Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1895-02-28
CONQUERING A DESERT
The Drought Area Has Moved to
the Colorado Line.
The Story of "Dry Years. In Hsnsas-Last
Year Was the Driest OF Twenty-Five
Every Seventh Year Has Been
HAid" Year.

but since he has been writing history
ne 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 to
go west pushed Columbus across the
Atlantic. It pushed the Pilgrims into
a wilderness more fierce and barren
than had been subjugated in a thou
sand years It 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
pillow. Back in Massachusetts, there is
a wood-the Douglass wood" miles
through, that has never been reduced
20 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
mountains. There are bare places all
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 momen is, 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 a country as
forbidding as any that has greeted a.
traveller since the pilgrims came ashore
FROM the Mayfower. Forty years ago
n 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,
turns a dozen mills and is bordered by
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 filed barrels and casks and
Kegs with Missouri river water to in
so0fC dS dlASO OyIHS O1 CIilrSG upon Gu0
trip. That was not in a dry year, but
every year. There was no water in
the country. The rain fell upon the
lhard, bare ground and ran off in foods.
Some one in the early sos brought a
pillow across the Missouri river. 1t has
done the work. The plow pushed up
aud 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. It
was a fearful struggle. But a great
contest arose about a principles; people
t6egan rushing into Kansas. They
brought plows as we'll as guns. And
the pillow pushed further and further
from running water.
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
Cor in the older communities. So when
the drought came there was famine.
The eastern counties of Kansas where
7She settlers were huddled along the
streams, and in little towns were
stricken heavily, and the wanderers
EurGner OUT on Che desert, as Tar out as
Usage City, one hundred miles from the
Missouri, were almost compelled to
-Gurn back. Nearly million pounds of
food and fuel and clothing were sent
TO these poor people of Kansas terri
tory in that year. The old ''Bean
house." from which Mr.. Pomeroy-
afterwards Observation-Disclosures 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 around these towns.
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
state lir.es would fence in most of the
population of Kansas. In the year 1867,
according to Wilder's Annals, there
sxvaS q local visitation of grasshoppers,
aoat the state was strong enough to
Mght them off. Here and there relief
<xaS needed. But the neighbors organ
lied themselves into local boards of
charity and everything necessary was
done. In the meantime the eastern