The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-11-21
WESTERN KANSAS HEROES.
TEE BRAVE FI0HT MADE M SET
tt IN THE ARID ION.
Dooua Timen when N1iiiions OF Eastern Capital
Were Bent on Kansas Fnrm Mortgage
The Rapid Coiiapse-Hnrdahips tiarne by
the Rnrnilles That kcpt ZIP the sirnxRle.

Were Bent on Kansas Farm Mortgage
The Rapid Collapse Hnrdships torne by
the Families That kcpi Up the Struggle.
MCPHERSON, Kan, Nov. 2O.-Nnturully tho
unusual liquidation of Kansas farm mort
Rages and tho first feeling OF prosperity there
has beon among the settlers in western and
central Kansas for a decade have brought out
"reminiscences OF the glorious away.up period
Of this region in tho latter eighties. and the
frightful awny.down period that began in 1850
and continued until this year. No chapter in
american history, perhaps, shows vicissitudCs
10 extraordinary In a time OF peace as that
which concerns the Kansas farmers for the last
dozen years.
IN the six years previous to 1883 about
$3.50, 10000 o was lent by Eastern people on
Kansas rcal estate, and the rise in land values
was marvellous. A multitude of people in tho
State leaped from poverty to riches. Then
came successive disasters to tho crops. and
persons who had been independently rich be.
camo poorer than ever. Caravans of prairie
schooners bearing families that had been lit
orally starved out proceeded day after day and
month after month out Of the State. Farms
that had been mortgaged for more.than 100000.
600 were abandoned by both mortgagor and
mortgage, while tho owners of other farms
that bore in the aggregate a mortgage debt Of
moro than S40.O 00, 900 defaulted interest pay
menus IOT u nuI uODcn years. NnOle tOWuS
withered away, and bats and birds occupied
now $40. 900 structures. No people in America
probably ever fought poverty and distress more
ceaselessly and valiantly than the settlers who
stayed in their lonely settlements in western
Kansas. and the story OF some Of them since
the first total loss Of crops in 1890 is most
pathetic. Gen. Nelson A. Miles wrote n few
years ago that the poor farmers and families
who lived in shanties and dugouts on the Great
American Desert of the West were as nearly
heroic as any characters in history.
The era OF prodigality began in Kansas in the
spring of 1884. and reached its climax in tho
fall of 1887. The spring and summer seasons
of 1883 and 1884 were most favorable for the
grain crops of tho State. Wheat was worth
more. than q dollar a bushel, and corn ranged
above 80 cents. Kansas had.never grown more
of them, either. at that time. The farmers who
bought land cheap were wild with delight. A
majority of them paid for their farms with one
years sale of grain. and had money in the
bank, too. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe
Railroad Company, then the only railroad
through the State, was weeks behind in trans.
porting the crops to market, and never did
such q business before. Hundreds of mon got
G5, 900 on their wheat yields on 160 acres.
The fame of the Kansas cheap, fertile acres
went abroad, and farmers wrote to their East
ern friends how much money they were maxi
ing. In 1884 began in Kansas the most won
derful boom known in any Western region.
The boom in Dakota in 1880 and 1881 and
the boom in Texas in. 1S77 and 1878 are not to
be compared with that Of Kansas. More than
10000 people moved into Kansas between
March, 1885. and March, 1886, and more than
200, 900 moro moved there in the next year.
The agricultural journals were full Of Kansas
and her crops. The mushroom growth Of
mining towns is proverbial, but they are always
composed at first Of rude stores and saloons
and shanties and tents. In Kansas towns Of
5000 population. with avenues Of residences
and long business streets lined by brick and
stone stores, grew in two years. Wichita.
Newton. Hutchinson, Peabody, and Salina grew
from hamlets of about 200 population to cities
Of brick, stone, plate glass and modern
improvements and 10000 population in three
years. Seven railroads were built in the State
with all speed and at an expense OF millions
In 1885 and 1886 there happened to be sufi.
vest western Kansas. and the enormous Incoming
population moved out on the plains. The farm.
in the desert, the planting of cottonwood trees.
and the cultivation OF the soil, and other works
Of encroaching, civilization had conquered
Haven't the last two crops in western Kan,
sas demonstrated that man can, even make the
desert fruitful And what's the use of pay
ing fancy prices for eastern Kansas land, when
we can get just as good for a song from Uncle
So more than 5000 men, with their families.
went to carving out quarter-section farms of
treeless and fcnceless buffaio range through
all time. People in eastern and central kan
II by magic. but that was nothing to the
growth of towns, in western Kansas in 1856
sor a l month t or tTo T dia n %en know Swt their alo growing wing
from 1000 to 10000 in fourteen months.
Garden City grew from a mere railroad station
and water tank to 5000 population in q year.
Coolidge leaped from absolutely nothing to
johnson City, Meade, Lakin, Coldwater and
HartIand each went from a population of o
dozen to more than 5000 in about u year, and
there were more than seventy towns OF 800
and 1000 population that grew from nothing
on the broad hat plains in a little more than =
out in western Kansas in 1856 and 1887, and
more than 600 Post Offices were established
Sharon Share; T Fillmore, ni Ingalls, SOW" siio@ Ss sy Kondsil
and Richfeld started up and reached full
selling at $40 a head in western Kansas and
wool was away, up. Common mechanics got
sor tRe ana raii RI e aa y, 81 a eSS sy anyhow SSai II there there
was no other job in sight. -.
,n Such 2 state M of affairs Mn6 S 6Hxe a b spipit t Gd wlld
boom periods in Michigan. Minnesota. Texas
and CALIFORNIA PI say they nave meyer seen
ern Kansas; Speculation was in the air. and
and farm lands took hold Of men and women
alike. Then it was that the loan and invest
ment companies that operated with eastern
capital fiourished. Every county and almost
> every town in Kansas had a loan and invest
ment company of come sort. There w cre a
dozen Farmers Mutual Benefit Loan Com.
panies, and a long string OF accidental, North
American and providcnt investment corpora
tions. Their most fruitful fields for getting
money to lend WAS in New England, New York
and snYdoT PeH1RR sy anna S The o sGS%n n1S records 1sr shq nv
New England people TO krnsans in 1886 and
1887. and that New York city and Brooklyn
sent fully IS, 900 to the kansuns loan and
Investment companies to be lent on farms and
other real estate in the boom years.. Minis
ters, school teachers, merchants and lawyers
paid premiums to get Kansas loans. Alto
gether nearly $3.50. 900, 900 was lent in Kansas
In six years before the end of the boom.
1t is marvellous, looking back at those days
20 sec now easily people of small means all over
New England and New York let their hard
earned money go out to unknown men in Kan
" tas TO be lent on farm lands and building blocks
Barely one person in ten had ever been TO Kan
sas or know anything about tho property upoT
which his money was being lent. There seemed
In ha "a MACMILLAN mari, in an nnuu1 ann