Sioux County pioneer., 1922-11-16
Observation-Disclosures.
The Story Of
Aqua Pura
Observation-Disclosures
couv1iahs. 1922. by the MacruIllan ca.
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE

s., CopyrShss lSZzs 0y the Macmillan Go.
DEOPLN who write about Kansas,
as rule. write ignorantly, and
4 speak Of the state as a finished
product. Kansas, like Gaul Of old, is
divided into three parts, differing as
widely, each from the other, az any
three countries In the same latitude
upon the globe. It would be as un-
true to classify together the Egyptian,
the Indian and the Central American,
as to speak Of the Kansas man with
out distinguishing between the eastern
Kansan, the central Kansan, and the
western Kansan. Eastern Kansas Is a
finished community like New York
or Pennsylvania. Central Kansas is
finished, but not quite paid for; and
western Kansas, the only place where
there is any suffering from drought or
crop failures, is a new country-old
only In pluck which is slowly con-
quering the desert.
Aqua Pura was western Kansas
town, set high up, far out on the
prairie. It was founded nine years
ago, at the beginning Of the boom, not
by cowboys and ruflans, but by hon.
est, ambitious men and women. OF
the six men who staked out the town
site, two-Johnson and Barringer-
were Harvard men; one, Nickols, was
from Princeton; and the other three,
Bemis, Bradley and Hicks, had come
from inland state universities. When
their wives came West there was q
Vassar reunion, and the first mail that
arrived after. the post office had been
established brought the New York
magazines. The town was like dozens
Of others that sprang ur far out in the
treacherous wilderness in that fresh,
green spring Of 1885. MTl.
They called it Aqua Pura, choosing
Latin name to proclaim to the world
that 1t was not rowdy town. The
new yellow pine of the little village
cleaned in the clear sunlight. It could
be seen for miles on a clear, warm day,
as 1t stood upon rise Of ground; and
over in Maize, six miles away, the elec-
trio lights Of Aqua Pura, which flashed
out in the evening before the town
was six months old, could be seen dis
tinctly. A schoolhouse that cost TWEEN.
ty thousand dollars was built before
the town had seen It's first winter; and
the first Christmas ball in Aqua Pura
was held in an opera house that cost
ten thousand. Money was plentiful:
two and three-story buildings rose on
each side Of the main street of the
little place. The farmers who had
taken homesteads In the country
around the town had prospered.
Barringer was elected mayor at the
municipal election in the spring of
81, and he plated out Barringer's
Addition, and built house there with
borrowed money in June. There were
two thousand people in Aqua Pura
then.
There was not a lawless element.
There was not saloon In the town. A
billiard hall, and dark room, wherein
cards might be played surreptitious-
ly, were the only institutions which
made the people Of Aqua Pura blush,
when they took the .innumerable
Eastern capitalists'' over the town
who visited western Kansas that year.
These Capitalists were entertained
at three-story brick hotel, equipped
with electricity and modern plumbing
In order to excel Maize, where the ho-
tel was an Indifferent frame affair.
This Is the story Of the rise. Bar
ringer has told it thousand times,
Barringer believed in the town to the
last. When the terrible drought Of
1887. with its furnacelike breath singed
the town and the farms in Fountain
county, Barringer led the majority
which proudly claimed that the coun-
try was all right; and as chairman Of
the board Of county commissioners, he
sent a scathing message to the gov
ernor, refusing aid. Barringer's own
bank loaned money on land, whereon
the crop had failed, to tide the farm
ers over the winter. Barringer's siR.
nature guaranteed loans from the East
upon everything negotiable, and Aqua
Pura thrived for time upon promises.
Here and there, in the spring Of 1883
there was an empty building, One
room Of the opera house block was
vacant. Barringer started man in
business, selling notions, who occupied
the room. Barringer went East and
pleaded with the men who had invest
ed in the town to be easy on their
debtors. Then came the hot winds Of
July. blowing out Of the southwest.
scorching the grass, shriveling the.
grain, and drying up the streams that
had filled in the spring. During the
fall Of that year. the hotel, which had
been open only In the lower story.
closed The opera house began. to be
used for "aid" meetings, and when the
wer wind blew dust-blackened snow
thb1gh the desolate streets Of the
little town, It ratified hundred win
dows In vacant houses, and sometimes
blew sun-warred boards from the high
sidawalk that led across the gully to
the big red grade Of the unfinished
Chicago Air Line"
Barrinper did not On 3Noaf tho% rou,