Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-03-19
BARBER COUNTY.

prepared for the State Board of Immigration
Located in the center of the southern tier of
counties, adjoining the Indian Territory. Con-
tains 1,134 square miles, sufficient for I, $50
farms of 160 acres each. 1t has population of
$500; taxable wealth, $350O,G00. divided into
lands, 900, town lots, 100000, personal
property, 100000, railroad property. S300,000
Property is assessed at 1915 per cent. of its real
value, so the actual wealth of the county ex-
ceeds $10000,000. The county was settled and
organized in 1873; it has never had county
seat confession other internal war. Ithas never
asked for and has never needed one dollar of
outside aid; has never had crop failure. 1t
has Is municipal townships and incorporated
cities, these being Medicine Lodge, the county
seat Kiowa, the gateway to the Cherokee
Strip; Hazelton in the center of the richest ag-
rioultural belt Sharon, 10 miles east of the
county seat in the rich Sharon valley. These
towns are all prosperous with churches
schools, and good society. Other smaller towns
are Lake City, Sun City. Aetna, Mingnna Deer
head, Hardtner, Elm Mills and Isabel The
county has three lines of railroad: The Santa
re. running to Hazelton, Kiowa Sharon and
Medicine Lodge; the Missouri Pacific, going to
Hazelton and Kiowa, and the Muly ane extern
sion of the Santa Fe. running through the nor
thern part of the county. The county is the
best watered of any in Kansas, its neverfailing
streams being supplied by cool springs of pure
water. Most of the streams are skirted by
timber and from each reaches out broad second
bottoms, rich as those beside the Nile. The
eastern half of the county is comparatively
level, gently rolling land; the western half is
more broken, forming a combination for stock
raising which has made the county wealthy,
Of IL
soil; it is very deep, impregnatcd with gypsum
and sand; never bakes, is easily titled, and
responds with wonderful productiveness, any
grain, grass, vegetable or fruit ever yet planted
maturing. The rough land is covered with rich
buffalo and other natIYe grasses, affording un
surpassed grazing for stock. The county is
free-range, the only one in this part of Kansas
that is. This feature permits the farmer to
handle stock without great outlay of money
for fencing. There was marketed last year. live
| stock raised in Barber county amounting to
more than half million dollars The wheat
| crop in 1889 averaged, in the county, 24J6 bush
| els to the acre, while many fields went as high
| as 90 bushels; corn averaged As bushels ana T5
| bushels was frequent crop; oats yield from
| 40 to 10 bushels; millet from To TONS Prai-
RE hay is plentiful everywhere and free as
water, though many farms are being provided
with alfalfa from which three and even ave
crops are cut each season. The county has
raised good cotton and there is gin at the
county seat. It's sorghum sugar industry is
now known to the world. The sugarworks at
| Medicine Lodge, started late in 1882 produced
over half million pounds of sorghum sugar.
and from heets grown on fouT acres made
| 10000 pounds of beet sugar. The works are be.
ing enlarged. a refinery put in. and this season
| they expect TO manufacture four million
pounds of beet and sorghum sugar. Farmers
who raised sorghum for the mill realized from
| $50 to $50 per acre for their labor; they win
| realize double this on the sugar beets they
plant. The county has about 100 organized
school districts and 20 school houses, those at
Kiowa, Hazelton and Medicine Lodge being
| large, brick, modern buildings. heated by
| steam. There are churches or church organiza-
tons in every town, city or neighborhood The
| immense gypsum deposits are being utilized
! by cement and plaster mandatory at the
county seat that will ship ont from three to
five car loads of manufactured product, daily.
There are deposits, of marble, several colors.
| in the western part of the county that have
been worked. The county has two successful
| creameries, one at Hazelton and one at Medi-
! cine Lodge: two large Touring mills one Al
| Hazeiton, one at Elm Mills; FIVE newspapers.
the Index and Cresset, at Medicine Lodge:
| Herald and Journal, at Kiowa and Express. at
Hazslton. The county has the best natural
roads IN Kansas. Land is worth from 50 to $50
per acre. Stock needs feeding but months in,
the year. The farmer can usually pillow with
his coat on 400 days In the year. There are
more sunny days than in any country, sunny
Italy not excepted.