Osage Valley banner. (Tuscumbia, Miller County, Mo.) 1879-1881, 1880-03-11
OVER SUNDAY IN NEW SHARON.

THE following is the Introductory portion
Of Capt. Henry Kings sketch, under the
above title, in Scribncr's Monthly for March.
We reached New Sharon, my friend
Eastman and |. mt noon Of radiant
Kansas Saturday. Our visit being
merely one Of curiosity, we could not
fail to notice at first glance the uncouth
and striking newness of every thing
aud yet IL somehow seemed TO us that
the town might have been there always,
so strongly did It hint in its very depth
of grotesque freshness a strange, pa
thetic notion Of decay, which even the
all-pervadisg glare and scent Of unpaint-
ed pine but slightly refuted. The b,iild-
ings were Of such varying and irrelevant
patterns, and SO lacking in neighborli-
ness Of size and attitude, that one was
justified in wondering il they had not
been bought at auction Few of them
buastcd any underpibning, and many Of
them sat dizzily pcrched upon awkward
cOrncr-props, as il fearing flood.
There were no fences, and hence no
door-yards; no trees and no awnings,
and therefore an unchecked excess Of
sunlight. Above the town, a spray of
sandy loan blew northward in frequent
and rapid whirlwinds, and settled with
sort Of rcsgntful disdain about the over
looking cupola ut the center Of the pub
lie square G" the park by courtesy,
which proved 10 be the ambitious top of
a structure designed to serve in time
the purposes Of a courthouse, but con-
tenting itself for the present with the
humber, though more popular. uses Of
a shooting gallery. Here and there,
too, tents were pitched, with blankets
spread upon the guy-ropes; and oppo-
site our hotel, railroad freight-car,
shOrn of It's wheels and squatting in the
dust, abiectly bosought patronage with
a placard announcing "Meals at all
hours
The railroad denoted the boundary Of
the town proper on the south and
thence spread succession of yellow
pine-board pens, filed with cattle-ant-
Tered, uneasy, alien looking cattle--out
over the level bottom land, pen after
pen, until the boards became shadows,
and the beasts lost their identity, and
all that was left was queer, sinister
pcrplexity Of uplited and tossing horns.
For New Sharon, let me hasten TO cx.
plain, was what is known out West rs
"a cattle-town that novel frontier
village which belongs TO branch OF
commerce, an aspect of life, unknown
elsewhere under the sun. Indeed, il
was not possible even here so recently
as fifteen years ago, when the vast
plains OF the Kansas border were the
sneer of geographers, and their short,
mOss-like grass was supposed TO be little
more than a mimicry in nature, fit only
for fire and frost to sport with and make
ridiculous. But the railroad came
along at length and spanned the desert,
and the nimble-witted Kansan, putting
this and that together, evolved the idea
that pasturage upon which the plenti-
ful buffalo had lived and llourished for
ages, perhaps-certainly ever since 1912,
when the Spanish explorer Coronado
crossed it and saw il populated with the
/" humpbacked oXen,n rs he described
them-might be profitably utilized in
grazing cattle to supply eastern markets.
And so The immense herds roaming half
wild upon the Texan pampas, and there
valued only for their hides and tallow,
were turned in this direction; and the
scorned eXpanse of Kansas prairie from
which the locomotive had but yesterday
frightened the buffalo soon began TO
furnish fat, sleek beeves to New York.
Philadelphia and Boston at the rate of
hundreds of thousands year. In
round numbers, over four million head
have thus been disposed of since 1870,
and more than once the cattle-men Of
Kansas have been able TO dictate prices
as far away as Liverpool.
As a direct outgrowth of this new and
important business, evoked from chaos,
as it were, came the cattle-town--the
conyerging point of the narrow, ram
bling trails to and from the outlying graz
ing grounds, the rendezvous of the drov-
ers and herders, the agreed depot for
the collection, assortment, branding,
sale and shipment of the cattle; and
New Sharon, at the time we saw il, was
chief of its class, and at the ilood-tide Of
its activity and consequence. The town
site had been located less than year
before, il is true; but already the popu-
lation -" counting transients," as the
landlord phrased Numbered rs many
as three thousand, while fully fifty thou
sand cattle were gathered there, await
ing purchasers and transportation and
all that the young city required TO make
her the metropolis Of the Southwest, ("
the landlord assured us, was Il second
railroad and some artesian wells, for dry
weather.
The street along which we strolled,
while making our observations, was
the main one of New Sharon
Grand Avenue, it was named wide,
like the road to Avernus, and side
walked with long, slender, creaking
planks, laid in the perfunctory and un-
certain style of a midnight pontoon.