was filed in May, 1914. The town is the center of the activities of the German population of the northeastern part of the county. It has a fine mill, good schools and churches and a very prosperous bank.
ELMER.
Elmer is the first station out of Hutchinson on the Hutchinson & South- ern branch of the Santa Fe railroad. It was established when the Hutchin- son & Southern railroad was built south from Hutchinson. The plat of the town was filed for registry on September 25. 1886. The town is a shipping point for cattle and grain and serves a good agricultural country.
TURON.
Turon is the last town in the county, southwest of Hutchinson, on the Rock Island railroad. It was intended to name the town after a city in
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Italy, "Turin", but the postoffice department objected to that name as there was another place named "Turin", so they suggested the change in the name to its present form-Turon. The town was established in 1886. Its plat was filed for registry on August ii of that year. It is a prosperous village, has a system of waterworks and electric lights, two banks, a big mill and a grain elevator. The town also has a branch line of the Santa Fe, from Wichita. It is the center of a wealthy country and the town reflects the prosperity of the surrounding country.
CHAPTER XLII.
FORTY-FIVE YEARS IN RENO.
Reno county is forty-five years old. The progress of the county in that time outruns the wildest dream of her early settlers. They had no such idea of the development of the county. Lands they thought would not be settled for generations have yielded their crops to their children and to their children's children. In 1872 there was a total of 512 acres of corn in Reno county. It was all "sod corn," and no wheat was sown until the fall of 1873. In 1917 there were 149,721 acres of corn planted in Reno county. The wheat acreage of 1917 was 255,626 acres, against none in 1872. The other crops of which there were none grown in the first year of the county's existence were : Oats, 2,694 acres ; rye, 8,041 acres : barley, 613 acres. There was raised in 1917, 6.774 acres of sorgum, most of it for feed for stock. In addition to these there was 703 acres of millet raised in this year of Reno's existence. In addition to these there was planted 13.204 acres of Kaffir corn, for seed and for feed, in 1917: also 1,020 acres of milo: 452 acres of fetereta and 880 acres of Soudan grass. In 1917 Reno county had 391 silos, "feed canneries," where the corn and fetereta and sorghum are cut up and "canned" for winter feed for stock. The county had likewise 139 "tractors," with which to plow the ground, contrasting remarkably with the method of 1872, when a large per cent. of the sod of Reno county was broken by oxen.
In the early days, regardless of the thousands of cattle driven through Reno county every year, milk cows were scarce. One cow was all that a dozen families in Hutchinson had. In 1917. there was made and sold in Reno county 3.911, 160 pounds of butter. This in addition to the immense amount of butter consumed on the farm. There was $236,997 worth of milk sold in addition to the butter made and the milk used by farmers.
One of Hutchinson's most prominent ladies tells, in 1917, of the scarcity of eggs in the early days. They were reserved for the sick, and this lady says in her childhood she was often tempted "to be sick," so as. to have the luxury of an egg for breakfast. In 1917 the poultry and eggs sold by the farmers and others amounted to $247.170, and the value of animals slaugh- tered by the farmers of Reno county amount of $951.483. Despite the
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heavy sales of horses for war purposes made in 1915 and 1916, there were 17,517 horses in Reno county on March 1, 1917. Reno county farmers have sold off a large number of lighter horses, keeping the draft horses for farm work. The almost universal use of automobiles by farmers has enabled the farmer to run his farm with less horse flesh. In addition there were 6,080 muiles in the county, despite the fact that hundreds of mules likewise have been sold for war purposes during the past few years.
There were 11,402 milk cows in the county during this year and 37.522 other kinds of cattle in the county. There were 25, 179 hogs in Reno county in 1917, although the corn crop of the preceding year was light. From the small patch of ground sown by W. G. Chapin in 1875 in alfalfa there has been sown and is now growing 20,266 acres of this most prolific forage plant ever grown.
In 1872 there were fewer than 1,000 acres of land plowed in Reno county. Forty-five years later there were 490,566 acres under cultivation and a total of 513,696 acres in farms in the county.
This brief contrast of the conditions of this county in the forty-five years of its existence is only a small indication of the progress that has been made in the last forty-five years. It gives a partial idea of the changes of the time .. In appearance the county has undergone a wider change than these figures would indicate, for along with the cultivated fields and the increased live stock have come fine barns and comfortable homes. The Reno county farmer takes a great pride in his material progress, but that takes a subordinate place to the comforts and conveniences of his home. While he has been cultivating his fields he has not neglected to provide schools for his children as the statistics on Reno county schools show. He has built the best school houses and equipped them with the very best books. charts and other school-room appurtenances that he could buy.
Nor has the Reno county farmer disregarded his religions life. Churches are to be found in every community. Sunday schools are maintained and Sunday is not given over to frivolity, but to the more serious affairs of his life.
The growth of the village into cities has been as remarkable as the development of this country. Hutchinson, from a few straggling one-story houses in 1872, has grown to a city of over twenty-five thousand population and the other villages of this county have grown to cities of the third and second classes. The industries that do business in Hutchinson are an example of the growth of this interest in the county. The salt plants have developed to an industry doing business in dozens of states. The soda-ash plant ships
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its products all over the United States. The strawboard works have cus- tomers in Eastern as well as Western states. Flour made in Hutchinson is sold in states bordering on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and thousands of barrels of the product have found their way to foreign countries. The big elevators and flour-mills testify to the market opened up in Hutchinson for wheat and other farm products, not only of Reno county, but of adjoin- ing wheat-growing counties. The produce houses speak of the markets opened up for Reno county produce. The modern school building reminds the people that the welfare of the boys and girls is not neglected. The great church buildings in Hutchinson, the Y. W. C. A. building and the Y. M. C. A. building tell of the efforts made to improve the conditions of the people.
It is less than fifty years from ox-team to automobile, from forded stream to concrete bridges. Less than fifty years from buffalo grass to alfalfa : from unplowed fields that had been pounded by hoofs for a thou- sand years, to the mellowed soil of varied crops. Less than fifty years from Bison to Shorthorn, from the wandering tribes to the contented families. The plodding pace of "Buck and Berry" and the gliding 1917. model affords no greater contrast than that which obtains in all lines in Reno county.
It is less than fifty years from inebriety to sobriety, from Kansas drunk to Kansas sober. It is less than fifty years from the wagon trail to the iron rail. So unpromising was Reno county less than fifty years ago that the federal government surveyors ran only the township lines. But with sedulous care the county surveyors now record the exact location of every corner and every variation. Less than fifty years in Reno county from "buffalo chips" to natural gas.
Reno county is only forty-five years old, yet she has more money on deposit in her banks per capita than many an older county of a century's growth. Forty-five years ago, only the occasional letter; today the rural carrier visits every farmhouse in the county. The isolation of the farm has been remedied. the telephone, the rural carrier, the automobile, and the improved roads have made neighbors of people living miles apart, closer than they formerly were when a block away.
Reno county, the commonwealth, has had her infancy and manhood in less than the life time of a generation. "Better five and forty years of Reno than a cycle of Cathay."
CHAPTER XLIEL.
THE BEGINNING OF HUTCHINSON.
In June, 1872, C. C. Hutchinson, the founder of the city of Hutchin- son, made a contract with the directors of the Santa Fe railroad, at their annual meeting in Topeka, to build a town at a point where the railroad would cross the Little Arkansas river. The company was to share equally in the proceeds of the sale of lots on the townsite. At that time it was supposed that the proposed town would be located near where Sedgwick City is now situated. It had been the intention of the directors of the road to build south, with an ultimate terminus of San Antonio, Texas.
It was soon determined, however, not to build southward, but to follow up the AArkansas river and build into Colorado. The reason for this change of plans was the discovery by the directors of the railroad of a clause in an Indian treaty made in 1865, but which was not acted on by the United States Senate until 1867, so as to make it effective-that the road not only would not be able to secure a land grant through the Osage trust lands, as this strip of territory was called, which was covered by the treaty, but that they would have to buy their right of way at the price at which it was to be sold to the public, one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre.
The Santa Fe directors were astonished when they found this clause. They had no money. They were building and equipping the road by mort- gaging the land. So this provision, put into this treaty as a joker-it being suggested after the treaty was practically made-which provided that rail- roads might be built through the Osage trust lands, but that the railroads should pay for the right of way at the price fixed for the settlers-this joker has probably had more effect than any other joker put in a public document. for it changed the building of a great road, which, had it not been built then. would have left southwest Kansas without a railroad for many years. It caused the settlers to file on lands in western Kansas instead of going down into southern Kansas and Oklahoma for their farms. It changed the loca- tion of Hutchinson, which would have been established at the point where Sedgwick now stands. Had this provision not been added to the treaty, there never would have been a Great Bend nor a Dodge City. It would have stop- ped the organization of the Comanche pool, the greatest cattle combination
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ever made, as it would have rushed the settlers along the newly built railroad into Oklahoma and made the big cattle pool an impossibility in that section. Perhaps it might have transferred its activities to western Kansas alone, but the pool had its base of operation in the "Cherokee Strip," which the cattle men were able to keep from settlement for years, in order to have the range for their stock, unmolested by the farmer. Instead of the whole of southwest Kansas being tributary to Hutchinson, the city that Hutchin- son would have founded would doubtless be as it is now. a small village of no great importance commercially.
As soon as it was determined to build westward instead of toward the sonth, Hutchinson came on west to find a location for his town. He had determined that his town should be built on a water course for the purpose of drainage. He drove overland with S. T. Kelsey and A. F. Horner, now living in Topeka. They camped the first night on the northwest corner of section 19, directly southwest of where the town was afterwards located. In the morning the party drove over to the point where the railroad would cross Cow creek and finally selected section 13. the present site, for the loca- tion of the town. He changed his agreement with the Santa Fe officials, paying them fifteen dollars an acre for the section, in lieu of the equal divi- sion of the sale of the town lots. However, it was with many misgiving's that section 13 was selected for the townsite, for, considered from many standpoints, the location was undesirable. The town was located too close to the edge of the county, only six miles to the east line and two miles from the Rice county line. As is referred to in another chapter, the matter of location was helped later by changing the boundary lines. Another thing that was causing some uneasiness, was that the railroad ran very near the north line of the section and a greater part of the townsite lay on the south side of Cow creek, while on the north of section 13, D. B. Miller. his son-in-law, one of his sons and his father-in-law. Amasa Smith, all three. had located on section 12, which was directly north of the proposed town- site and it was possible for them to obtain title to their government land in a short time, lay out their land in town lots and greatly interfere with the sale of Hutchinson's town lots as well as his plans for building up a town. Hutchinson made an effort at the start to have the Santa Fe railroad officials make the city a division point and he made a proposition to give the railroad company a one-twelfth interest. in addition to paying the com- pany the fifteen dollars an acre for the land, if they would make Hutchin- son the division point.
In this first trip. Hutchinson endeavored to interest Mr. Horner in the
REAL ESTATE OFFICE
HOAy
ALAND
OFFICE
HUTCHINSON Nov. 25 1871.
المصرية
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proposed town. He was then one of the largest merchants in Newton, had opened up some stone quarries at Florence and was a business man of great ability. Horner had a peculiar reputation as a town buikler. When Brook- ville was established on the Kansas Pacific, that town offered a town lot to the man who would erect the first building. Horner built a building there and got a town lot. The building was of black walnut hinber, about twenty feet wide, ten feet high and sixty feet long. It was of a fine quality of wal- nut and would be worth today many times what a building cost then. When the Santa Fe road was built west from Emporia and reached Florence, the same offer of a town lot to the man who would erect the first building was made. Horner was on hands with his black walnut house and secured the town lot in Florence. When the road reached Newton and a lot was offered there for the first house, Horner's black walnut house again won the prize. On the way over from Newton it was settled again that the black walnut house should make one more pilgrimage and obtain a town lot for its owner, and the little black walnut house was moved to Hutchinson and located on what the surveyor afterwards showed was lot 7, north Main street.
Following the putting together of Horner's town-lot-getter came other stores, the material for which was hauled from Newton, then the terminus of the railroad, and later from Halstead, when the road was built westward to that place. On November 15, 1871, Mr. Lehman, of Newton, then a part- ner of E. Wilcox, who lived in Topeka, came to Hutchinson and bought lots I and 3. south Main street, paying one hundred and fifty dollars for the corner lot and one hundred dollars for the adjoining one. Just what put that value into the lots cannot be known. C. C. Hutchinson, speaking of this first sale of town lots, said that "it took quite an effort to make him see those values in the lots," especially when Hutchinson had bought the entire quarter section for fifteen dollars an acre. On November 17, 1871. J. M. Jordan and C. C. Bemis came to Hutchinson and bought lot 13. north Main street, and later put up a building for their dry goods and grocery store. At that time Hutchinson's land office was not equipped with tables or writing desks and in making the contract for the sale to Bemis & Jordan, Hutchinson got down on the floor of his office, which was only partially laid, and wrote the contract on the finished part of the floor. On November 25, 1871, Jacob Rupert, of Newton, bought lot II, north Main street and the consideration for this lot was that Rupert should put up a building and Hutchinson should have it for an office for a term of years. Later, in this building Hutchinson established the first bank in Reno county.
(21)
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It was located on lot 1, north Main street. That humble building gave but little promise of the handsome six-story building that now occupies this lot. the building of the First National Bank. Later, this building was moved across the street, then was moved once more to another location and was rented by Dickey Brothers for a drug store. On December 7, 1871, lot 15. north Main street, was sold to Fred Ryde and he immediately put up a build- ing and occupied it.
When the "lot-getting" black walnut box home was put up, it had the office of C. C. Hutchinson in the northwest corner. The southeastern corner of the same building was the postoffice, and a shoe box brought over from Newton was partitioned off and that constituted the fixtures of Hutchinson's first postoffice. A wagon canvas was hung across the middle of the roon and the west end of the room became the first hotel established in that city. It had four boarders, C. C. Hutchinson, W. E. Hutchinson, John A. Clapp and George Tucker. The latter two were called the "Boston Boys," after the place of their birth. Clapp was made the first postmaster and Tucker obtained another position of equal importance in the new city-he was the cook in the first hotel in Hutchinson, and after Tucker cooked the meal. washed the dishes and did other duties as general manager of the hotel, he became assistant postmaster. Clapp's commission as postmaster was dated December 6, 1871. The mail was brought by stage from Newton twice a week, except at times when it was impossible to ford Little river, and then it was delayed until a crossing could be effected. At first the hauling of the mail was done by the people of Hutchinson, but on December 27, 1871, the first government stage, hauling the mail, reached Hutchinson. It con- tinued hauling passengers and mail for two months, until the stage com- pany refused to haul it any longer without a bonus. In order to keep this line of communication open. C. C. Hutchinson offered the stage company a Main street lot and some residence lots, if they would continue to run the stage until the railroad could be built to the city. They accepted, and the stage with the mail continued to reach Hutchinson every other day, except at such times as it was found impossible to ford Little river. The first exclusive hotel was a frame building put up by Charles Collins on the corner of first avenue and Main street. The hotel was run by Gus Williams and wife, Mrs. Williams being the first woman to live in Hutchinson. They soon were well patronized and C. C. Hutchinson took down his wagon cover, discontinued the rear end attachment to his real estate office and the postoffice and all of the boarders moved over to the new hotel and became regular customers.
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