The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1901-08-25
III HAS 4 HISTORY.
Garden City, the Capital of
Short Grass Country.
is RISING TO IMPOR TANC E
Buffalo" Jones Responsible
for Starting of Western Town

Special Correspondence Of the Eagle.
Garden City, Kan, Aug. 24.-The history
of Garden City which divides with Dodge
City the honors of being the capital Of
the shortgrass kingdom, is interesting.
Columns on columns might be written Of
the place. From its humble beginning
in the latter SOS to its opulent and ex-
citing boomdays; from then to the dark
days of depression; down to the present,
when Garden City has again risen to i'm
portance-there are few Kansas towns
which possess such history.
Garden City came into existence prac-
| ticaIIy in 1879. It's father was c. J..
| Jones-"Buffalo" Jones. The Santa Fe
was determined to make q town out of
! Sherlock, 6 miles west. The road would
not stop it's trains at Garden City. No
! tickets were sold there. No mail was
| thrown off. Jones ana his fellow-boom-
ers of Garden City finally interested
I George r. Peck, then Kansas attorney
for the Santa Fe and the Santa Fe
began TO treat the new town better. Be-
4 SlQe6 Jones Two OL4ltt IL III oLcliAA DAN
! conspicuous in Garden Citys early his
tory They are William Fulton and his
son-in-law, John Stevens. Fulton owned
quarter section to the east of what is
now Main street. Stevens hau a quarter
along the north end of the present town
site. Jones owned on the west of Fulton
and south and west of Stevens. Fulton
disposed Of his quarter to the Arkansas
Valley Land and Town company. This
left Jones and Stevens competing, and
warfare began at once. This was about
1888.
The town did not at first build UP from
the station, but was carried north a quar-
ter of a mile by the -ones-Steyens fight.
Main street, if run far enough north
would make Stevens land valuable, but
not benefit Jones. For this reason, Jones
| through straw men, bought up at quite
a reasonable figure number of lots on
Stevens possessions and then conceived
a scheme TO divert the encroaching bust
ness center of town to his own land to
the west by building on the lots his men
had purchased from Stevens a diagonal
street called Grant avenue. BY this
means, he more or less SUCCESSFULLY ran
the main part of town over on his land
and profited much thereby. He built
on Grant avenue a fine business block
the Buffalo block-at a cost of $4,000, and
many more buildings.
Meanwhile, Stevens was not in active,
real estate and law firm, prominent
in those days. was that of Myton and
Holmes. 1t backed Stevens. It persuaded
him he was gone, if he did not fight
Jones with the latters own weapons. So
Stevens started in the building business
himself He erected the fine hotel and
opera house block on North Main at a
cost of So, 600. He built others. Merry
rivalry existed. Jones would put up a
fine building and Stevens would follow
suit. This accounts for the fine, well con-
structed and admirably preserved bust
ness blocks now in Garden City. Later
prosperous days have utilized all these
Buildings.
Fearing that Stevens would get the best
IF him after all, Jones built a court
house and with a block of land set with
trees, presented it to the county. Stew
ems. not to be outdone, gave a block on
his land to the city for a park Later,
Jones took back his gift and mortgaged
it: Stevens stood by his.
SO it went for years. Finally, Garden
City got a good start, fine buildings, much
business and the inevitable boom. Things
went mountain high and then collapsed.
When the burst come. Jones and Stevens
both were caught and then forgotten.
jones stayed with the company until the
emily eos when he went to Oklahoma,
later UP north in the British possessions
and then to Topeka and the Populist
party. Stevens is yet here. He paid
his debts as best he could: went into the
cattle business; made some money and
IS now reasonably prosperous. Fulton
is here yet. Thus the history of the
three men who made Garden City good
place to live in.