The Saint Paul globe., 1899-12-18
EFFETE EAST FOOLED
GOLD BRICKED OUT OF SOME
TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS IN
WESTERN KANSAS
IN DAYS OF THE BIG BOOM

"WhiIe the mortgage debt of Kansas
has been reduced, because Of unusual
corn and wheat yields, about $55, 900
during the last three years, over $9O,O0O,-
coo of Eastern capital has been hopelessly
sunk in mortgage and bond loans in
Western Kansas and Nebraska and East
ern Colorado" said former State Audi
tor Scott the other day. For instance,
Cornell University of Ithaca, n. Y, has
recently abandoned so-called farm lands
in Western Kansas, to which 1T obtained
a deed by foreclosure of mortgages, and
has thereby given up hope of ever get
ting back any of the $4,000 1t loaned
there in 1856. I know a savings bank in
Brooklyn that has during the last six
months let go for taxes lands upon
which it once loaned upward OF 100000
and then paid $4,000 more to get deeds
and to keep up annual taxes. Over at
Boyes City a man last month bought
tax title for $4OO to the whole site of
city where twelve years ago some $780,
600 of Connecticut money was spent in
municipal improvements, such as water
works and sewers and electric lights.
In the Northwestern Kansas counties Of
Morton, Seward, Haskell and Meade there
have been abandoned during the last few
years hundreds Of thousands of acres of
land upon which people in New York,
New England, New Jersey and especial
Iy Pennsylvania loaned their money at
the rate of IS and 81 an acre. Ten years
have demonstrated that the region of
the great central plains west of the
II Of fIoa
twenty-eighth parallel can never be
made farms, except in spots. where the
land lies Just right and irrigation is prac-
ticable. The vast area of prairie land
between these parallels never has been
other than grazing land, and in some
years 1t has been mighty poor for even
that. The reckless waste of hard-earned
Eastern capital by unscrupulous mort
gage sharks and land Improvement COM
panies out here has been something
frightfuk Eastern Kansas and Nebraska
are almost ideal for growing cereals,
pork and general farming, but 1t is only
within few years that Eastern money
lenders have been able to discriminate
between the arid and the fertile parts Of
these states.
FREAKS OF FORTUNE.
Probably no region in the United
States has experienced greater vicissi-
tudeS of fortune since 1885 than Western
Kansas. Twelve years ago there were
scores of towns of 1000 to $500 popula-
ton in Western Kansas, with up-to-date
schools and public buildings, that have
entirely withered away. In 1888 and 1889
there were eleven towns of almost 1900
people on the wind-swept plains of West
ern Kansas, and today less than fifty
people remain on the site of any of these
communities. They had all the embel-
Hshments of municipal ways, and each
bade fair to become cities of 5000 and
10000 population before the year 1900
Thousands of men on the plains consid-
cred themselves worth $4,000 and $4,000
twelve years ago, and they had made
their fortunes from a :ew hundred dol
lars in a half dozen years. Some men
were almost milliOnaires on paper. In
the following ten years the greater num-
Der of them have been in direst poverty,
and many of them have subsisted, with
their families, on beggars fare. Now
after long distress and privations that
most people knew nothing Of, these West
ern Kansas settlers are having certain
prosperity in their herds and f1ocks, and
In a precarlous sort Of farming Oh low
and damp lands.
HOW IT STARTED.
There are great many theories as to
how Western Kansas came to have the
most extraordinary real estate boom any
region on the plains ever knew Some
people ascribe it to general speculative
era. Others believe it came from a spirit
of restlessness to invade the West and to
create farms and make cities there SIM
liar to those in Illinois, Missouri and
Iowa. Still others say that the fact that
When Daniel Manning, secretary of the
treasury, paid off some S190, 900, 600 of gov
ernment bonds arid glutted the money
market in 1886 the Eastern people seized
upon Kansas as the best state to invest
the money from the bond payments, and
they thereby created an unnatural de-
mand for real estate securities in what
had been known in all Biographies as the
Great American Desert.
But the commonly accepted opinion
nowadays is that the wonderful corn and
wheat crops Of Kansas and Nebraska in
1885 and 1886, the extensive building of
railroads across the state and the abun-
dance Of money in the Eastern banks
all contributed toward the creation of the
boom of Western Kansas during the lat
ter eighties It happened that et that
time the heaviest rains ever known upon
the arid plains fell three successive
years and the belief went abroad that
the phrase the Great American Desert
was misnomer that the white man had
now conquered the climate, and that lust
as abundant crops might be grown and
as much money made on the CHEAP and
pubic lands OF the plains as in the old
settled and prosperous parts of Kansas.
THE BIG BOOM.
Forthwith the boom in Western Kansas
began Western Nebraska and Eastorn
Colorado had booms in a lesser degree
at the same time From 1885 untfI 1850
the population Of Western Kansas leaned
from about 10000 to over 100000 and over
Sl40,O0O,OOO was dumped in the same coun
try during the same period. The peonIe
out here now speak Of those days as of
@ cream OF money and crazy spectators.
seventeen counties were carved out of
trackless waste In Western Kansas in ono
year, and in four years forty-two new
counties were created on the Western
desert Huddles of shanties and sod
houses, where the Atchison Topeka q
Santa Fe railroad workmen lived along
the transcontinental line, became towns
OF 6OO and zoo population in one year and
then doomed to 1000 and more.
multitude Of towns Of 1,2O0 and / Zoo
people sprang up In two years from the
fact that we'll water and railroad cnm-
mun1cation could be had in them. Little
rude villages Of cowboys, like Dodge
city Garden City, Ness City, Clay and
ingalls,, became busy communities Of
SVVO and even 1900 people in year and
haH. Settlers came in by the tens Of
thousands, and the railroad comnanies
that were already on the ground did an
enormous business. In the month of
June, 1887, over 1900 new farms were nre-
empted under the United States land law
In Ford county, and there were almost
similar reports from the region round