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. II > Part 11
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Of peculiar interest to Wichita is the rebuilding of the Kiowa and Hutchinson branches. Eight gravel trains are now hauling ballast from Colorado to rebuild the Hutchinson line from Wich- ita to Geneseo, a distance of eighty-six miles. The Kiowa branch is scheduled to have new seventy-five-pound rails and a new coat of ballast just as soon as the company can get around to it. One of the biggest and most important improvements now under way by the company is the rebuilding of the Colorado line across Kansas. This is in preparation for the heavy transcontinental freight and passenger business that the company expects to handle over its recently completed Western Pacific Railway. Wichita will profit by this improvement in that through Pullman service to Salt Lake and San Francisco will be established late this fall. Old wooden bridges of the Missouri Pacific are now being replaced with steel and concrete structures. This is with the view of using heavier and faster motive power as soon as the new rails are laid and the roadbeds have settled.
From these facts it is evident that the Missouri Pacific is building its Kansas lines for the future development of the country. The road is no longer the laughing stock of the state. It runs trains on time, has few wrecks and serves a vast terri-
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tory not reached by other lines. As Col. E. E. Bleckley puts it : "Like the mighty oak which from a little acorn grew, so has the Missouri Pacific grown from a little branch road to a mighty trunk line, but in a much shorter period than required by the oak." The officials of the Missouri Pacific in Wichita are A. H. Webb, division superintendent ; S. H. Kilgore, commercial freight agent; Col. E. E. Bleckley, passenger and ticket agent; W. R. Davidson, division train master ; E. A. Sites, train dispatcher ; W. K. Walker, division engineer; C. P. Hale, local freight agent.
Thirty-eight passenger and freight trains enter and depart from Wichita over Missouri Pacific lines every day of the year. Of this number sixteen are passenger trains and twenty-two are freight trains. The loading and unloading of these thirty- eight trains, with passengers and merchandise, represents the day's work for the Missouri Pacific's force in this city. Being at the junction of three important lines of the system Wichita is an important passenger terminal for the Missouri Pacific. Pas- sengers from St. Louis, Kansas City and eastern Kansas bound for points on the Geneseo or Kiowa branches must necessarily stop over in Wichita, as the bulk of the trains on these two branches are made up in this city. Of the eight passenger trains that depart from Wichita every day five are made up here. Kan- sas City and St. Louis trains all run through to Geneseo. Con- nections for Colorado, southeastern Kansas and McPherson are all originated in Wichita. The Kiowa branch has three trains each way daily; the Hutchinson branch has two trains each way daily ; the McPherson branch has one train each way daily; the main line east has two trains each way daily.
The Missouri Pacific lays claim to the most direct route and the shortest mileage to St. Louis. The mileage to Kansas City is practically the same as that of other lines. When the rebuild- ing of the Colorado line is completed the Missouri Pacific will have one of the very best services to the Rocky mountains. By 1911 through Pullman service will be established from St. Louis to San Francisco and it is likely that service out of Wichita will be arranged so that passengers from this city may make connec- tions with the through train at Geneseo.
From a local standpoint the Missouri Pacific is one of the greatest roads entering the city. It has three lines, each reaching into a rich agricultural section that is tributary to the Wichita jobbing interests. To serve this territory 420,000 tons of freight
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are hauled into and out of Wichita every year. It requires the handling of 26,000 cars every month in the Wichita freight yards to care for this enormous business. It requires 1,650 cars per month to haul the merchandise used in Wichita alone; that is, from territory reached by the Missouri Pacific lines. In the past five years the business of the company in and through Wichita has doubled twice. The average annual increase since 1905 has been 40 per cent.
The Wichita & Colorado Railway. The building of the Wich- ita & Colorado Railroad from Wichita northwest marked a new era for the northwestern portion of Sedgwick county. For many years this project was agitated by various companies ; and vari- ous bodies of men in Wichita and Hutchinson had projected the line, along the old diagonal road, running from South Hutchin- son toward Wichita, but all efforts had proved futile, until the matter was taken in hand by the Big Four, which consisted of M. M. Murdock, N. F. Neiderlander, A. W. Oliver and M. W. Levy, who formed a company for the purpose of building this line. In this enterprise these men were aided by many men holding interests along the line, notably Kos Harris, Robert E. Lawrence, Tom Randall, Dan E. Boone, George Steenrod, C. F. Hyde, Wick Anderson, George Anderson, Leroy W. Scott, Walter S. Pratt, James P. McCormick, and many others who owned farms and other property along the proposed line. This line made Maize, Andale, Colwich, Mt. Hope, Haven and the other towns along this line from Wichita to Hutchinson; its projectors originally designed to run the line directly west from Elmer, in Reno county, bisecting the rich territory in Stafford county and south of the Great Bend of the Arkansas river, but the Hutchinson people, headed by Sam Campbell, L. A. Bigger, John Puterbaugh and others went into New York and saw Jay Gould in person, and as the line was being built under the fostering care of the Missouri Pacific Mr. Gould had the call and the line was deflected northward from Elmer and was built into Hutchinson, much to the disgust of the projectors, and was at that point hitched onto the line from Geneseo, Rice county, Kan., which line was built through Lyons and Sterling under the name of the Salina, Ster- ling & El Paso Railway, making thereby a continuous line from Wichita to the Colorado line of the Missouri Pacific Railway, creating thereby a most advantageous line for Wichita and on to the mountain regions. This new line of the Wichita & Colorado
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Railway opened out a new and most prosperous country and a fine lot of towns in Sedgwick and Reno counties, that are natur- ally tributary to Wichita; it was also an important factor in the development of the farms and agricultural resources of a mag- nificent territory. This was in line with the spirit of Wichita at that time; the Wichita Board of Trade and its enterprising business men were reaching out to control the territory contigu- ous to the town; this they accomplished and the Wichita & Colo- rado was only one of the numerous railway lines radiating out of Wichita like the spokes of a wagon wheel; to this railway spirit and forethought of those men, of the big four who built this line, and their associates who so largely contributed to its final success, and to those other business men who from time to time put their strong shoulders to the wheel of progress and gave of their time, and money and energy, Wichita, the progressive and beautiful city of today, owes its supremacy as a business center.
The St. Louis, Fort Scott & Wichita Railroad. In line with the rapid development of Sedgwick county and its shire town of Wichita, railroads often knocked at its doors. The St. Louis, Fort Scott & Wichita Railroad began construction at Fort Scott, Kan., in 1881; Francis Tiernan was its moving spirit and president of the line; it reached Toronto, Kan., in April, 1882, and Eldorado, Kan., early in 1883. At this point Mr. Tiernan had great induce- ments offered to build direct from Eldorado to Newton; he was a shrewd and far-seeing man, and early saw the possibilities of Sedgwick county and its adjoining territory; the Arkansas val- ley looked good to him and he was not to be deflected from his original plan and purpose. He came to Wichita and here he met with the encouragement of our people; generous aid, right of way and other concessions were granted to him and his asso- ciates. It is a fact not generally known that L. M. Bates, a merchant prince of New York City, loaned to Francis Tiernan the first $40,000 on which he pushed this road out of Fort Scott westward; this road reached Wichita July 4, 1883, and at that time and on that day all of its men were paid off in the city of Wichita. Its first depot was near the corner of Second and Wichita streets; Ad N. Jones was the agent in charge and so continued for several years. Under his management the road at once obtained a big business and became immensely popular with the business men of Wichita. Later on Mr. Tiernan severed his connection with this line and engaged in other enterprises, but
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Wichita will always have a warm place for Francis Tiernan. Later on the road came under the management of J. W. Miller, who extended the line to Kiowa under the name of the Wichita, Anthony & Salt Plains Railroad. The entire line then, as is usual, went into the hands of a receiver, but, righting itself, became a part of the Missouri Pacific system, and for many years it has been under the management of that very popular railway superintendent, A. H. Webb.
The Wichita, Anthony & Salt Plains Railroad. Where the projectors who were the auxiliary people of the Missouri Pacific Railway ever got this name is a mystery, but they found it and built the line from Wichita to Kiowa under that name. The Mis- souri Pacific was built into Wichita from the east; the line was built to Hutchinson, and J. W. Miller was the superintendent of the new line. He was a hustling man, ambitious to construct more line, and he had a side partner named Jones, who was a caution to old people in Kansas; Jones laid out several lines of business along the Missouri Pacific, notably the Bandera Stone Quarry, just out of Fort Scott; Jones also inflicted the name Annelly upon a town on the Newton branch of this road, up in Harvey county ; the name Annelly is a compound of the names Ann and Nelly, the wife and daughter of Mr. Jones. Jones had been a mate of Miller's upon salt water and his influence over "Jack," as he called him, was unbounded; and so Miller started in to build from Wichita to Anthony and Kiowa; he surveyed the line, he got the right of way, he called to his aid Judge Bayne, of Anthony, and he named a town after him; he called to his aid James P. Royal and Newton H. Robinson, and they laid out the town of Oatville. It has always been a wonder why the railroad runs directly north and south at Oatville and through the farm of James P. Royal; it is easy to answer when you know that Royal was one of the original town company; and after Baynesville came Clearwater, and what a flurry the real estate people of Wichita, headed by H. G. Lee, got up over Clearwater, and Ed Magill and Herman Bliss at once opened a big general store at Clearwater; and after that came Millerton, a town named in honor of the superintendent of the road; and then came Con- way Springs, abounding in fine soft water, and a good town just west of Slate creek. Here Nick Neiderlander and some other real estate men made a pot of money as the road went to the southwest; and then came the other towns, and Anthony and
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Corwin and Hazelton and Kiowa, the Queen of the Border; all of which made a fine feeder for the parent road and new territory for Wichita.
The Wichita & Western Railway. In the early eighties it was impressed more and more upon the business men of Wichita, that it was of the very highest importance to have connection with the fertile country to the west of the city; hence the news that the Santa Fe Company designed building such a line was hailed with much joy by our people. This joy, however, was of short duration when it was learned that the Santa Fe had placed a band of surveyors in the field and was running a line from Sedgwick southwest to Kingman. A. A. Robinson, who was then the general manager of the Santa Fe, was seen and at his instance a hurried meeting was held in this city, to which came A. A. Robinson and other officials of the Santa Fe Railroad. It was then developed that the Santa Fe was about to pursue its well defined policy of building around Wichita, and it was further impressed upon our people that the railroad policy in Kansas was still in vogue; that policy was to build up a number of small towns along the various lines, for the reason that as soon as a town became large it became ambitious and began to reach out for more lines of railway. Something had to be done and done quickly ; it was then proposed that Wichita should secure the right of way from Wichita to the west line of Sedgwick county, and in that case the road would start at Wichita, instead of Sedgwick City. To that end the business men of this city then bent their energies and the Wichita & Western was an accom- plished fact ; it was built under that name to Kingman, and from that point westward to Cullison it was built under the name of the Kingman, Pratt & Western Railway. It has been an impor- tant factor in the upbuilding of Wichita. It ran the usual gamut of a receivership, during which time a federal judge, much to the disappointment of the people along its line, permitted a portion of the line from Cullison to Pratt eastward, to be taken up and sold and the proceeds applied to the payment of costs, receiver's fees and attorney's fees. However, this line of railway has been since its building a very active and important line to Wichita; the building of the line brought into being the towns of Goddard, Garden Plain and Cheney, all active and prosperous towns, the town of Cheney being at this time the second town in size and importance in Sedgwick county.
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Prior to 1880 it was thought that the country in western Sedgwick county, west of the Arkansas river, was simply adapted to grazing, and not good for diversified farming; this idea was long since dispelled, as western Sedgwick is the most fertile and reliable crop portion of Sedgwick county. Its farmers are espe- cially prosperous and its soil is well tilled and productive; wheat, corn, oats, rye and alfalfa are raised in abundance, and the Wich- ita & Western Railway, by reason of the prosperous country con- tiguous thereto, is a wonderful feeder to the prosperity of Wichita.
St. Louis & San Francisco. The passenger service of the Frisco out of Wichita is first-class to points east and southeast. Superior train service is maintained to St. Louis and other eastern and southern points. This road has the only solid through train out of Wichita to St. Louis. All through trains carry elegant dining cars under Fred Harvey management.
For eastern points the following fast time is made by the Frisco passenger service : To St. Louis, 18 hours and 19 minutes : to Cincinnati, 28 hours and 40 minutes; to Detroit, 31 hours and 20 minutes; to New York, 43 hours and 25 minutes; to Boston, 45 hours and 30 minutes. Since the opening of vast tracts of land in Florida for settlement the Frisco has enjoyed a heavy passenger traffic in that direction out of Wichita. Accordingly fast trains are operated by the system to the principal cities of the Southwest, as follows: To Memphis, 19 hours and 5 minutes ; to Birmingham, 26 hours and 45 minutes; to New Orleans, 30 hours and 55 minutes; to Atlanta, 33 hours and 25 minutes; to Jacksonville, 41 hours and 45 minutes. On the Frisco in Wichita are: Division passenger agent and 1 assistant, 2; city passenger agent, 1; division freight agent and 3 assistants, 4; traveling freight agent, 1; soliciting freight agent, 1; local freight agent and 28 assistants, 29; division road master and 1 assistant, 2; engineers and firemen, 12; division foreman mechanical depart- ment and assistants, 60; conductors and brakemen, 20; section men, 30; crossing watchmen, 4; total employes in city, 166; total payroll monthly $15,000.
Personnel of the Frisco in Wichita is: F. E. Clark, division passenger agent; E. E. Carter, division freight agent; H. F. Bas- come, city passenger agent; R. H. Phinney, local freight agent; E. M. Riley, city freight solicitor .- Beacon.
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The St. Louis, Wichita and Western Railway. Wichita was a one railroad town until the building in of the present line of the Frisco in the year 1879. This railroad was built under the name of the St. Louis, Wichita and Western Railway from Oswego, Kan., to Wichita and was designed to run one line North- west and one Southwest from Wichita when first proposed; Hobart and Congdon, of Oswego, Kan., were the main contractors of the line. Later on a disagreement arose between the con- struction Company and the county commissioners and Wichita became the western terminus of the line. Had the line been built out of Wichita as at first contemplated, it might have changed the whole railroad map of Kansas. Great things were expected by our people from the building of this line, but when late in 1879 it staggered into town and run its siding up to the Santa Fe depot, then North of Oak street now called Murdock avenue, great was the disappointment of the people of Wichita; it was said that instead of being a competing line (and that in Kansas is simply a figure of speech), it simply became an adjunct and feeder of the Santa Fe. Capt. C. W. Rogers, a hale and hearty but somewhat profane man, was the general manager of the Frisco at that time, but he was handicapped because many of the interests and stockholders of the Santa Fe and Frisco were identical; later on the Frisco St. Louis trains were run over the Santa Fe to Sedgwick and from that point to Halstead over a cut off built for that purpose, all of which confirmed the pre- vailing opinion, that the Frisco was simply a feeder for the Santa Fe. Later on after the usual receivership course, the Frisco built its own depot in Wichita, and now seems to be independent of that line, having spent a short interim as an adjunct of the Rock Island. However, at this time the Frisco is a good line for Wichita having a commodious depot, yards and round houses in this city, and being a fine connection for this city and its territory to St. Louis, the East and Southeast.
The Orient Railway Company. It was a lucky day. for Wich- ita, when A. E. Stillwell, of Kansas City, projected and built the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway southwest from Wichita. At this time our people fondly hope that Wichita will remain its Eastern terminus for many years. This line which is built entirely independent from any of the great rail- way systems entering Wichita, at this time forms a continuous line from Wichita to San Angelo, Texas. It places a new field
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at the door of this city, a new field for our wholesale merchants who are not slow to see the advantages of the new line; Wichita is also anxious and will without doubt secure the main shops of this line. Mr. Stillwell, the projector and builder of the new line, is a well meaning and earnest man, a thorough believer in himself and his own energy and resources, and is said to be an ardent follower of Christian Science. Be that as it may he is a very popular man in Wichita, and it matters little to this city weather his religous tenets are Christian or Moslem so long as he succeeds in this great interprise.
So interested has Wichita been in a close range view of the Orient railroad, such, for instance, as exactly when the big shops will be completed in this city, that the larger view, such as the relation of this trans-continential line among other great railway systems of the country, has received little local attention.
William E. Curtis, special correspondent of the Chicago "Record-Herald," recently wrote for his paper a long descrip- tive story of the Orient's possibilities, of which the following is part: "The Orient, as it is familiarly known, runs through an entirely new country for a distance of 1,650 miles, and in- stead of paralleling established roads, it will cross several im- portant lines with which its management can doubtless make traffic arrangements of mutual value. At Emporia is crosses the Missouri Pacific; at Wichita and Anthony it crosses the Santa Fe, the Fort Worth and Denver at Chillicothe; the Texas and Pacific at Sweetwater; a branch of the Santa Fe at San Angelo, and the Southern Pacific at Pisano Summit. In Mexico it crosses the Mexican Central at Chihuahua; at San Blas the new Harriman road which runs south from Arizona, parallel with the Pacific, and the Chihuahua and Pacific at Minlaca.
"More than thirty new towns with populations of 1,000 to 2,500 have sprung up along the tracks in Oklahoma. All of them are agricultural settlements, and the population are practi- cal farmers. In Texas as many more new towns have started up on the virgin soil. Where a few years ago was open prairie, of doubtful agricultural possibilities, with here and there a ranch- house and a herd of cattle, are now fields of wheat, corn and cotton, inclosed by fences, with farm houses. barns and shade trees on every quarter section. No part of the country has ever been settled so rapidly or by a better class of homesteaders than have taken up farms along the line of the Orient road in Okla-
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homa. They brought money with them. Very little human driftwood lodged along the right of way. This fact will be demonstrated when the census enumerators report upon the development of a section of about 800,000 acres between Wich- ita, Kan., and Sweetwater, Texas, which is already under plow and is supporting thirty-two enterprising towns. San Angelo in Texas is the headquarters of the largest wool industry in the country, which has been increasing rapidly, both in the number of sheep and in the quality of the wool. The cattle industry is also very important in Texas, and is still more important across the borders of Mexico, where the road runs through the two largest and most famous ranches in the world, one of them has several million acres in pasturage and brands between 75,000 and 100,000 calves every spring. It is no uncommon thing for him to ship 50,000 head of cattle to market at one time. He is not only the largest individual land owner in the world and the largest cattle owner in the world, but the richest man in Mexico and one of the richest men in America. The daughter of Don Louis Terrazas is the wife of Don Enrique C. Creel, recently ambassador to the United States, and now governor of Chihuahua. Mr. Creel also has very large land, cattle and mining interests along the right-of- way of the Orient road, of which he is vice-president and one of the largest stockholders.
"The Zooluaga ranch, which is second only in area to the Terrazas, lies west of Chihuahua, with headquarters at a place called Bustillos. No railroad in existence has a larger variety of agricultural, forestry, pastoral, horticultural and mineral re- sources scattered along its right-of-way, from the cornfields of Kansas to the fisheries of the Gulf of California, which, by the way, are unsurpassed, but have never been worked on account of lack of a market. Topolobampo may never be a great ship- ping port for Asia and Central and South America, as some of the people interested in this new road have predicted. The com- merce of San Francisco, Portland and Seattle is not likely to be transferred to that port, but the Orient railway will open up more different sources of wealth than any road that has been constructed since the first track was laid across the continent. It will be unique for another reason. It has been built without the aid of a dollar from Wall street. Thus far it has cost about $20,000,000, which has been raised by the sale of stock and sub-
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sidies from the federal government of Mexico, and the states, counties and towns through which it passes."
ORIENT BRINGS IN TRAINS OF STOCK.
The growth of the Orient railway and the development of the country it serves makes a wonderful story of achievement. Seven years ago there was no Orient so far as Wichita was concerned. Then the company's steel rails came creeping up from the South and finally landed well laden passenger and freight trains within the city. From nothing to an important factor in the commerce of the Southwest is the history of the Orient for the past decade. No fertile farms and ranches awaited the coming of the Orient in western Oklahoma. The railway went into those lands and carved out farms and cities from the virgin soil. In 1904 the Orient began hauling freight into Wichita. In that year the road hauled just 27 carloads of live stock to the Wichita market. In about that proportion other farm products were hauled to this city. In the following year 384 cars of live stock were hauled to the Wichita stock yards. That was a monster increase and all other commodities were handled in increasing amounts. The gain in 1906 over 1905 was slight, yet there was a gain. Then in 1907 live stock shipments increased more than 100 per cent, 969 cars having been handled that year. In 1908, 1,672 cars of cattle and hogs arrived and last year 2,462 cars arrived.
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