Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-09-24
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,l4 square miles, sufficient for 1855
farms of 100 acres each. 1t has a population of
5000; taxable wealth, $3,50O.000 divided into
lands, $2,200,00O, town lots, 5000 personal
property, 100000, railroad property, 100000.
Property is assessed at 1913 per cent. of its real
value so the actual wealth of the county ex-
ceeds 100000. The county was settled and
organized in 1873; it has never had a county
seat contest or other internal war. 1t has 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, i'll the center of the richest ag-
ricuitural 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. Mingona, Deer
head, Hardtner, Elm Mills and Isabel. The
county has three lines of railroad: Tue Santa
Fe, running to Hazelton. Kiowa, Sharon and
Medicine Lodge; the Missouri Pacific, going to
Hazelton and Kiowa, and the Mulyane 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 never-failing
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 combination for stock
raising which has made the county wealthy.
| Most of the soil is what is known as "mulatto
I soil; it is very deep, impregnated with gypsum
! and sand; never bakes, is easily titled, and
| responds with wonderful productiveness, any
I grain, grass, vegetable or fruit ever yet planted
| maturing. The rough land is covered with rich
buffalo and other native grasses affording I'M
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, "a. bush
els 10 the acre. while many fields went as high
as 80 bushels; corn averaged Is bushels. and Is
bushels was frequent crop; oats yield from
40 to 70 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 five
! crops are cut each season. The county has
raised good cotton and there is gin at the
county seat. It's sorghum sugar industry IL
now known to the world. The sugarworks a
Medicine Lodge, started late in 1889, produced
over half a million pounds of sorghum sugar
and from beets grown on four acres made
10000 pounds of beet sugar. The works are be
ing enlarged, 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 viii
realize double this on the sugar beets they
plant. The county has about 100 organized
school districts and 20 school houses. those a,
Kiowa, HazeIton and Medicine Lodge being
| large. brick modern buildings. heated by
: | steam. There are churches or church organiza
tons in every town, city or neighborhood. Tho
immense gypsum deposits are being utilized
by cement and plaster mandatory at tn
county seat that will ship out from three t
fIve car loads of manufactured product, daily
There deposits, OF mRrble, several color
IN the western part of the county that hay
bes II worked The county has two successful
creameries, one at Hazelton and one at Med
cine Lodge; two large Touring mills, one q
: Hazelton. one at Elm Mills; five newspapers
the Index and CresSet at Medicine Lodge
Herald and Journal, at Kiowa and Express. a
q Hazeiton. The county has the best natur 9
roads in Kansas. Land is worth from 50 to &
| per acre. Stock needs feeding but 3 months j
? the year. The farmer can usually pillow wit
his coat OF 500 days in the year There al
more sunny days than in any country, Sunni
Italy not excepted.