USA > Missouri > Bates County > History of Bates County, Missouri > Part 17
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Even before the Civil War when the county was but sparsely set- tled and much of the farm lands was held by non-residents, slave hold- ers and speculators, looking to the future development of the county for financial results, the business men of Butler realized the importance of railroad connection with the outer world, the great commercial cen- ters of the West and East.
The first railroad survey was an east and west line through Clin- ton and Butler, to La Cygne, Kansas, with St. Louis the eastern terminus, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Pacific Coast the goal. The survey was all the glory of this enterprise. Immediately after the close of the Civil War. however, was sprung upon the railroad enthusiasts of Butler, a line known as the Lebo & Fort Scott rail- road, the promoters asking $200,000 county bonds. This was in 1866; but no definite action was taken by county officials. The following year a company was organized somewhere under the high sounding name of the Osage Valley & Southern Kansas Railroad Company. proposing to construct a railroad from Boonville on the Missouri river to Fort Scott and $100,000 in bonds was asked of Bates county with a donation of the right of way. Chicago was to be the northern termi- nus. an "air line" to "just where you like it." The county officials did not seem to catch onto this scheme and no action of the bond ques- tion was taken. This year, also, the Lebo & Neosho enterprise was
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revived and the county court was actually convened and the proposition ably presented to the court urging an election for the issuing of $200.000 in bonds. The court flatly refused. The year of 1867 seems to ·have been pregnant with railroad schemes. The Sedalia & Fort Scott railroad was proposed through Butler, also a line from Chillicothe in north Missouri, crossing the Missouri river at Lexington, and through Johnson and Bates county to Fort Scott. This enterprise was enthusi- astically endorsed by all the business men of Butler, and a grand mass meeting was held on August 27, 1867, and resolutions passed endorsing the enterprise including a proposition to vote $300.000 in bonds-to organize a company and secure the aid of other counties through which the road was proposed to run. Closely following this meeting on September 2nd. the county court made an order submitting to a vote of the people a bond issue of $150.000. the proceeds to be invested in the capital stock of this Lebo & Neosho railroad. on condition that the road was to be constructed and cars running through the south- eastern part of the county. The record shows the proposition was defeated fifty-three for and two hundred thirty-one against.
The following year, 1868, a more feasible proposition came from the Garrisons, St. Louis, who had built the Missouri Pacific from St. Louis to Kansas City. to build a branch line from Holden on the Mis- souri Pacific to Butler and on to Ft. Scott, if the counties would secure the right of way and grade the road ready for the ties. The proposi- tion was accepted by representative men covering the entire route and a survey was made and an issue of $200.000 of county bonds was projected to cover the expense of Bates county's share of the necessary outlay. In the meantime Cass county became interested in this enter- prise, and a bond issue of $250,000 was promised by the business men of Cass to have this road branch from Pleasant Hill. instead of Holden and run through Harrisonville to Butler. A survey to this end was made from Pleasant Hill to Nevada and while these surveys were acceptable to the Garrisons all excitement over the project appears to have subsided, the old Lebo & Neosho project bobbing up again. and November 28. 1868. a special election was held in Prairie City township to subscribe $50.000 to this road in pursuance of an order of the county court on petition of ninety-five tax payers of said township. This proposition was defeated by a small majority.
Later in the same year. December 15. a proposition to construct a road from Emporia, Kansas, via Mound City and Butler to Clinton. to be called the Sedalia. Butler & Emporia railroad. Following closely
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upon this proposition and to end the year's railroad projects, on Decem- ber 30, 1868, the president and secretary of the Jefferson City, Osage & Neosho Valley Railroad Company, were present at a large public gathering in Butler in the interest of this new project for an east and- west line and by their addresses quite enthused the crowded meeting in the old frame court house building on the corner of the court house square.
Another railroad year was 1869, ushered in with the usual enthusi- asm as early as January 13, when the Pleasant Hill, Butler & Fort Scott Railroad Company was organized in St. Louis with John R. Walker as the first director from Bates county.
In March, 1869, Prairie City township, by almost an unanimous vote, appropriated $25,000 to the Lebo & Neosho railroad, bonds to be issued when the cars were running through said township. Under this name a railroad was built through the extreme southeast corner of Rockville township. Litigation arose over the issue of these $25,000 bonds and a change of venue was taken to another county, and pending an appeal from the lower court's decision against Prairie township, the attorney for the railroad company proceeded to Butler and the county court for some reason, delivered to him these bonds, over which there were years of litigation. -
At the same time of the election in Prairie township a vote was had in Pleasant Gap and Lone Oak townships for the issuing of bonds for $20,000 and $15,000 respectively, for the same project but were defeated. In the months of April, May and June, 1869. in Cass and Bates counties meetings were held organizing for the construction of the Pleasant Hill, Butler & Ft. Scott road. In June of this year a new project bobbed up for the Missouri Pacific branch to start out from Warrens- burg to Butler and Fort Scott, and meetings were had in Butler in the interest of this enterprise. On June 17, 1869, another meeting was held in Butler in the interest of the Chillicothe. Lexington & Gulf. Time was not allowed to lag-railroad construction on paper was in the air, the black smoke of the on-coming engines from all direc- tions could be snuffed in the ozone of the atmosphere, and on June 24, 1869, a railroad promoter from Paola, Kansas, was in Butler to interest her citizens in the construction of a branch road to Butler and on east, of the Fort Scott & Gulf and stated the management of the main line was anxious to tap the coal fields in western Bates. There was hardly a week passed that railroad meetings were not held at Butler
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in the interest of some new or old project. July 10 and July 24, in the interest of the Holden branch of the Missouri Pacific and the Clinton branch of the Lebo & Neosho roads. At the latter meeting a reso- lution was adopted requesting the county court to subscribe $200,000 to the Butler branch of the Lebo & Neosho, and $100,000 to the main line. On August 17 a committee to interview Mr. Joy, the financial backer of the Kansas City, Ft. Scott & Gulf, was appointed and on the 25th of August another enthusiastic meeting was held in the interest of the Holden route which at that time seemed to be the favorite, several of the prominent citizens of Butler having come from Holden. Sep- tember 25, 1869, the county court, then in session, was urged to order a special election on the proposition of subscribing $100.000 to the main line of the Lebo & Neosho, $100,000 to the Butler branch of the same, and $100,000 to the Lexington, Holden & Butler roads. One of the judges being absent, the court refused to make the order. On October 16th a meeting was held at the court house to promote the Kansas City, Springfield & Memphis line, and delegates were sent to a meeting held in Kansas City on October 19, when A. H. Humphrey was elected director for Bates county of this railroad company. The arrival in Butler, October 29th of the engineer corps, under Major Mor- ris, surveying the Lexington, Holden & Butler route to Fort Scott, created quite a furor of handshaking, entertainment and general good feeling all around and with a view to harmonize different views and interests a general meeting was held to harmonize all these railroad enterprises and at this meeting it was resolved that the county court be requested to subscribe $100,000 to the Lebo & Neosho, running seventeen miles through the southeastern corner of Bates county and the same amount to the Chillicothe, Lexington & Gulf, the proposition to be submitted to a vote. Afterwards the court made one order, giv- ing $75,000 to the former and $125,000 to the latter enterprise and election was called for the first Tuesday in January, 1870, but a week before the time for this election the order was rescinded and an elec- tion ordered in Mount Pleasant to vote $65,000 to the Chillicothe, Lexington & Gulf, and in Mingo township to vote $40,000 to the same road, election to take place the last Tuesday in January, 1870. Both propositions were defeated. February 12, 1870, the county court ordered a special election in Hudson township to be held March 8, 1870 to vote for or against subscribing $20,000 to the Lebo & Neosho and was almost unanimously defeated.
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So many enterprises and so many divergent views and interests, none of these schemes having any financial backing, were in fact, the dreams of promoters; "get-rich-quick" or bond-grabbing individuals, with blue prints and blue-sky oratory, knowing, however, the needs of the pub- lic-spirited citizens of these fastly growing towns and rapidly develop- ing rich farming lands and ever ready to scalp them, but notwithstand- ing the dire need of railroad transportation it was difficult for these grafters to "pull the wool" over the eyes of the shrewd business men who had the energy and experience common to all the pioneers in the set- tlement of this Western country ; yet so persistent were the promoters of some of these enterprises or schemes that the public were ever ready to give each and all a respectful hearing, hoping in the end to accom- plish results. To this end in March, 1870, several railroad meetings were held at Butler to affect a compromise of the many different rail- road interests and to bring concentration out of chaos. The result of these meetings was that petitions were circulated and signed asking the county court to subscribe $400,000 in bonds to this Memphis road, half to be issued when the road reached the northern line of the county, the other half when the engine tooted within the corporate limits of Butler ; also the court was asked to call special elections in Mount Pleas- ant and Grand River townships, the former to appropriate $90,000 and the latter $40.000 to the Chillicothe, Lexington & Gulf. Both orders were made by the court complying with the request of the petitioners. notwithstanding the remonstrance of about one-third as many citizens as the petitioners, and $400.000 was ordered by the court to be appro- priated to the Memphis road, and the election held the first Tuesday in May, resulted in the adoption of the proposition by over the neces- sary two-thirds vote.
The day before these township elections the court was petitioned by a very representative number of citizens to rescind the $400,000 order but no action theron is of record. With $530,000 in sight from the county and the two townships the Chillicothe, Lexington & Gulf was considered assured, and at the June session of the county court Mr. A. L. Betz, one of Butler's prominent citizens, was appointed, as the agent of the county, to subscribe the stock of the said two townships and a few days later a contract for the first twenty miles of this road was let.
A special term of the county court was called and met June 25tl following, to consider again the propriety of subscribing $50,000 to secure the Lebo & Neosho through the town of Hudson and Pleasant
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Gap township, but the arguments of the promoters of this outlay were not sufficiently convincing and the court turned the proposition down.
While the court was on this special session word came from Jeffer- son City that the Kansas City, Springfield & Memphis had no regular organization, and the order therefore made appropriating the $400,000 was promptly rescinded. It was learned afterwards that these repre- sentations were incorrect and were made in the interest of other rail- road schemes.
It was bonds the promoters of all these lines of road were after- enough money from their sale to grade the roads and leave a large rake-off to the incorporators. So when several townships in Johnson county through which the Chillicothe, Lexington & Gulf road had been surveyed, refused to vote the necessary bonds, a proposition was sprung to consolidate the Chillicothe, Lexington & Gulf with the Pleasant Hill proposed line of road and a consolidation was effected under the name of Lexington, Lake & Gulf. (We have never been able to learn where the "lake" was located, or why the name.) It was suggested that the bonds voted in Mount Pleasant and Grand River townships, $130,000 be issued to this new consolidated company but the people refused to so instruct, creating distrust, confusion and opposition to changing the line from Holden to Pleasant Hill. However the directors of the Lex- ington, Lake & Gulf made application to the court for these bonds and they were issued.
It was in October of this year that the five miles or so of railroad of the Lebo & Neosho-now the Missouri, Kansas & Texas-was constructed diagonally across the extreme southeast corner of the county. It was in this month, October, 1870, that a survey was made from Pleasant Hill to Butler by the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad Company, but nothing further was accomplished by this com- pany for over a year. In the meantime contracts were let for grading between Lexington and Butler by the Lexington, Lake & Gulf Com- pany by way of Pleasant Hill and during the very closing days of the year 1870 ground was broken on the farm then owned by D. S. Fair- child and all Butler had dreams of incoming trains, could actually see them silhouetted in the Aurora Borealis during the winter of 1870-71- but the actual trains never in fact found any track to approach this county. It was during this winter that the Mound City, Kansas branch road. came up again but nothing was accomplished.
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In the spring of 1871, "Bob" Stevens, general manager of the con- struction of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas railroad that had been con- pleted via Ft. Scott, Parsons, and Chetopa into the Indian Territory, proposed to the citizens of Butler a branch of the M. K. & T. via Butler to Wichita, Kansas, from Montrose under the name of the St. Louis & New Mexico railroad.
R. R. ("Bob") Stevens was the general manager of construction of the M., K. & T. from Sedalia southwest to a junction with the Neosho Valley road, from Neosho Falls, Kansas, to the Indian Territory, and he and Major Gunn, chief engineer of the M., K. & T., has been build- ing the line in a roundabout way, not only to make more track mileage, but also to get the usual graft from new townsites, free right of way and bonuses in the way of cash subscriptions and municipal bonds. Especially conspicuous was the selection of the junction point with the Neosho Valley road on the broad prairie in La Bette county, Kansas. At this proposed junction point a town company was organized, a sec- tion of land laid off for townsite, Bob Stevens and Major Gunn holding one-half the company's stock. Getting wind of these personal benefit schemes, General Parsons, a Wall Street financier, who was putting up the money for construction of the road, came west to investigate the situation, and the result was that La Bette City which had reached a population of about 1,500 in nine months with all lines of business represented including a newspaper and job office, and in a county-seat contest had received the majority vote of the county of La Bette, soon went dead, when it became known that General Parsons had selected the junction to be made about nine miles north of La Bette City near the Neosho river, laid out a large townsite named Parsons and made it known that it would be made a division point and the location of the machine shops and general headquarters of the system.
The subsequent life of La Bette City was short and like Foster in Bates county, practically only a postoffice and railroad depot were left and the townsite reverted to farm lands. Being let out, Mr. Stevens turned up with his St. Louis & New Mexico enterprise and it was much talked of at Butler and several meetings were held in its interest but nothing of a definite understanding resulted and after the spring of 1871 the enthusiasm in regard to this scheme died out and the north and south road enterprises gained friends and while there was some interest taken in the new venture by one Col. J. D. Williams, who had severed his connection with the Kansas City & Memphis road, under
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the name of the Kansas City, Galveston & Gulf, nothing came of it and all interest seemed centered in the Kansas City & Memphis Com- pany and on August 9th this company made formal application for the $400,000 subscription which had previously been ordered by the county court, and which they claimed was still valid and binding. This demand was taken up and considered by the court and proposed a compromise by subscribing $125,000, $65,000 to be issued when the cars were run- ning to Butler and to be accomplished before the first of August, 1872, and the balance, $60,000, when the road was completed through the county.
On the opening of the new year, 1872, the Butler branch of the M., K. & T. was again sprung upon the people of the county along the proposed line and the county court at the January term subscribed $250,000 to secure the success of this enterprise and the people of the entire county were very much aroused at this action of the court. Excitement ran high and the court at a subsequent session rescinded the order.
So many railroad schemes had gone glimmering that the general public of the county had become quite disgusted and had declared d veto on any further talk of bond issues. The question of any more bond issues entered into campaigns for county officers and several years passed by in comparative quietude so far as railroad projects were concerned and the citizens of Butler got back to checkers, cards and village gossip with an occasional railroad meeting as a diversion and in the endeavor to have utilized the old roadbeds that had been partially constructed to Harrisonville and on south to Bates county. To promote this enterprise a syndicate was organized in 1876 and an option on these roadbeds was secured and $75,000 in private subscriptions was pledged through the earnest endeavor of several of Butler's lead- ing citizens, but the necessary financial backing failed and this project failed as all previous ones had. Butler, a flourishing town, the county seat of one of the largest and best agricultural counties in the state, remained without rail connection until came Col. Ed H. Brown, a true representative of Western enterprise, with a past successful career in railroad construction, having made good in numerous construction con- tracts on the line of the Union Pacific railway, almost the entire distance from Omaha to Cheyenne. Those were days when men on the line greeted the stranger with the question:
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"Hast ever been to Omaha, Where rolls the dark Missouri down, And four strong horses scarce can draw An empty wagon through the town?"
Following his Union Pacific experience, Colonel Brown projected the construction of a railroad from Memphis northwest through Carth- age, county seat of Jasper county. The panic of 1873 put a damper on this enterprise but he kept his indomitable sledge-hammer determi- nation to succeed on foot, never allowing it to lag, until 1875, when the St. Louis & San Francisco road purchased his franchise, right of way, etc., from Carthage on west, and changed the name for construc- tion purposes to the Missouri & Western railway, and he contracted to build the roadbed from Carthage to Oswego, Kansas. This accom- plished, he then organized a company to construct a road from Joplin to Girard, Kansas, which continued operations for three years, when the St. Louis & San Francisco purchased it as a branch of its main trunk line from St. Louis to Wichita. Thus let free, he was the genuine road builder with the necessary enterprise. experience and an intimate knowledge of what the agricultural demands, industrial enterprises and necessities of the citizens of the county seat towns in the border tier of counties between Kansas City and the Joplin lead and zinc mines: he was indeed the man Butler was reaching out for, and in the spring of 1869 he visited these county seats, made known his project, was met with open arms, and $20,000 was easily raised to aid in the preliminary requirements of the company which was organized, chartered under the name of the Lexington & Southern. This accomplished. the Colonel turned up in New York City, presented his project to Jay Gould, who had previously purchased the line from Commodore Garrison of St. Louis, the builder thereof, and with all the necessary blue prints, sta- tistics, etc., including the rich deposits of coal in Osage township. and the northern part of Vernon county, the zinc and lead mining interests of Jasper county. he easily with his engaging manner. gentle- manly demeanor and fine and vigorous physique, and an intimate knowl- edge of the entire detail of the advantages that would accrue to the Missouri Pacific system to own this line of road. the great railroad wizard was easily convinced and when Colonel Brown had settled his bill at the Waldorff and left New York for home he ,carried with him the authority to go ahead and construct this road from Pleasant Hill to Joplin, with the necessary funds forthcoming to back him, and
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before the end of the year Missouri Pacific trains were running from the junction at Pleasant Hill to Butler and the road completed to Joplin the following year.
In this year, 1880, was also constructed the Rich Hill branch from the main line of the Kansas City, Ft. Scott & Memphis through Howard and Osage townships to Carbon Center coal fields in Vernon county.
Several other enterprises in the way of railroad projects from time to time were sprung upon the citizens of Bates county after this. In 1881, the Chicago, St. Louis & Ft. Scott Company was organized with the project of building a branch of the Chicago & Alton road from some point north to Butler, Rich Hill and Fort Scott and citizens of the county, Butler and Rich Hill had actually subscribed $60,000 for the branch line from Odessa. It proved a fake; the Chicago & Alton repudiated the claim that Col. B. J. Waters, of Ft. Scott, had repre- sented that the C. & A. was back of his enterprise.
It was in 1883, however, that the citizens of Butler experienced a season of extreme happiness over a new railroad enterprise that had every evidence of success, only to be sadly disappointed in the out- come. Col. James L. Pace, in what interest he failed to make known at the time, took options on or contracts of purchase for several thousand acres of land in Walnut township and soon afterward Col. Tom Nichols, of Washington, D. C., put in an appearance in Butler and was introduced as a millionaire and represented a syndicate of prominent capitalists who proposed to construct a line of railroad from Chicago to El Paso, Texas, and on to Old Mexico via Butler and Fort Scott and developed the coal treasures of Walnut township, taking over the lands that Colonel Pace had optioned. The gentlemen backing Col. Nichols soon were made known, and they were so prominent in the political and financial world that there was hardly a question of doubt as to the suc- cess of their undertaking. This syndicate consisted, besides Colonel Nicholas, the general manager, and who, it appears, originated the enterprise, of Governor Foster of Ohio, Congressman Keifer, Speaker of the House of Representatives, New York: General Townsend, of Ohio: United States Senator Plum, of Kansas and of St. Louis.
A large tract of the Pace land was surveyed into townlots in Wal- nut township, platted after the city of Washington, besides the regu- lar, square, forty-five-degree streets. The grading of a railroad was commenced through the town named Walnut, northeast and southwest, a system of waterworks started and a prospectus of the coming city was issued and otherwise extensively advertised in all the daily papers
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