The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1922-12-22

u speak of the state as finished
product. Kansas, like Gaul of old, Is
divided into three parts, differing as
widely, each from the other, as any
three countries in the same latitude
upon the globe. 1t would be as I'M
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
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 a pluck which is slowly con-
quering the desert
Aqua Pura was western Kansas
town, set high up, far%out on the
prairie. 1t was founded nine years
ago, at the beginning of the boom, not
by cowboys and ruffians, 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, Nichols, was
from Princeton; and the other three,
Bemis, Bradley and Hicks, had come
from inland state universities. When
their wives came West there was a
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 1886.
They called it Aqua Pura, choosing
Latin name to proclaim to the world
that 1t was not a rowdy town. The
new yellow pine of the little village
cleaned in the clear sunlight 1t could
be seen for miles on clear, warm day,
as 1t stood upon rise of ground; and
over in Maize, six miles away, the cleo
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
~ lIOuSduu uOIldIS was Dulll DclOT6
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
'S7, 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 a three-story brick hotel equipped
with electricity and modern plumbing
in order to excel Maize, where the no.
tel was an Indifferent frame affair.
This Is the story Of the rise Bar
ringer has told it a thousand times.
Barringer believed in the town to the
last. When the terrible drought of
1887, with it's 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 sig
nature guaranteed loans from the East
upon everything negotiable, and Aqua
Pura thrived for time upon promises.
Here and there, in the spring of 1888,
there was an empty building. One
room of the opera house block was
vacant. Barringer started a 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 laid" meetings, and when the
winter wind blew dust-blackened snow
through the desolate streets of the
little town it ratified a hundred win,
dows in vacant houses, and sometimes
blew sun-warped boards from the high
sidewalk that led across the gully to
the big red grade of the unfinished
Chicago Air Line"
Barringer did not go East that year.
He could not. But he wrote-wrote
regularly and bravely to the Eastern
capitalists who were concerned in his
bank and loan company; and they