The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-03-01
CONQUERING A DESERT
The Drought Area Has Moved to
the Colorado Line.
The Story OF "Dry Years. in Kansas-Last
Year Was the Driest of Twenty-Five
Every Seventh Year Has Been
"AId" Year.

Man is a rowing, migratory animal
but since he has been writing history
he has been rowing westward. The
races that have conquered the world
and ruled it have had their faces to
ward the setting sun. This instinct tC
go west pushed Columbus across the
Atlantic. It pushed the Pilgrims into
a wilderness more fierce and barren
than had been subjugated in thou
sand years 1t pushed the pioneers
across the Alleghanies and on and on
little by little, day by day, until they
came to the Great American desert,
forty years ago. In the rush of the
race westward, not every hill and dale
has been conquered. Not every wild
erness has been brought under the
plow. Back in Massachusetts, there is
a wOod-the Douglass wood" miles
through, that has never been reduced
to civilization. West Virginia still has
thousands of acres of land that has not
felt the tooth of a harrow. There are
men living in the Alleghanies who are
enduring the hardships of pioneers,
as their fathers did before
them. The cushions of civiliza-
ton have not upholstered the hills
of Kentucky, nor the Tennessee
mountains. There are bare places all
along the line of march in America.
There ars other places, worn out and
growing bald-tried and found want
ing. There are hundreds of townships
in Vermont and Massachusetts, that
have lost population every year since
the war of 1872. All this is to show
that the conquest of Kansas, which
paused for few moments, while a hot
wind swept over the west fifth of the
state, is by no means hopeless.
When the vanguard of civilization
reached Kansas it found country as
forbidding as any that has greeted a
traveller since the pilgrims came ashore
from the Mayfiower. Forty years ago
. trading post was started far beyond
the call of the steam engine at Marys-
vile in country that is now in the
heart of eastern Kansas.
That country to-day does not know
what crop failure is. The Blue river,
which is fed by hundred streams,
ten thousand corn fields. On every
section of land there is a spring or a
stream of running water. And yet
forty years ago the teamsters starting
for that trading post with their freight
always filled barrels and casks and
kegs with Missouri river water to in
sure against dying of thirst upon the
trip. That was not in a dry year, but
every year. There was no water in
the country. The rain fell upon the
hard, bare ground and ran off in floods.
To cross a ravine, which three hours
before a rain was dry and dusty, one
hour after the rain had begun to fall,
was dangerous. The water rolled
down in sheets. The great rivers
gathered it in and flooded even the
''uplands"
Some one in the early SOS brought a
pillow across the Missouri river. 1t has
done the work. The pillow pushed up
and down the bottoms" along by the
little streams, and the water tarried in
the burrows. The pillow pushed further
and further from the banks The floods
came, and more and more of the water
remained upon the land as the furrow
grew wider and longer and deeper. 1t
was a fearful struggle. But a great
contest arose about a principle; people
began rushing into Kansas. They
brought plows as well as guns. And
the pillow pushed further and further
from running water. Every year was
a hand to hand struggle with the water
that would not stay and work, but in
sisted upon running away to the big
river and the sea. Then there came a
year of drought 1t was a year Of
drought for Illinois, for Ohio, for Iowa.
But it did not cause suffering there.
The army which was quartersd in
those states was prepared for it. There
was corn in the crib, and wheat in the
bin. But out in the desert-out in
Kansas-the army was fighting its best.
There had been no time, no opportu-
nifty to lay up anything. Every kernel
of wheat and corn was needed.
There was no money in the bank, be-
cause every cent that could be earned
was spent for plows and houses, and
fences, which had long ago been paid
the drought came there was a famine.
The eastern counties of Kansas where
the settlers were huddled along the
streams, and in little towns were
stricken heavily, and the wanderers
further out on the desert, as far out as
Usage City, one hundred miles from the
Missouri, were almost compelled to
turn back. Nearly million pounds of
food and fuel and clothing were sent
tory in that year. The old Bean
house." from which Mr.. Pomeroy-
afterwards senator-distributed relief
to the stricken people, still stands in
Topeka. In Atchison, in Leavenworth,
even in St. Joseph, laid" rooms were
established that the people might come
and receive provisions to keep them
from starving. The restitution was
right a=CzSd these towns. The people |
came to the laid rooms" on foot and on
horse back. The first railroad had only
been pushed a few miles into the set
Element Other communities where
the people had been saving for the
drought for generations, were liberal
with the young state, and the season |
of hardship passed
Then there were seven fat years. |
The plows kept coming into Kansas |
and going deeper into the rich, dry |
soil and damming the water. The set |
Element extended from Usage City to
Emporia and Junction City and lola |
There was a fringe of settlers on be- |
yond this, but a line drawn from |
Junction City north and south to the |