The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-06-29
Sherlock. Once a Railroad
City Is No More.
Santa Fe Used 1t as Opposition
to Garden City.
FAILEDTO MAKEPOINT
Rival Village Grew While Com
pany Town Died.
Hereafter to Be Known as HoI-
comb, Whistling Station.

Garden City, June 29-In the future
| there Will be no station known as Sher-
lock in the western part of the state
| on the Santa Fe where since the road
| has been in existence there has been
such a TOWNSHIP The new time card
designates the location as Holcomb in
honor of one of the foremost residents
OF that part of the state.
Mr.. Holcomb. for whom the station
! Is renamed came to western Kansas
dozen or 10 years ago, after having
dropped a fair sized fortune in the cat
tie commission business in Kansas City.
| Though we'll past the meridian of life
he began anew and by his efforts has
amassed another comfortable fortune
along with the esteem of his fellow
townSmen.
When western land was a drug on
the market Mr.. Holcomp purchased a
large tract near the toWnSite of Sher-
lock and spent many thousands of
dollars in experimenting with irrigation
and 1t was largely through his efforts
that the attention of the government
was called to the wonderful possibili-
ties of western Kansas. As result
congress appropriated large sums of
money which are to be expended in
finney and the surrounding Counties in
the interest of irrigation and In an eff
fort to reclaim the arid portion.
The Santa Fe evidently appreciates
the man for whom they have changed
having used the former name in all of
their printed matter for more than a
quarter of a century. The change is
compliment to Mr.. Holcomb but
many of the old timers will note the
passing of the name with a tinge of
sorrow, for there is something more
than sentiment attached to the mem
DRY of the days when the country was
new and the Santa Fe a jerk water
line without through trains.
This was back in the later seventies
when there were few signs of civiliza-
ton and the population of that section
of the country was confined to scatter
ing bands of Indians and buffalo and
wild horse hunters. The Santa Fe road
laid out a townsite and called it Sher-
lock and six miles east of that lOca-
ton another town was laid out by a
body of men to which Buffalo Jones,
Fred Finnup, John A. Stevens. Will
lam and James Fulton and a handful
of others belonged.
This town was to be called after the
Fulton brothers, Fultonville, but even
then there were jealouSies and it was
christened Garden City as compro-
mise at the suggestion of one of the
body of settlers who wisely foresaw the
future in store for that section of the
fertile bottom lands of the Arkansas.
Then began the battle for supremacy
between the Santa Fe road and the lit
tie band of frontiersmen who had loca
ted at Garden City and it was a battle
where the resources of the Santa Fe
honesty of purpose of the settlers. The
Santa Fe owned the townsite of Sher
lock as well as much of the land adj
jacent which promised to become val
liable with the settlement of the coun-
try, The townsite of Garden City was
owned by one of the Fulton brothers
who is yet resident of that thriving
little city and the land adjacent was
owned by Otner members of the COM |
The Santa Fe refused for years to
erect a depot on the townsite, and if
a letter arrived for one of the group of
men located there, it was necessary to |
make a trip to Sherlock to get it. None |
of the trains stopped at Garden City |
and all supplies were hauled through |
to Sherlock and brought back by the |
wagon trail.
For years this condition prevailed |
and the little band of settlers kept soul
and body together on the townsite of
Garden City by the sale of buffalo |
which were plentiful in that section of
the state. Only those who had visited |
western Kansas knew of Garden City, |
for the Santa F'e never allowed men
ton of the name to be made where it
was possible to avoid it.
Despite the efforts of the road Gar
den City grew, and all that there was
at any time to mark the railroad |
depot and the sign board which an
nounced to passengers on the trains
the names of the place. The railroad
was relentless and not for years after
Garden City had eclipsed Sherlock
many times. did the road condesoend
to admit that such a place was on
their line. Finally they were forced
to build a little shack in lieu of a
depot and stop one of their trains at
the station, though for many years
they kept up the fight from force Of
habit
With a change in the management
of the road came change in the at
titude of the Santa Fe towards the
town of Garden City and a larger
depot was built for the convenience of
the emigrants who poured into what
was then Sequoyah county. Garden
City continued to grow until at one
time it boastad of two DALI newspa-
pers with Associated Press dispatches,
a street car system, waterworl1s and a
sewerage system ample to care for the
nedes of a city og double its size.
Then came the fine. residences, COM
modious school houses, four and five
story business buildings, and then
the boom broke and Garden City was
for years a wreck of its former great
ness and fortunes evaporated as snow
under a MONDAY sun. Then it was
that Jones. Fulton, Stevens and half
a score of others lost the accumula-
ton of years; one alone of the early
settlers Fred Finnup, a thrifty Ger
man, maintaining his holdings, and he