USA > Kansas > Sedgwick County > History of Wichita and Sedgwick County, Kansas, past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county, Vol. I > Part 18
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securing the railroad was had the Chamber of Commerce at St. Louis gave a banquet, and one-half of the said business men drank out of the "finger-bowls," under the belief that it was "pineapple sop," and one man swore that it was the flattest champagne he ever tasted.
"Mind you, now, I wasn't there- -
I only solemnly state What Ed Jewett did relate, But I forget when or where.
The opening of the Frisco was manna to the children in the desert. It was the "restoration." In the language of Colonel Murdock, in Palingenesis, who said :
"Yet anon, in brighter strains of destiny, * * *
The Star of Empire beckons on a happy throng, Kansas' Palingenesis."
'Twas in this hour of hope that the "Old Board of Trade" was placed on a foundation. The raven of doubt was banished; the croaker was an unclean thing; on double "Eagle" wings we soared to heights sublime. We adopted the German proverb, "There is no fish so small but it expects to become a whale." The man with money, time, brain, voice was expected to devote a por- tion to the advancement and upbuilding of Wichita. He who hung back and held his purse was voted as a Wichita curse. The stingy man was a marked man, and was pointed out as a negative lesson to every newcomer.
Colonel Milton Stewart was president of the "Board of Trade" at the first meeting the writer attended. At this meeting Judge Thomas B. Wall and the writer paid $10 and became members of the board.
The glucose factory was tackled. It had no capital, and was frowned upon. Subsequently, in 1881, the "creamery craze" struck Kansas. It had a representative here, and he worked the town to the "ragged fringe of a frazzle," and the "boys" first learned the meaning of a double-liability on corporate stock. The creamery was built, mortgaged, foreclosed to Dr. Hoffman's father. It afterward was burned.
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Subsequently, Jim Jones, who worked on a farm at $15 per month, got a new suit of clothes and went off on a visit and returned as a graduate in the art of building waterworks. He got a franchise and sold out to Colonel Lewis and built the house where the widow of Mr. Roach now lives, sold out for $25,000 and went to Memphis, Tenn., and "worked" that town. As a bold schemer, Jones was quartered oak, hand-rubbed, done in oil and waxed. He filled his contract with the city, but he made a contract that was a jewel, and this was learned as the days and months went speeding by, when wooden mains were rotting and bursting. "Thus we learn that they who ha' na' sense, but money to burn," will find some one to help burn it.
Wichita was now at the incoming of the tide, and on the crest o' swelling wave we gleefully did ride.
About this time Kansas "took a header" and voted for the "prohibition amendment." Men differ as to the effect on. Wich- ita's fortunes by reason of this change, but, in my judgment, a change in "theory" without a change in "practice" deprives us of the premise from which to argue. John Peter St. John (on whose bosom most prohibitionists expected to finally rest, prior to Grover's election in 1884) said: "You people (Wichita's) have carried on the most successful rebellion against the consti- tution in the history of our government." Conceding that St. John was correct, we cannot say what the real effect has been on the financial condition of Wichita by the liquor law.
This brings me, according to my chronology, to the shore of the "flood" and in sight of the "white caps" so soon to roll over Wichita and engulf it; to the wild billows whose spray dampened and refreshed everything within an hundred miles, and attracted the greedy fron the Atlantic coast, challenged the admiration of all beholders and at the same time made our rivals "as full of envy at Wichita's greatness as Cerberus was at Proser- pina's beauty." So many things crowd for space that this sketch is too long for one paper, and will be finished at a future time.
I think it is a truth that until 1883 the local organizations were mere cliques, building with a selfish pecuniary direct and immediate end, and that the upbuilding of Wichita as a com- mercial city, a railroad center, a large distributing point, did not enter into the mind of but one man, viz .: Col. M. M. Murdock. Colonel Murdock stood between the two furious factions, and was appointed postmaster as the only man that both ends would
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trust. There was less politics and more real business in his appointment than ever since displayed. He placed the postoffice where Tanner's store is, on Main street, and the factions shook hands and went home to whet butcher knives for the next engagement.
In the second paper on this subject will be given the unity of Wichita under the banner of "Harmony, Unity, Strength, Success."
December 3, 1898.
CHRONICLE II.
"Local history is a chain, the links o' which are the united memories of many minds."
In the fall of 1882, when Wichita was on the commercial "teeter-board"-no one knowing what our destiny was to be- there was "talk" of the "Fifth Parallel Railroad," i. e., the road supposed to be hunting location and subsidies (principally sub- sidies) running from Fort Scott toward Wichita. It was char- tered from Fort Scott as the St. Louis, Fort Scott & Wichita Railroad (but names do not affect locations), and our people naturally were anxious. Frank Tiernan, then its president, came to Wichita and convinced our people that if we obtained this road it would cost money, though natural advantages would count; bonus, subsidies, largesses would also weigh. Frank went to Newton, drove from Newton to El Dorado, practically over the present route of the Ellsworth, Newton & Southeastern Rail- way (the railway from El Dorado to Newton). We learned that there were at least three factors in getting this road, viz .: Loca- tion, bonds and Tiernan, and all seemed to be equally urgent. There were no social advantages at Newton. Our saloons were open and Frank "played poker." This gave us an advantage which was not counted by our people, but Frank looked on the ' foaming beer in the schooner at Tom Jewell's place, under Gov- ernor Stanley's law office, and made promises in writing that led him to assert that Wichita was to have the road, and the Newton committee went home discouraged. The bonds were voted, and the road to be completed by July 1, 1883. Mr. Jay Gould was believed to be behind this road, but he denied it until the railway was built to El Dorado. (A law suit with Moran developed the scheme.) Soon as it was known that it was the Missouri Pacific,
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"things" at Wichita brightened up, and lots had a value, lands stiffened, but all the sales were local (even as the story of rats penned up, we simply were slowly consuming ourselves).
One day old man Morse, of Connecticut, and a man named Ives came to Wichita. They looked around for a while, and priced a great many pieces of Douglas avenue and Main street lots. They purchased the following properties :
Southeast corner Main and Second streets.
Southeast corner Main and First streets.
The old building and lots where Dunbar's undertaking estab- lishment is, and the property on. East Douglas avenue where Paige's store is. Finlay Ross sold them the First street corner and immediately purchased the lots where Rorabaugh's store now is.
Finlay bought out Emil Werner. Whether he got the old organ that ran from month to month and year to year, without a break, when Emil was a "wet goods merchant," I don't know, but that organ, with its solemn, melancholy, diabolical, weird, spirit-exasperating and soul-destroying strains, was hushed for- ever, and everybody chanted Te Deum, Non Nobis Domine, and sang the hallelujah, etc. The truth is that said organ, that inani- mate, howling parody on musical inventions, caused more blood- shed than figures can tabulate. Two men on a hot day could not argue on Main street without fighting. The doleful sounds emit- ted from the bowels of that * organ would cause an excited man to whip his mother, a banker to reduce his interest to 3 per cent a month, and an officeholder to resign his office.
Note .- My honest belief is that the organ aforesaid would produce pandemonium in Paradise in one hour from its first lugu- brious howl. In fact, it was a wooden hypochondriac proclaiming its desolation and misery to all mankind.
The above lot sales to a total stranger acted on the corporeal system of the dwellers in the Happy Valley like electricity to the frog's leg. The dead were alive; the alive were quickened. The "Board of Trade" (then, as afterward) claimed all the credit. Men invoiced themselves and marked their "stuff" up daily, like merchants during the "Rebellion." Each week justified the last invoice, and we commenced to get the "magnus caput."
Note .- Joe Morse went home, felt dissatisfied with his pur- chases, came back at once to Wichita, and stopped at the Occi- dental. Early the next morning he strolled down Main street.
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No one was on the street; the silent hamlet slept. In front of Dunbar's he stopped. Old man Grantham came along and Joe accosted him.
Morse-What town is this ?
Grantham-Wichita.
Morse-What population ?
Grantham-According to census, 5,000; according to facts, 2,500.
Morse-Any property selling ?
Grantham-No.
Morse-Ain't you mistaken ?
Grantham-No, I ain't.
Morse-I am told that several large sales of business property have been made.
Grantham-Well, there were two * old idiots from Con- necticut came out here, and the boys unloaded on 'em, but that is the extent of the sales.
Tableau !
Morse went to the hotel, attempted to eat breakfast, went at once to Jim Steele's house and was, in fact, "stampeded." Steele laughed at him and found him an "optioner" who wanted the Paige lot at an advanced price, but advised Morse to reject it. Before supper (dinner) Steele had convinced Morse that he was a shrewd buyer. Morse walked the street. Men who did not know him told him a hundred times of his own purchases. Before he left, Morse made other purchases.
Morse was the original Wichita boomer. He kindled a fire that he could not stop, and at last, after making a fortune, was consumed by the original fire which he had kindled.
"Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth !" -- James III, 5.
From the Morse-Ives purchases dated the milestone called the ' "boom." A hundred land-owners withdrew their land from sale ; two hundred placed theirs on sale. Jim Steele, in February, 1883, had his office on the second floor of the building east of the "Eagle" office, and one day booked over fifty tracts of land. "Jim" sold his home here for $40,000, to Al Thomas and Amos Houck. "Jim" had no part in the "boom." He went to Tacoma, invested his money in timber lands, and "backed" the Grant boys, of Wichita (who lived where Will McNaughten now lives, on Topeka avenue), who went to Tacoma and first used and
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tried to patent the method of raising sunken ships that Hobson (the naval kisser) wanted to use on the Spanish ships.
Note .- Jim Steele died, almost a pauper, in Tacoma. He was a man who possessed natural magnetism, and was one of the 306 immortals who voted for Grant at Chicago, when Grant succumbed to the cry of "Cæsarism," "Imperialism" and "Dynasty." At a future time I may give space to Steele as he deserves.
J. M. Steele had as much to do with getting the Missouri Pacific Railway as any other one man. He was one of the men who possessed power, as Garfield expresses it, in a twofold way, viz .: Strength and force; strength, as typified by the oak, and force, as in the thunderbolt. Steele was a leader and in the "long ago" was made "of blood and iron." Wichita owes him much. The young never knew him. The generation gliding swiftly to "nothingness and decay" still recall his majestic presence; the old heads remember his power; the poor, his generosity.
"Many long summers th' grass shall grow green, Blossom and fade, our faces 'atween, Ere we shall behold a figure so bold, Or in councils hear the voice of his peer."
The Missouri Pacific was assured. The depot was not selected. The railway company, not being particular, asked for a right of way on one of the following streets: Waco, Wichita, Mead, Mos- ley, Washington and Kellogg. The town rose in arms; the city council was threatened. Judge Balderston was city attorney. After wrangling from Tuesday until Friday, the ordinance was passed. The "roar" grew louder. Captain Smythe, a member of the council, got out a petition and had the council convened on Saturday at 3 o'clock. Judge Sluss represented the "many- headed multitude," and was permitted to speak in favor of the resolution to repeal the ordinance. Sluss was hired to make that speech as a lawyer, and he earned every dollar he charged for it. He had an audience that was with him. The room, the hallway and the stairway were crowded and the crowd cheered him to the echo. The council, like willows, waved to and fro. Mike Zimmerly, the president of the council, was the railway company's "Gibraltar." He was "a rock in a weary land," in the shadow
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of which the railroad company's attorney and its friends sat trembling. On him all our hopes reposed. The railroad com- pany's attorney represented that the railway officials were all in Fort Scott and that any action in their absence was unfair and unjust. Mike Zimmerly moved that the meeting adjourn until Tuesday afternoon to give the company officials an opportunity to be present. The motion carried.
In one-half hour a telegram was sent to Frank Tiernan at, Fort Scott, which, divested of all surplusage and the marrow extracted, was, to use the classic language of Isaiah, about as fol- lows: "Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming."
Ere vespers, long before Erebus spread his sable mantle o'er the carpet of sun-brown buffalo grass, a telegram was received that Tiernan, president; Chanault, treasurer, and Woods, engi- neer, would arrive here Sunday, if possible on the construction train. The railroad was new, track out of line, culverts were temporary, made of ties, bridges half constructed, and all was being crowded to earn bonds-i. e., get the subsidies and build the road permanently afterward. On Sunday word came that they (Tiernan et al.) were coming, and to have teams at the west end of the track at once.
The warm friends of the road were excited, but were reas- sured when the "wire" came: "Fort Scott. - All aboard. - Tiernan."
Coming to head off "the repeal," Carried by an engine fleet ; Whizzing on the bands of steel Through the fields of yellow wheat ; Rumbling on the trembling bridges, And between the "walls of corn,"
Along the Flint hills' ridges- To save a hope forlorn.
Banking on the ordinance, $20,000 had been expended on West Douglas and Wichita streets.
On Sunday twenty teams from the end of the railroad reached Chisholm creek, with ties and iron to make a "showin'." On Monday morning an acceptance of the ordinance was served on the city officials, in "deshabille" and "décolleté." And the engi-
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neer corps entered on Wichita street at Park street. The depot was commenced, the ties and iron strung along the street; the railroad officials and attorneys went to bed, saved by a "vested right." Waco street not being selected, Captain Smythe was appeased, and the council did not act on the motion to repeal the ordinance.
Germane to this railroad history there were many amusing things, three of which are worth space :
After the ordinance was accepted, and the officials were going to the Occidental Hotel, Tiernan said : "Boys, this is equal to the excitement of a poker game in room 12."
Speaking of Frank's penchant for poker: In June, 1883, an injunction was issued to prevent crossing the land at Twenty-fifth street and Hydraulic avenue. It was agreed to hold the same twenty-four hours, until $800 could be sent here for settlement. The treasurer of the road wired that Tiernan had a draft for the amount. Tiernan was in room 12, aforesaid, in the Occidental, but he was like the man from Jericho. M. W. Levy sent for the road's attorney and showed him the draft, indorsed by Tiernan to Dick Walker. No further explanation was given or requested. The general impression was circulated that Tiernan was unable to settle for $800, and another draft for same amount was sent.
On the day (or night) that the ordinance was passed, Mike Zimmerly was the last name called on the roll. Mike had been promised a guaranty that the road would not go down Kellogg street, and he did not intend to vote until he got it. When his name was called he arose and left the room, followed by Tiernan. When he came back and voted "Aye," Captain Smythe arose and demanded to know the nature of the conversation between Zimmerly and Tiernan. Mike arose and said the gentleman from the Second ward could go to Pandemonium, Abaddon, Domdaniel, Purgatory, Gehenna, Hades, Tartarus, Styx, Plutonian shades, Tophet, and other words germane to the above, closely allied therewith, from the same Greek and Latin rot. And thus were dull hours of council meeting interspersed with pleasantries to lighten the burden of weighty matters fraught with deep solici- tude to the city.
The completion of the Missouri Pacific was to Wichita as-
"Wine that maketh glad the heart of man."-Psalms iv, 15.
It was the first railroad to give promise of competition. The
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Frisco was really in the hands of the Santa Fe, so we only had one road.
To prevent Tiernan going to Kingman, the Santa Fe and Frisco built a joint line to Kingman, and rejoiced all Wichita because Tiernan was "headed for Anthony, and both roads were building at once, and then to Hutchinson.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE STREET RAILWAY-A. D. 1883.
By KOS HARRIS.
Among the last acts of Jim Steele was to interest himself in the street railway. Col. John W. Hartzell, of Topeka, came here and met with no encouragement. At last Steele took the same in hand; a charter was obtained and corporation organized, as follows: President, Hartzell; vice-president, Steele; treasurer, L. D. Skinner; secretary, Frank Hartzell; attorney, Kos Harris. The road issued bonds, $15,000, sold them at par to S. W. Wheel- ock, of Moline, Ill., and built from Fifth avenue to Main street on Douglas, and then north on Main street; thence from Oak street to the Santa Fe depot.
During this year (1883) people commenced to come to Wich- ita-at least 2,500 "newcomers." The street railway paid from the start. The "corn train" to Cincinnati, O., was shipped on the first Sunday after street cars were started, and the receipts for that day were $250.
Hartzell was a pioneer and, like Alexander the Great, wanted to conquer more worlds, and then determined to go to Carthage, and then determined to go to San Francisco. He sold his lines at Wichita to Col. E. R. Powell for $25,000. Powell sold one-half to Col. B. H. Campbell for $25,000, and subsequently sold the other half to J. O. Davidson, Colonel Campbell, George L. Rouse, R. E. Lawrence and O. Martinson et al. for $100,000.
Note .- On July 4, 1883, Colonel Campbell made a bet that the street cars would be in the hands of a receiver in six months. Judge Edwin Hill was stakeholder. Inside of one year Campbell paid $25,000 for half interest, thus proving that --
For the almighty dollar, common clay man
Will "tack his course" and change his plan ;
"Eat his words," lose his bet, for any scheme,
"When a change comes o'er the spirit of his dream."
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THE STREET RAILWAY-A. D. 1883
In other words: "A wise man adapts himself to circumstances, even as water shapes itself to the jug that contains it."
Verily, verily, on rolling waves the ship "Wichita" was scud- ding, chased by a tempest soon-too soon-to overtake it and sweep from the deck every man not lashed to the timbers. The ravens were many, but the albatross in our natures moved us to seek the "trade-winds," court the commercial billows, to defy the tempest, and become as deaf as adders. We drowned the fierce cries of the croaking raven, and onward we went, pro- claiming to the dwellers of the Happy Valley :
There's money in the town, boys, If you will only by it stand ; There's millions in th' deal, boys, If you will lend a helping hand. Let us join hearts and hands together, And put our rivals down ;
'Twill be glory after while To know we built a town.
And yet, up to this date (1884) in our history, the "Board of Trade" was but little known and was less appreciated. There were not to exceed twelve men (same number as a petit jury, same as the apostles) who were crying in the wilderness. The majority of our people were "sawing wood" at their own woodpile, and paying no heed to the swelling storm soon to burst o'er us. To raise $100 for a railroad committee was simply worse than pay- ing campaign expenses after election, or raising a church mort- gage. Some men said they would not give anything, because they were never on committee. The truth is, few men were fitted in brain to head a committee. The real railroad committee-no matter who was appointed-were Murdock, Levy, Niederlander 'and Oliver. One reason for this was, they were personally acquainted with Gould, Hayes, Hoxie, Clarke and other Missouri Pacific officials.
Great and efficient work was done by J. O. Davidson, H. W. Lewis et al., but this will come hereafter.
This brings me to the year 1885, one year prior to the organ- ization of the "Board of Trade" on a new basis and the cam- paigns under the motto of Harmony, Unity, Strength, Success.
CHAPTER XX.
CHRONICLES.
By KOS HARRIS.
CHRONICLE III.
"To write local history; to be exact; to wound no one; to give all actors their due, is to be a god."
In the spring of 1885, The budding city was all alive; There was business, thrift and money ; Kansas was th' land o' milk and honey.
In the year of '85, farm land sold then "sightunseen" on gen- eral reputation. The trouble was to keep the "stuff." Raw lands, ten to fifteen miles from Wichita, sold at from $2,000 to $4,000 per quarter.
Late in the spring of 1885, Jay Gould, General Solicitor Brown, General Manager Hoxie, George Gould et al., officers of the Mis- souri Pacific Railway Company, arrived in Wichita one morning and invited Colonel Murdock, Levy, Niederlander and Oliver and the local attorney to go with them to Anthony. On the ride back, the Wichita & Colorado Railroad was born, the route being then from Wichita to Mt. Hope, thence to Stafford, St. John and Larned. Procrastination, however, let the Santa Fe build from Hutchinson to St. John before we got started. The relationship of a Hutchinson lady to the wife of an official of the Missouri Pacific forced the line to Hutchinson. Verily, verily, woman, weak woman, round among "pots and kettles," using man, strong man, for "skittles"; woman, frail woman, with a duster in hand, scat- tering microbes and other death-dealing animalcular infusoria from times beginning, hath had a large part in the world's chronicles.
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"Talk of woman's sphere as if it had a limit : There's not a place in earth or heaven; There's not a task to mankind given, That hath a feather's weight o' worth, Without a woman in it."
Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Dido, Garah of Marlborough, Eugenie, the Duchess of Portsmouth, Agnes Tarei, Pompadour, Maintenon, Mrs. Lincoln, Madame Recamier, Madame de Stael, Countess of Pembroke and other ladies of character, reputation and wit, and thousands of unknown yet strong-brained women, have made and unfrocked men, created generals, colonels, nobles and judges, as well as wars; changed forms of government; and man, strong, brainy man, has charged the same to "destiny," instead of petticoats; cursed his divining star; his horoscope-
Little think-never dreaming, That some lovely woman's ways, In affectionate scheming, Has changed a year's work in a day.
The local directory of the Wichita & Colorado Railway went to bed hearing the "braky" call out: "All aboard to Mt. Hope, Stafford, St. John and Larned!" and awoke with a telegram from New York: "The road will go to Hutchinson. Full instruc- tions to Harding by mail."
Afterward we learned-
That the eloquence of man, All statistics, map, and plan, Were brushed aside by woman's wit, And that was the end of it.
Hutchinson claimed the "first blood," and we then all claimed that we always intended to go to Hutchinson. Before we "laid down," however, we appealed to Mr. Gould. He dismissed the appeal and affirmed the judgment of the lawyer official. In a little time we found that the D. M. & A. Railroad, Jay Gould and S. H. Mallory, and the line from Geneseo to Pueblo had formed a "trust," and that the Wichita & Colorado Railway would end at Hutchinson; that all dreams, schemes, plans, hopes
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and ambitions of the "Wichita crowd" as "railway projectors" and "town builders," "bond voters," "subsidy-getters," were at an end, and forever; and instead of a main line to Pueblo, Colo., from Wichita, we were tied to the main line as a branch at Geneseo. Instead of being the "trunk" we were only one of many branches.
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