Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1906-02-28
THE
CRAFTERS
By
FIR Ian CTS Lynn DE
y Copyright. 1904, by The Bobbs-Merrill Coz
CHAPTER I.
ASHES OF EMPIRE.


In point of age, CASTOR the strenuous
was still no more than lusty infant
among the cities of the brown plain
when the boom broke and the junto
was born, though its beginnings as a
halt camp ran back to the days of the
later Mormon migrations across the
thirsty plain; to that day when the adj
vanced guard of Zophar Smiths OK
train dug wells in the damp sands of
Dry creek and called them the waters
of Merom.
Later, one Jethro Simsby, Nor
mon deserter, set up his rod and staff
on the banks of the creek, homesteaded
a quarter-section of the sage-brush
plain, and in due time came to be
known as the Dry creek cattle king.
And the cow-camp was still Simsby's
when the locating engineers of the
Western Pacific, searching for tank
stations in a land where water was
scarce and hard to come by, drove
their stakes along the north line of
the manifestations; and having named
their last station Alphonse, christened
this one CASTOR.
From the stake-driving of the engi-
neers to the spike-driving of the track
layers was a full decade. For hard
times overlook the Western Pacific at
Midland City, so miles TO the east
ward; while the state capital, two
days bronco jolting west of Dry creek,
had railroad outlets in plenty and no
inducements to offer a newcomer.
But with the breaking of the cloud
of financial depression, the Western
Pacific succeeded in placing its extern
sion bonds, and a little later the earth
began to fly on the grade of the new
line to the west. Within q Sundayless
month the electric lights of the night
shift could be seen, and, when the
wind was right. the shrek of the loco
motive whistle could be heard at Dry
creek; and in this interval between
dawn and daylight Jethro Simsby sold
his quarter-section for the nominal sum
of $4,000, spot cash, to two men who
buck-boarded in ahead of the track lay
ers.
This purchase of the "J-laZyS''
ranch by Hawk and Guilford marked
the modest beginning of CASTOR the
marvellous. By the time the temporary
sidings were down and the tank we'll
was dug in the damp sands. it was her
aided far and wide that the Western
Pacific would make the city on the
banks of Dry creek-a city consisting
as yet only of the Simsby ranch shacks
Its western terminus. Thereupon
= followed one of the senseless rushes
that populate the waste places of the
earth and give the professional city
builder his reason for being. In a fort
night after the driving of the silver
spike the dusty plain was dotted with
the black-roofed shelters of the Argo-
nauts; and by the following spring the
pillow was furrowing the cattle ranges
in overwhelming circles, and CASTOR
had voted a bond loan of $500, 900 to
pave its streets.
Then under the forced draft OF
skillful exploitation, three years of high
pressure passed quickly; years named
by the promoters the period of develop
ment. In the Year One the very heav-
ems smiled and the rainfall broke the
record of the oldest inhabitant. Thus
the region round about lost the word
''arid" as a qualifying adjective, and
the picturesque fictions of the pros
pectus makers were miraculously JUS
titled In Year Two there was less
rain, but still an abundant crop; and
Jethro Simsby, drifting in from some
unnamed frontier of a new cow-coun-
try, saw what he had missed, took tC
Ndrink, and shot himself in the lobby Of
The Mid-Continent hotel. an or
nate, five-storied. brick-and- terra-cotts
structure standing precisely upon the
site Of the "J-lazy-S" branding corral