The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-03-08

which occurred about the first of June,
1867, in my little garnet office as
governor of the state at that time.
Mr.. Mccoy came into my office, in
troduced himself, and stated that he
had a problem in his mind, that he
was out west seeing if he could find
solution of it. He stated that the
civil war had walled Texas out of the
maket for her livestock, the union
gunboats on the Mississippi river cut
off the chances of sending herds across
to feed the Confederate armies; they
could not send them to Cuba, or they
would be captured on the gulf; they
could net drive them west or north,
or they would be confiscated. He told
me that the best estimates that he
could get was not less than 1900, 600
or probably 5000, 600 head of cattle on
the range of Texas that were practi-
cally worthless. That no matter how
large a range or how many cattle a
man had. he could not get money
enough out of his herd for marketing
and branding the increases, and the
estimate was made that there was at
that hour, 100000 head of cattle in
Texas that under the Texas stock law
might belong to any man who might
catch them and brand them. In most
of the cattle country cattle could not
be sold at any price whatever. In
few places they could be bartered
for goods, placed at 500 per cent profit
cattle taken in exchange at a scale
of prices like 50 a head for yearlings,
$3.50 for 2-year-olds and $3.50 to SIS for
3-year-olds, S. for a COW and calf and
a full grown steer. to 10 years old,
brought Sc or 81, but they could not
be sold at those figures for money and
the stock ranges of Texas had became
worthless.
THE war closed in 1865, too late to
lttRmnt fO h1It in
more than $50, 900 head had crossed Red
river. headed for Sedalia Missouri The
settlers of southwest Missouri and
southeast Kansas organized under the
pretense of being afraid of disea ses and
compelled these cattle to remain in the
northeastern part of Indian Territory
and the Cherokee country. The grass
at that region being bluestem, in Sep
TENDER or the early part of October
was killed by frost and was no better
feed than shavings to sustain the stock,
and they became by December first, as
poor as hay racks, mere skin and bone,
. when they We're allowed to go through
to Sedalia. Quite a rumber of drovers
sought by circuitous routes to get
around these provoking organizations,
but were invariably cut off, whipped,
even killed, the cattle stampeded, and
they were only too glad to mount their
ponies and get back to Texas, leav-
ing the cattle to Missouri. The cattle
men were afraid of buying them for
fear of freezing to death, and SO they
would have done in most cases. The
butcher would not buy them because
they had nothing on them, and so the
thousands of steers, that if matured,
would have weighed 100 to !. 400 pounds
and been worth $500 to $4,000 each,
were unstable in Missouri, and the
drovers who had bought them in Texas
at $500 to $500 a piece. went broke.
THE problem in McCoy's mind was
to go somewhere in the west and put in
a cattle shipping depot and other need
south to Texas that would be west and
terfered with and have that trail open
by sending herds over it to shipping
point at Abilene. The railroad most
concerned. the only one in the state, the
Union Pacific, Eastern Division, as it
was named then, the Kansas Pacific,
as named afterwards and the Kansas
Branch of the Union Pacific as it is
called today. was only operating then
as far as Salina. Kansas. Mr. Mccoy
had been over the line of railroad to
Salina and had selected Abilene, the
county seat of Dickinson county, as a
suitable place to undertake the solution
country may be comprehended when it
is stated that he bought the townsite
of Abilene, $50 acres with railroad
running through it and the county seat
located on it for the sum of $500 an
acre.
After hearing Mr.. McCoys statement
of his proposition, 1 believed in it; I be-
Iieved that he would succeed in doing
it, in accomplishing, and believed that