The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1891-07-30
Kansas City to Los Angeles.
Tuesday, June 50.

and the cool hours of the morning
finds US in Kansas City. Kansas
City is peculiarly the gateway of the
West. Through its Union depot the
waste beyond has been peopled and
now sends back its hundreds of
thousands of bushels of wheat and
corn. When we arrive it is pan
demonium. A vast throng with rep
resentatives of almost every nation
aIity moves up and down, some in
heavy overcoats and wraps. others in
linen busters, showing widely differ
ent ideas of climate of the localities
from which they come. Some faces
show WEAKNESS, but most anxiety.
Perhaps the greater part are going
West to find homes and will never
return. Yet tomorrow at the same
hour we would see the same hurry
ing, anxious throng, though not one
of the crowd of yesterday.
We can not see much of the city
only that it is a place of steep as
cents and precipitous blufs. Some
of the streets are cut through high
banks of clay. Cows here may fall
out of their pastures and break their
necks. Kansas City is the begin
ming of one of the great Indian
'trails," and for much of the way,
and wherever the railway crosses the
mountains, we shall follow it. We
find the Missouri very high and
parts of the town and surrounding
country are flooded, but our track is
dry, We are now in Kansas-the
heart of the "Great American Des-
ert" of our old biographies, but now
a tract of corn and wheat fields SO
fertile that its soil would be fer
tilizer anywhere in New England.
SO much for tree planting and irri-
cation Kansas is all level prai-
rie. Very little of its surface ever
had a growth of timber. 1t was
once said that trees wouldn't grow
in Kansas, that God didn't attend
they should, or He would have
planted them. Happily all did not
accept this pious conclusion. They
planted trees, and the trees not only
grew, but grew better than else
where.
Kansas has no hills,-much less
mountains, and there is said to ben
swamp within its boundaries. This
is State of pretty towns and they
seem the prettier as we approach the
middle of the "desert" " School
houses are usually prominent build
ings, showing interest in education.
One feature of the East will be
missed. There are no saloons.
A little before noon we reach Law
renee, a town of trees and fine build
ings, and sometimes called tic
"Athens of America. The State
University is here, beautiful build
ing GROWING hill west Of the city
and visible for many miles. The
town was twice burned, once in
1856, during the "Kansas struggle"
and again in 1868 by rebel guerrillas
who surprised and burned the pla e
and massacred most of the male in
habitants. 1t was the capital of the
Free State side.
Our next stop is at Lecompt n,
the erstwhile pro-slavery CAP ital, but
now a country hamlet overgrowa
with weeds and in appearance as an-
Cient and ruinous as Thebes. There
still remain, however, the ruins Of a
capitol whose walls never rose above
the basement, and of a Jail where
yankees" were confined for "high
political crimes" Near this place it
was that John Brown began his
career.
About one o'clock we reach To-
peka, the capital, and stop twenty
minutes for dinner at one of the
"Santa Fe eating houses" The
meal is very good, but too hurried
for satisfaction and most prefer TO
carry their own lunches. ''Six bits, -
or seventy five cents is rather too
much for a twenty-five cent meal
and most of US are only we'll to-do-
three of us school teachers.
We are now beginning the long
ascent which ends in the Rockies.
We pass the Usage coal-felds just
south of Topeka, and in the middle
of the afternoon reach Emporia, one
of the prettiest cities of Kansas, re-
puted also the wealthiest per capita
Far up wide. shady avenue, we
catch glimpse of the State Normal
School. We are now in the richest
agricultural region of the West, yet
4 soil which few years ago grew
only short, wiry grass that looked
like dead moss. Now we are whirled
into body of timber larger thar
any other between the Missouri and
the Rocky Mountains. We reach
Newton, another eating station
about six o'clock,-a place which
once had very hard name, but now