Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1919-12-18
Prints All Official County News
The Passing of the Prairie.

money enough to buy a couple of
make a garden spot out of that old
claim on the prairie. We had good
land but it took something more thai
good land to produce a crop in those
days. The first three or four years
we lived out here we didn't get any
crop at all. A ranchman's cattle broke
in and destroyed the crop one two
years, the hot winds got it another
year and the grass hoppers got it an
other. / worked out all I could and
my wife raised chickens and made
butter. We managed to make living
besides keeping four or five of the
calves from the cows wife's folks had
given and three colts from the
bronchos had bought. It seemed like
pretty slow progress but we hung
just the same. There were quite a
| bunch of other people settled on
homesteads out here just about that
time but the most of them did not
have grit enough to stay with the
country Nearly every spring we had
fine pfospecs for crop but the hot
winds, the hail of the dry weather
would come along later in the season
and destroy the crop. The most of
those people could not live on pros
| poets, it seemed, and loaded their stuff
| into their prairie schooners and start
| ed back east to wife's folks The
winds get pretty hot in this country
some times now but it is nothing like
it used to be when there were miles
and miles of nothing but brown prai-
| rie grass to reflect the rays of the
sun and make the air hotter 1t is a
mighty fine thing that so much of the
prairie has been broken up and that
there are now farms where the
ranches used to be. 1t seemed like the
settlement Of & his county went asx-
| fully slow but still it has only been
about forty years since it was nothing
but great big prairie with buffalo
| and antelope running over it. It was
pretty hard in those days for the peo-
pie who were away-out- of town. They
didn't have automobiles to travel in
at that time and it would take them all
day and sometimes two days to make
the trip to town 1t was pretty incon-
venient when we had to have the doc
tor or some medicine. But / am glad
those days are passed. I don't think
/ would ever again want anything to
!, do with settling up a new country
The first settlers of any country have
a whole lot to contend with. I didn't
get out here in time to have much
experience with the indians but we
: had one indian scare and that was
enough We had the grass hoppers
the hot winds, the prairie dogs ane
the coyotes and the "track1ess prairie
L and I want to tell you that it was
5 ''Trackless prairie especially if yog
t happened to be lost upon it at nigh
: or in snow storm. AS the countr,
: settled up the dangers from getting
$ lost on the prairie gradually grew les.
= so that now there are fenced or work
y ed roads to drive on and houses ever,
i little ways where you can stop ant
: inquire your way 1t is great change
L tell you In the old days if yo,
< wanted to go twenty miles southwes
k you simply headed out in that direc
u ton Now you have to go ten mile
: south and ten miles west. 1t make
o a little more travel but it is better fo
e the country tell you this is prett.
t good country for those who have stay
d ed by it and fought the thing through
It We have made money here but ther
d have been many times when the pros
s epects were mighty discouraging. Th
d prairie is just about all gone now an
?. where the sod house or the clair
K shack used to stand there are we
y built houses and barns and instead @
I the locoed steer and broncho tn
h farmers now have as well bred cattl
l. and horses you can find in. an
le country earth They also have thei
ID autos, their tractors and gas engine
st and you will find more of them to th
population out here in what they use
w to call <3the short grass country" tina
ID in any other country in the natiol
lie They are a progressive, rusSling 81
a of peolpe out this way and they al
is going to keep their state marchiu