Middletown transcript., 1878-06-01
Written for the Middletown Transcript
THE GREAT WEST
As Seen by an Eastern shOreman.
No 8.

No 3.
For the distance of obout sixty mile
from Kansas City, the A. T. & S. F
Railroad runs close by the south sid
Of the river Kaw, and through thick
ly wooded country. Lawrence is tn
first important stopping place, and i
is, indeed, one of the most beautiful
cities Of the West, as we'll as the mos
important manufacturing centre il
Kansas. A magnificent dam acros.
the Kaw, at this point, furnishes the
motive power for extensive Touring
and woolen mills; while the city il
beautifully laid out with straight and
broad avenues, and 50 well shaded
that, from distance, her site appears
almost like a vast forest. Lawrence
has a population estimated at fifteen
thousand, and was settled in 1854,
principally by New England people
and, to this day, looks the Yankee city
in every particular. She has street
railways, gas and water-works, and
fine and commodious business houses
while handsome residences surrounded
by spacious grounds, beautifully
adorned with trees, shubbery, vines
and flowers, is the rule rather than
the exception. Upon the summit of
Mount Dread stands the buildings of
the State University, far famed as an
educational institution of a very su-
perior order. Lawrence also boasts of
the finest race-track in the West, and
appears to the eye Of the Eastern visi-
tor as a city where one might forever
dwell and be happy. Though very
young city, she has met with a num-
ber Of vicissitudes-has been swept by
food and scathed by flames during the
brief twenty-three years Of her exist
enee-but her growth has not been
checked, and she stands to-day, one of
the finest spots of Kansas and a mon
ument to Yankee enterprise and indus
try.
AT the time of which l write, (1S77,) }
business in Lawrence was a little ''hat, :"
as they term it in the West. Her
dam had suffered from the floods Of
the swollen Kaw, and she, in common
with other manufacturing communities
Of the country, felt the oppression of
an over production.
Our next stopping place beyond
Lawrence was Lecompton, town that
figures very prominently in the early
history of Kansas; but, at this day, is
Of very little Importance. 1t is finished
and fenced in, and though it is not
whitewashed, it looked to the writer
as though it needed such a course of
treatment above all things. A cluster
Of bare, barn-like frame buildings
about fifty yards from the railroad,
with not human being in sight, save
a solitary man after the mailbag.
Such was Lecompton, once noted as
the capital of the State when capitals"
were plenty, and whose name is famil-
lar to almost every schoolboy in the
land. Our train did not halt long at
Lecompton, for there were no passen-
gers to get off nor none to get on and
the engineer seemed to increase the
speed Of our train on purpose to leave
IS rapidly as possible, a place so de-
void of activity.
We next stopped at Topeka, the
present capital of the State, where
they told US this was the ''livest town
in the West, but a little fiat Just now.
Land was ''dirt cheap" when Topeka
was laid out. You can see the fruit
of this fact on every hand. So wide
are the streets that you could not con-
verse with a man across them without
the assistance of Telephone; and, as
4 Yankee would say, @the town is scat
cred all over creation"
The two great railroads of Kansas,
he Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe and
he Kansas Pacific, pass through the
,ity of Topeka; in fact, from Kansas
.ity to this point they run very close
ogether, one on either side of the
saw and their termini in Colorado are
My 120 miles apart. They are there
ore, rival roads in every respect, and
pare no expense to show up their ad-
antages to the people of the East.
Iisitors to the "late lamented" Cen
ennial Exhibition, who inspected the
Kansas building, will remember that
cry tall corn, those luscious loaking
pples and overgrown vegetables, so
avishly displayed before the wonder
lg eyes of astonished agriculturists.
Yell, these products were gathered
P by the railroad companies, brought
n and displayed at their expense
nd, if the true inwardness of this
Kansas Exhibit" was brought out, it
ould probably show that the whole
tate was secured for these Ordinary
reductions of Kansas soil," as those
attendance were pleased to term it.
The K. P. Company has its head
larters in Kansas City, while the big
ghts of the A. T. & S. F. have their
fces at Topeka Both companies
ave immense land grants in Kansas !,
I'D Colorado, and are leaving nothing
ndone that would bring Easter., set.
ers to their reservations" The A
. d 5. +. Company owns two million
We hundred acres of land lying in al I
rnate sections, twenty miles each
de Of the track. For two hundred I
I'd forty miles from the Missouri, the
nd is fertile, and well wooded along c
e water courses but is occupied BY '
ttlers, within a reasonable distance t
the railroad, and the owners ask for Il
every dollar it is worth. The re- n
aiming four hundred miles passes a
rough country, the land of which |
almost worthless for agricultural s.
rposes, though it is we'll adapted for Il
e grazing of stock. You strike this
sert little west of Hutchison. and
further west you go the worse the j
i'd appears. The owner of such real
ate would be very poor. and the b
're he owned of it the poorer he a
uld be. g