Baxter Springs news. [volume] (Baxter Springs, Kan.) 1882-1919, 1895-01-05
SATURDAY, JANUARY 5.
SOME KANSAS HOLES.

OI SOuuCi StONCt out An
Kansas, is digging hole in the
ground for the same reason that
the "bear went over the mountain,
to see what he could see" brings
editors in dozen Kansas towns to
their feet. with the offer to sell
Council Grove u good second hand
hole in the ground which has never
been used aud to sell at terms to
suit the purchaser. The "hole in
H.. ground industry has rather
lunyuishcd out i'm Kansas during
the last six years. until about
eighteen months ago, when It was
revived in Southern Kansas.
But in the days of the boom,
when everything else was rapidly
oozing through the fingers OF Kan
sas into nothingness. there was
widespread belief that there was
treasure underneath the earth. that
the soil should be left untouched.
while the rocks and waters beneath
should lie stirred to their inner
most depths. So holes went down
everywhere. There was no definite
idea 10 the outcome. No one knew
what hole would bring forth. 1t
might be coal or gas or oil or salt
or mineral water or lead or zinc or
only assessments. But with
heart for any fate" down, down,
down into the center of the earth
went the holes.
Some persistent demon of mis-
fortune seems to hover over these
Kansas holes. They don't seem to
have brought anybody any very
o., cd. The salt holes have become
tangled up with the trusts and
railroads. The oil holes in South
ern Kansas haven't brought down
the price of oil. The Kansas man
twenty miles from the oil hole iu-
bricates the wagon in which his
family rides to see the spouting
wonder with oil brought from
PENNSYLVANIA or Ohio. The natural
gas which comes roaring out OF the
hole at lola 50 that il may be heard
for mile wastes enough every
hour 70 run a great factory tor u
day, vet the omnibus and carriage
works" on the outskirts OF the little
town lie idle for weeks, and the
marble hole which five years ago
was animate with the sound OF
chiscl and saw is silent like the
CITY of the dead. Many of the coal
holes further south in Kansas are
idle. Yet far out in western Kan
sas people are moving from the
country because of the scarcity OF
fuel. even while their artesian wells
sends forth ice cold water from one
days end to days end.
These are the active operating
holes. But scattered from one END
of the state TO the other are the for
lorn wrecks of holes which failed;
gas wells that spouted for little
day and "petered OUT oil wells
that gushed a few enthusiastic CUR
giles and ceased, salt wells which
emitted a little brackish water that
only lacked fraction of a per cent
of having enough salt to pay for
the pumping, artesian wells that
do not flow, coal holes that have
been deserted and hundreds and
hundreds of holes, each covered
with a few boards, or rusting
drill, among the horse weeds ana
sunflowers on the outskirts OF some
dingy village, desolate, fairly
grooming in despair as the high
winds wrestle with the shaky gear
ing or the dying stalks of iastyearf
vagrant vegetation. These are the
holes of Kansas which make the
Kansas editor jibe and jcer at other
towns where other holes are going
down. These are the holes which
represent thousands of dollars
worth of capital, which stand for
assessments and assessments
each one sapping a little vitality
from hope until the drill chugged
its last hopeless, heart-sick, weary
chug and rose TO thump at the old
earth's crust no more. For hall q
decade Kansas has been paying FOL
these holes and other financial Jolly
almost as profitless and twice al
crazy in inspiration. To-day she u
coming out of the kinks. She vii
he able to smile at her old infatu
alton for the Will o. the Wisp
Some day, and that day is not Ia
distant. Kansas will see that he
treasure lies not in riches beneath
the earth, but in its soil itseii
Then will the Kansas soil, enriched
by brains and courage, yield ten tai
ents where the holes in the groun'
have been yielding one. Kansas
an above ground state and nothing
can ever change her destiny.-kar
sas City Star.
You make no mistake when yon tAS
Dewlu's Little Early Risers for biliou
ness, dyspepsia or headache. because the'
little pills cure them heFadden q Enc
That snow Tuesday night wa
-. that the wheat needed. Every