The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-12-15
Commissioners Want 1t Located
Nearer Topeka.
Now Five Miles Away on North
Side.
THE COUNTY HOSPITAL
So Far Away as to Be Of Little
Use.
Finding of Oil or Gas Would
Solve the Problem.

If the county commissioners can dis
pose of the poor farm or strike oil or
gas on it and thereby raise sufficient
money they will buy a new location
and establish a new county farm nearer
the city. The present poor farm is al
most five miles north of Topeka.
| One of the plans of the commissioners
is to prospect for oil and gas on the
county farm, as was announced ex-
clusively in the State Journal last Fri
day. The poor farm is located in the
same range of hills that Bonner Springs
is and gas has been found in great
quantity at the springs.
The county poor farm is too far from
town to be convenient for all purposes
and 1T is not a farm that can be made
productive as a county farm. The land
is billy and well adapted for farming
by a regular farmer but is not well
adapted to the uses of the county.
Some months ago the commissioners
mad a chance to buy $50 acre farm in
the kansas river bottom lands within
three-quarters of a mile of North To-
peka. The price for the land was $50
an acre. The commissioners tried to
sell the poor farm. Finally an offer of
close to one hundred dollars an acre
for the poor farm was made the COM
missioners but by that time the bottom
sioners decided not to sell the poor farm
as nothing else of a suitable nature
was offered.
The county poor farm provides the
only county hospital. There is a hos
pital building on the farm and the sick
and injured cared for by the county
are taken there. AS the farm is six
miles from town the journey for the
feeble or injured, over hilly roads, is
severe. Poor Commissioner Hale. whose
duty it is to take the sick to the county
poor farm, says the journey is a most
trying one and that it is also incon-
Venient when medical assistance is
needed at once at the poor farm on ac-
count of the distance.
The commissioners have not felt that
1t would be good bargain to sell the
poor farm and buy another farm
closer to town if the change would
mean any great expense to come out
OF the county poor fund and the ex-
pense would be considerable as a new
farm would necessarily have to be
equipped with new buildings
If the commissioners can dispose of
the poor farm for a price sufficient to
pay for new farm and for new
buildings they will sell the poor farm,
buy 100 or 160 acres in the Kansas
river bottom closer to town and equip
the new farm with new, modern build
ings, better hospital facilities and
build up a thoroughly modern county
poor farm with a county hospital in
connection. There are now about SO
inmates at the poor farm.
The commissioners have seriously
considered the plan of boring for oil,
gas, coal or artesfan water on the poor
farm. The principal object would be
gas, but if oil was found or coal it
would make the poor farm par
tcularly valuable and the commission
ers could sell the farm in all prob
ability for enough to buy new loca-
ton and erect a full complement of
poor farm buildings.
The cost of sinking the prospect
hole 1000 feet would be about $4,000.
The cost would be paid by the county
1t is known that the poor farm is un-
derlaid with coal. An eight inch
vein crops out in the hills close to the
poor farm. This eight inch~ vein is
close to the surface but there may be
thicker and valuab vein below that
If the commissioners can find coal oil
or gas they can either mine the coal
themselves, sell the gas or oil or sell
the poor farm.
Further than this if the commits
sioners found coal, or oil or gas under
the poor farm it will establish the fact
that Shawnee county is in a gas or oil
field and other prospect holes would
be sunk and the much sought gas or
oil or coal would have been found and
the development would follow.
If the commissioners decide to sink
a prospect hole on the poor farm it
will be done under a resolution to the
effect that the commissioners are "bor-
ing for artesian water