USA > Kansas > Smith County > History of Smith County, Kansas to 1960 > Part 6
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few glasses of jelly could be made if the family were fortunate enough to buy some sugar. They were carefully covered and put away to be used only in case of sicknees or for very important company. Jams and butters were made with sorghum. Another luxury wae coffee. It was purchased green, browned in & bread pan in a elow oven but etirred every few minutes. When the grain cracked brittle between the teeth, a lump of butter was put in the pan and blended thoroughly to give it a glaze and richer flavor. It was someone'e duty to grind it in the mill before each meal. Pumpkin wae cut in rings and dried to be used for pie. Large etone jars were filled with pumpkin butter made with sorghum if there was a eurplus. The homesteadere did not 2 lack vitamins either after they were established. Sauerkraut juice was in every cellar in the barrel of etored kraut. Carrots and beets, covered with damp sand, kept nicely as did heads of cabbage and eacke of onions, and the potato bin was full. White flour wae precioue and hoarded; griddle cakes were made of ehorte and eaten with sorghum; gravy was a common item on the дели. Thus the soil provided the vegetables and the prairie the game for meat for the settler who had to be self-sufficient to exdet.31
From manuscripte written by early settlers,32 from personal interviews with and lettere received from children of these settlers, the conclusion can be drawn that the majority solved the problem of a home by first building dug- oute. Many of these have been described ae windowlese, eo small that the table wae set outdoore between moale, and yet housed families of eix, eight, or even
31 From Mre. Margaret Nelson's book, op. cit .; conversatione with Kre. Hattie Baker, the author'e grandparente, and other early Smith County eettlera or their descendante.
32 Mre. Core Ream, op. cit .; Virginia Harlan Barr, op. cit .; A. L. Headley, op. cit .; Frank Barnes, op. cit.
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fifteen until a better abode could be built. There are many records of schools, churches, even funerals and weddings, being held in these dugouts. These were followed in popularity by the sod house which usually seemed like a palace in comparison. The walls were built of plowed sod, the roof usually poles covered with sod. Needless to say, they were not too water tight when it rained. John Lenau, a settler southeast of Cedarville, began constructing a light-weight plow in his blacksmith shop that would break the sod better than the heavy plows brought from the East. They became popularly termed "grasshopper plows." He could make about one hundred a winter.
Some fortunate individuals were able to build frame or log houses. Frame houses were few because the only lumber available was the native sawed lumber, usually cottonwood, that warped in the hot eun. Lumber freighted in by ox team came from various railroad points such as Waterville, Hastings, Nebraska, or even Marysville. Of course these points became closer as the railroad moved across the state. Few log houses except along the streams were built due to the scarcity of trees. The existing trees were not large enough or lacked uniform eize to make their use practical.
The southern part of Smith County was fortunate in having plenty of native limestone rock available, large enough to quarry and soft enough to cut with the hand tools available. Many of the business buildings, homes, school, and churches of Harlan were constructed from stone. Thus the pioneer settlers made use of materials at hand on the prairies much as the Pilgrims did on the coast. In his poem, "The Homes of Kansas," Miller pictures the types of homes constructed as settlement advanced.
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The Homes of Kansas33
The cabin homes of Kansas ! How modestly they stood Along the sunny hilleidee Or nestled in the wood. They sheltered men and women Brave-hearted pionesre; Each one became a landmark Of Freedom's trial years.
The sod-house of Kansas! Though built of Mother Earth, Within their walle so humble Are eoule of sterling worth. Though poverty and struggle May be the builder'e lot, The eod house ie a castle Where failure entere not.
The dug-out homes of Kansas! The lowliest of all, They hold the homestead title Ae firm as marble hall. Those dwellers in the caverns Beneath the storms and enows, Shall make the desert places To blossom as the roee.
The splendid homas of Kansas! How proudly now they stand, Amid the fielde and orchards, All o'er the smiling land. They rose up where the cabins Once marked the virgin eoil, And are the fitting emblems Of patient years of toil.
God bless the homes of Kansas! From poorest to the best; The cabin of the bordar, The sod-house of the Weet; The dugout, low and lonely, The mansion grand and great; The hands that laid their hearthatones Have built a mighty etate.
- Sol Miller Editor of Troy Chief
33 Copied from John and Susan Simmonds, compiled by Frank W. Simmonds, 1940.
CHAPTER V
BOOM OR BUST
Smith County was based economically upon agricultural production from the time the plow turned the first furrow in the prairie eod. Climatic hagards such as drouths, blizzards, and periods of excess moisture directly affected the trend of social, economic, and political conditions in the county. Also of utmost importance were price trends in the country as a whole because the main markets for the agricultural products were outside the county. Ap- parently unrelated incidents had a direct effect. For instance, railroads made marketing easier and gave an impetus to more intensive agriculture. Principally speaking, when the majority of determinants was favorable, it was "boom"; when they were unfavorable, it was "bust". Over the period of approximately ninety years, separate consideration of each factor would be impossible. Thus, some consideration will be given to the major factors, showing their effect upon the trends of economic and social conditions in the county through the decades.
Looking over the broad expanse of prairie sod, the pioneer settlers must have had something of an element of prophecy within their souls. They certainly must have had faith that the prairies would be made to yield in abundance in order to find the courage and determination to face the combined perils of the frontier and climate. Records show that their faith was justi- fied, even from the first crop literally scratched into the virgin soil.
1 All statistics in this chapter not otherwise specified were obtained from the Kansas State Board of Agricultural Reports and Federal Census Reports, 1872-1957.
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Because the buffalo graes roote were so entwined and tough, the sod could not be worked down after it was plowed, so the farmer walked along and dropped the corn eeed in the sod furrow. Eventually as the grass rotted, the ground became a field. In 1871-1872 sod corn made exceptionally good crops, and these first settlers' enthusiasm ran high. M. W. George on White Fuck Creek raised 50 bushel of corn to the acre; Jamee Bailey eoned 5 acres of wheat and raised 30 buchel per acre." In the late summer, after the graes had cured from the summer heat, a prairie fire, thought by the pioneers to be started by the Indians south of the Republican Idver, swept all of Smith County. Most Livestock and the few possessions of the eettlere were saved by fireguards either previously plowed or hastily put in at the time, but it cut down on the game for winter food and feed for the stock as prairie grazing wae depended on for the cattle, oxen and horsee.
The winter of 1872-73 had been dry and mild with a few blustery, cold days, and most of what snow there was had blown into the drawa. Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, had dawned unusually warm and sultry. About four in the after- noon the wind suddenly began to blow from the northwest, becoming in a few hours "a veritable hurricane." There me heavy rain for about two hours, then the temperature began to fall, and the rain changed to aleet, then to snow. After the storm wae over the country looked like one glistening sheet of enow and ice, the ravines were leveled, drifte were piled ten and fifteen feet deep - to the caves of buildinge. For ten days the town of Smith Center was without groceries. The country was searched for cornmeal and side meat
2 F. G. Adams, The Homestead Cuide, p. 231.
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for the hungry. 3 More than three fourthe of all the livestock in the country perished, buried deep under snow in ditches and ravinee, and some loss of life was reported.
A story of one of the more fortunate families is given in the diary of the Simmonds family:
When the storm abated, my father, Angue, and Grandfather, John, went out to see what had become of their oxen and cows. They found the stable destroyed, and livestock nowhere to be seen. Thinking of course that the cattle had drifted along with the storm, they followed Dry Creek south for about three quarters of a mile, and when they reached what had formerly been a deep ravine in the bed of the creek, they found it levelled with drifted snow. There they saw just the tips of the long horns protruding through the solidly frozen snow crust. They surmised that the cattle were dead and went to bring shovels to dig them out so that the hides might be saved. When they dug through far enough they found the oxen and cons all alive, even the calvee .... They had crowded for ehelter under a precipitous bank, where the snow had drifted over them, literally burying them. A hard crust had frozen over the top, and the cattle etamping about in the snow underneath had formed a protecting cavern. Their good fortune, however, was not shared by the other members of the family or neighbors; most of them lost practically all of their livestock -- a tragedy in that pioneer country.4
As S. D. Flora, federal meteorologist, pointed out in hie report on Kansas weather, it was not so much the severity of the storm that caused the hardship and stock loss as the unpreparedness of the settlers, due to recent arrival, of proper stock accommodations, food, or even homes. 5
As if to make up for the freak storm, there was heavy rainfall during the summer of 1873, and excellent crops were raised. Several tried spring wheat that spring, even though the seed was $2.50 a bushel. They sowed it
3 Mrs. Florence Uhl, from a marmecript prepared and read for Civic League (Club), Smith Center, Kansas, November, 1925.
4 Frank W. Simmonds, op. cit., p. 123.
5 S. D. Flora, Climate of Kansas, p. 253.
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broadcast, then carefully harrowed it in. David Nelson and Gus Barnes (in Martin Township) each planted an acre. It had to be cut idth an old-fashioned scythe and cradle, and then each sheaf caught up and tied by hand, and tha grain beaten out by hand. The yield in each case was about 30 bushels which was taken to Hastinge, Nebraska, 75 miles away to be traded for white flour.6
It was about this time or a year or two later that Frederick Wagner and William Emme on Cedar Creek were each able to prepare and plant about ten acres of wheat. The following spring they went to Hastings and brought home the first threshing machins. It wae a small box-like contraption that set on the running gears of a wagon. Two hundred bushele was a big day'e run for thie threcher but they were kept busy until late in the fall threshing for themselves and the neighbors. 7
By 1874, many of the earlier settlars had much of their land broken up and planted, and later settlers were quickly improving their farms. Crop prospects were never better. The corn was just in roseting sar atage and an abundant crop of wheat was almost ready for harvest. On July 26 there was not a cloud in the sky; it was etill and warm, About the middle of the after- noon the eky became hazy and speedily darkened until the chickens went to roost. Then with a whizzing, whirring sound the grasshoppers bagan to drop to earth in hordas. They wers on and in everything. The ground was covered in some places to depths of three and four inches. They dropped into walle in such numbare the water was unfit to drink. The fish in the creeks died in the fouled water. They seemed to like anything with perepiration on, and at- tacked hoe and pitchfork handlas, the harness on the horses, and even etraw
6 Margaret Nelson, op. cit., p. 181.
7 Ibid., pp. 196-197.
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hats were reported eaten. Dave Nelson on Beaver Creek had a new Peter Schuettler magon with shiny green paint, but it was an unpainted box when they finished. In only a few hours they had cleaned up everything green and growing except the sorghum. They swarmed into the houses and ate clothing. They ate the fruit and leaves off the trees, leaving peach pite hanging on bare limbs. They ate the pith out of the center of the cornstalks.
Mrs. Nelson reports some of the homesteaders becams hysterical and wept, others felt it was a plague and prayed, others cursed, but the grass- hoppers continued their devastation. After about forty hours they rose and left a denuded country behind. Too late to plant another crop, the settlers faced virtual starvation. Muny immediately packed up and left, some never to return, but some came back the next spring in time to plant again. The Kansas State Board of Agriculture reported of Smith County that "it is thought half of the people will need assistance. Many have left and more are going."" Others had no one to go to or worse yet, nothing to go on. It was reported that 1,500 needed food and 1,150 needed winter clothing by fall.
"Governor Osborn listed the counties most seriously affected included Norton, Osborne, Smith and Phillips. Most of the people in these counties had been poor upon arrival and they were still unprepared to face a disaster of such magnitude. 9
Governor Osborn called an emergency session of the legislature, the first special session ever called, and it passed measures authorizing the counties to issue bonda for relief, but these were later declared invalid, so they
8 Kansas State Board of Agriculture Annual Report, 1874, p. 32.
9 James C. Carey, "People, Problems, Prohibition, Politicos, and Politics, 1870-1890," John Bright, ed., Kansas: The First Century, V. 1, p. 379.
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accomplished little. An appeal was made to eastern states for aid and 124 carloads of food and clothing were received besides cash, but it is said much of this never reached the countice moet seriously affected. 10
Mra. Nelson said that Dr. Higley and R. K. Smith, at their own expense, started east and appealed for aid in each town and city. The plan worked, and food and clothing began to arrive by freight wagons directly to Smith County. 11
In the spring of 1875 the egge laid by the grasshoppers the previous year began to hatch. Discouragement among the esttlere was complete, but those with seeming abundance of faith began spring planting. Before crope were large enough to be materially injured, the 'hoppers took wing and left. The Kansas State Board of agriculture reported come unusual crops tried in Smith County that year. Farmere raised 99 bushele of castor beane, 302 pounds of cotton, 357 bushels of flaxseed, 250 pounds of hemp, 2,337 pounds of tobacco, in addition to regular field crops. There were 41, 593 acres of taxable land (this meant that it was "proved up" or title received). Ae can be seen from the accompanying map (see Fig. 9), there still was considerable land to be homesteaded, and most of the settlement followed the river or creeka except around Smith. Center.
March 1, 1876 eaw 38,031 acree ready to be seeded and the numbere of live- stock were increasing with 2,040 horsee, 4,516 cattle and 3,392 hogs reported.
10 Charles C. Howes, This Place Called Kansas, pp. 165-170; material mae also used, in addition to personal accounts, from: Frank W. Simmonds, op. cit., pp. 41; Alfred E. Gledhill, "Among Ke Sene," Unpublished manuecript at the Kansas State Historical Library. "Among We Sens" means "Among Ourselves."
11 Margaret Neleon, op. cit., pp. 201-212.
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X
5
3
Centre
Dak
Houston
1
1
Fig. 9.
Government
Lands
1875
Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture, 1875, p. 412.
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Wellman stated in his speech that spring wheat averaged 12-15 bushels per acre, corn 50-60, potatose 150-250 with single potatoes exhibited that weighed 2 and 3 pounds, cabbages averaged three feet in circumference and cabbage ex- hibits at the fair had been as large as 5 feet. Pumpkins and squash weighed at 100 pounds, watermelons, 50-60 pounds and cornstalks were 15 feet in height.12
By 1878, mich of the land was settled and towns, schools, and churches were being established. By March, 1878, there were 82,751 acres of taxable or deeded land in the county, doubls the figure of three years earlier. Another year added 210 tracts of 160 acres each or 33,600 more deeded acres making a grand total of 116,351 acres or nearly one fifth of all the land in the county.13 There were flour mills at Cedarville, Gaylord, and Fagle Rapids. Two plow factories were operating at Gaylord and Smith Center. With 97 school districts and 2,864 children in school, 41 regular school houses, and as near- ly as can be found 38 organized churches, the county was well on the way to establishment. Money was still scarce and payment in kind not unusual. Mrs. Ben Orr Williams, who was educated at the Stats Teachers' College, Oregon, Missouri, came to Smith County in 1878 in a covered wagon. She taught school and her first salary was $3.50 per month, sometimes paid in duck egge or com. 14
What was optimistically reported in local newspapers and speeches as the "best thing that happened to the county" occurred in September, 1879 when a branch of the Union Pacific railroad cams up the valley. Gaylord was the terminus until the spring of 1880. Population grew rapidly; people came for
12 Rev. W. M. Wellman, op. cit., (speech, no pags).
13 Smith County Pioneer, April 4, 1878.
14 Collection of clippings on Smith County at Kansas State Historical Library, Vol. I.
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fifty miles for supplies.
The events of the decade from 1880 to 1890 seemed similar to what is known in the twentieth century. There were good years and bad, but the people were getting established so they could weather out the bad with the hope that the future would be better. New settlers kept arriving to replace those who be- came discouraged or for other reasons no longer called Smith County home. In 1882 the county declined in population (2,000) then steadily gained to the biggest population ever known in 1900, that of 16,384.
Dust storms were reported as bad in 1880, with a "terrible" one in May, and more in September. At this time, however, they were being reported all over the west and central part of the state. They were again eevers in 1882, although no complete crop failures were reported for these years.
June 20, 1881, a tornado hit Gaylord on Monday night and carried away the new church they were building on a "good stone foundation with six bolte two feet into the walls" but nothing was salvaged except the foundation.15 Government land eligible to homestead was down to 820 acres, but there was 7,200 acres of common school land, average price $3.25 per acre. 16 Appar- ently land prices were good because the minimum on school land was est at $3.00 per acre and usually the minimum was current price.
In 1872, all listed crops including prairie pasture was 5,310 aeree, and by 1882 it had increased to 341,304 acres. From January to May, 1882, Smith County farmers shipped more than 300 hogs and 300 cattle from Red Cloud,
15 Smith County Pioneer, June 24, 1881.
16 Kansas State Board of Agriculture Report, 1883, p. 466.
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Nebraska. One sale of 113 cattle, averaging 1,548 pounds, brought $12,500. Money ecemed to be increasingly plentiful as Pratt and Kelley, who had home- eteaded about 1871, built the Gaylord Rolling Water Flour Wills at a cost of $13,000 in 1882-1883.
The year 1886 proved to be a prosperous one, although it began with a storm. What was later called the "Great Blizzard of 1886" is described by S. D. Flora thus:
At the time of the great blizzard of January 7, 1886, housing in the western counties /including Smith/ wae poorly constructed and often of a temporary nature, fences were fow and far between and there were little facilities for feeding and sheltering livestock. This sounds more like Smith County when the blizzard of 1873 hit./ January, 1886 was one of the coldeet months, if not the coldest, on record in the state, with heavy snowfall that seems to have covered the ground almost continually. This in itself would have caused much suffering and loss of livestock under conditions then exist- ing .... A cold wave with heavy snow that caused drifts ten feet deep began on New Year's Eve and continued through January 1, which made it almost impossible to replenish the scanty supplies available. Lack of proper nourishment wae already weakening livestock when the blizzard struck on January 6. In describing this storm, a section of the "Annals of Kansas,' by the State Historical Society hae this to say: ... "rain turned to snow accompanied by high winde and below-zero temperatures. Scores of eettlars liv- ing in impermanent housse and cowboys and travelers, be- wildered when landmarks were obliterated, wers frozen to death. It was estimated that 80% of the cattle in the path of the storm perished and those which survived were 'walking skeletons'." Another report by the Kansas State Historical Society, Vol. XII, 1911-1912 read as follows:
"Record for January, 1886 show 50-100 persons frozen to death and cattle by tens of thousands destroyed in the two weeks of zero weather." As there wers few, if any, fences cattle drifted with the wind until they reached an obstruction or some kind of shelter in draws. There they piled up and were frozen .... Records ehow but three passenger trains entered Denver from the east during the entire month of Janu- ary, 1886.17
17 S. D. Flora, op. cit., p. 253-254.
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P. H. Hammond, livestock dealer in 1886, was paying $5 per hundred- weight for hogs, wheat 47$ per bushel, rye 28f, oats 15$, and corn 18 ;. T. H. Iden shipped a carload of the "finest hogs ever sent from this station 18 Gaylord/ to Kansas City. Tho load averaged 350 pounds and netted $4.90 per hundred - seemingly a good prics.
The year of 1887 dawned with railroad excitement! Ths Rock Island Railroad split the county from sast to west through Smith Center; new towns were established, Kensington and Lebanon became railroad points and Gaylord, Harlan, and Cedar took a slump. The price of farm lands rose sharply; quar- ter sections sold at an unheard of $20.00 per aore. Wheat was 40-60 ;; corn 10-20 per bushel; eggs 6-12; a dozen; steak in the butchershops 10; a pound or three pounds for 25¢; pork 24 less; potatoes 50¢ a bushel.">
The Old Settlers' Souvenir Booklet in 1912 in reporting about the nineties said, "There were probably more crop failures during these ten years, or mortgagss foreclosed, and more emigration from Smith County, mich of it to Oklahoma, than ever occurred before or will again." Written before the 1930's,7 It went on to point out that the 1890's were a long stretch of "dreary years of pinching poverty end general discontent." 20 It was hot and
dry all the spring of 1890. Hundreds of fields of corn never reached tassel- ing stage before they were dried up by hot winds. The year 1891 produced a fair crop, then 1892 was a bumper crop but the price was low. Corn was the main crop (sse Table 7), and 10g a bushel corn hurt the economy of the whole county, based on agriculture as it was. The year 1893 was listed as a
18 Gaylord Herald, 1886.
19 Old Settlers' Association Souvenir, 1912.
20 Ibid.
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"scorcher" followed by an almost total crop failurs. February, 1894, a snow and dust storm ragad for three days. Drifts wers thres feat deep; livestock was lost. It was one of the three times Lebanon was cut off by snowdrifts - the other two times in 1912 and 1916. Passenger trains were held up three days to a wesk in town before the huge drifts were opened. Then in the summer a tornado hit the south part of Lebanon, destroying some buildings, but not killing anyone. In 1895 the dust storms ware "bad" all year. Thers was soms improvement in 1896, and 1897-1898 wers more nearly average although each year was dry and hot and soms farmers had failures or near failures.
In 1880, 92.5% of the farmers owned their farms and 7.43% rented; in 1890, 72.9% owned and 27% rented with mortgages beginning to bs recorded on many farms. 21 Many original settlers were becoming landlords. It was during this decade that the great Populist wave swept the country. Crop failures and rssultant hard times had changed the Farmers' Alliances or Farmer's Mutual Benefit Associations, supposedly non-political groups, into complaint groups that gradually grew into the People's Party or Popu- list Party. Economy became the watchword of these groups and many local complaints about high pricss, the new method of buying wheat by test which was thought to bs a trick to take advantage of the farmer, and the practicss in the county courthouses gradually spread to stats and national platforms. William Jennings Bryan, Socklass Jerry Simpson, Mary Ellen Leass, and others proclaimed Wall Strest s doubls-headed monster strangling the country. They wanted an end to monopoly and tariffs, loan sharks, exorbitant freight rates,
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