The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1901-08-21
RIVER HAS RUN DRY
Big Arkansas Can Be Crossed
With a Step.
FISHES HAVE NO WATER
And Are Caught in Pools by
Little Boys.
FISHES HAVE NO WATER

SHS was q sSoU O4a river spNr she
has done run dry"
That is what man with pitchfork
said yesterday TO an Eagle reporter. He
came down from Seventeenth street. lie
had heard that the water was SO shallow
up there that he could spear catfish. That
was why he carried the pitchfork. He
had no fish. He was simply mistaken in
localities. Below the confluence OF the
two rivers is where the fishes were easy.
The poor unfortunate channel cats could
not find enough water to cover their ma
kedness and boys caught them without
/ a struggle.
For the first time probably in all his
tory a man could step across the A1l1an-
sas river below the Douglas avenue
bridge without wetting his shoes. One
hundred feet below the Maple street
| bridge the stream is % inches wide. By
actual measurement and not more than
an inch deep. A few hundred feet below
that the current runs into a sandbar and
disappears. A bride could cross there
without wetting her slipper. For 90 or &C
feet there is no surface water, but the
lost current comes from the sand again
like a spring and winds Ike the tran CT
a serpent.
Anything stripped OF power is a sorry
sight. but the departed greatness OF the
poor old 'Arkansaw'' makes a pathetic
scene. Finlay Ross almost wept for it.
He watched its tiny little current yester-
day fighting the absorbant sand for the
maintenance Of its identity. 1T is awful
to think Of it," said the ex-nayor. But
remember well the day Colonel Hutchin-
son tried to sell me the land on the south
side Of the east end of the Douglas av-
eune bridge for a steamboat landing.
What changes time brings! The Colonel
argued 10 me that unless a drawbridge
was put in boats could never pass the
Douglas avenue bridge, and hence they
would have to find anchorage as near
Douglas avenue as possible. He said that |
a good wharf there some day would 4
make a man independently rich. I would !
give anything if 7 could find Colonel /
Hutchinson this afternoon, so I could take /
him down and show him that poor old 4
river-he would have to use a telescope /
to see itfrom the place he wanted to
sell me as a location for a wharf.
"We1 I remember more than quarter
of a century ago" continued Mr.. Ross,
when we used to come up from Anadar-
ko after freight how we used 70 make
inquiries aboSt the condition Of the river
at Wichita how soon we could cross IL
and so forth. Many times freighters had
to stay on the west side for week be-
fore they could take chances with the
current. Who would think then that he
could cross the river in 80 years without
even a pretense Of a jump?
YES" said Mr.. Ross, And I came
very near getting drowned in that river
once. A lot OF us young fellows set out
from the Douglas avenue landing in a
boat. Our destination was oxford We
had to anchor down near Mulvane, be-
cause of a treacherous place near by.
It was in the night time and If We had
gone 100 yards further there was great
danger of a wreck"
The time was when herds Of cattle
buneted the waves and the current where
the Douglas avenue bridge now is, and
many Of them were known to have been
lost.
There is a big difference between the
river Of today and the river Of 20 years
dERr WNt4 1O4bllEl ~ ~ ~ S~4A 1890
in 1t the inspiration for his poem The
Nile Of America at Sunset" Singing Of
the river, he said:
A vast and lonely reach Of boundless yet
whose wind swept swells rolled wide in
mute immensely,
Lies this sombrous sweep. rhythm OF
Trustful, silent and treeless.
Held meath winters gray gloom, a pen
Loosed BY sgmmer's bright bloom. a
For ave. to al. dumb absorbing entity.
Sheer, tense, nude and limitless
Tears Of q deserts dirge cleaning mid
A turbid tide from the realms OF the
A trailing woe blindly coursing the great
From out encircIing vastness.
How different now. The vastness still
it. but the turbid tide Of Toll
tees dream is gone. The pensive. I'M
vexed sea IS no more. il has followed ,
the buffalo and the Indian that bathed
IN its sombrous sweep when IL was sheer,
tense. nude and Imitless. The poem VIII !
I've longer than that which inspired Il.
llthough the poet. perhaps. did not TANK
SO when he wrote the lines
The Arkansas river went dry once BE-
fore. within the memory o. citizens SIN
iving 81 wichita, bit not below the
bridge Tho Little river. fe3 ~ springs.
has always managed 10 slsize its thirst.
In iss1 r r. Murdoch. business manager
= The Eagle. crossed az about Twenty
lrst street when there vas no running
water 81 H. u little pools 81 IRE Tas;ress {
II the sands be caught ash Eith rs Z
hands. fish hait dead for want of water. (
about the same year william MztheEsou :
raveied along its banks northvard ard
westward Tor more than 70 miles. he
-vers that there was rot drop q SUI
ace water IN g. Ibur th1t fre ghtsrs !
we're able 10 set plenty r Vatsr ~ Gig .
-lr- q foos or Two ir-o the sard-
one ~ tho reasons why there ir Drarti-
ally 20 water IN the r4ver Is that are
.undlng q ths Lite riTs- cam ether
prevents & frl-z Eowi1s doEa ~ Divers
I into CHISHOLM creek Tie B.s rirsr
nav rsver aEain SO 9 t-ra.d 7l5e. BIT
. VII have water e. u after g good raln 4
u two.
70 Save Her Child
from frsShtfsi 6iEdg.re-1e-t M-z- Nan
.le Gauerer. q "a Gra7ge. Ca applied
5ucEleu.z A-ulca salve ~ graf sores o.