HAND-BOOK
OF ARKANSAS CITY
AND
SURROUNDINGS.
By the Editor of THE AMERICAN SHEEP BREEDER.
CHICAGO: C. S. BURCH PUBLISHING COMPANY.
1887.
[PICTURE OF “THE CITY BUILDING, ARKANSAS CITY, KANSAS.”]
Second Page:
United States Bonds are no Safer an Investment than a First Mortgage on a good Kansas Farm.
THE SECURITY INVESTMENT CO.
[CHARTERED BY THE STATE OF KANSAS.]
Mortgage Loan
Brokers and Real Estate Agents.
Office: Cor. of Summit Street and 5th Avenue.
F. P. SCHIFFBAUER, Pres.
CHAS. SCHIFFBAUER, Vice Pres.
JAMES BENEDICT, Sec.
B. F. CHILDS, Treas.
E. E. MEEKER, Ass’t Sec’y.
First Mortgages on first-class Kansas Farms for sale. Interest guaranteed and Principal guaranteed one year after maturity.
Correspondence solicited with Administrators, Guardians, Capitalists, and others wishing safe investments at good interest.
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WE MAKE A SPECIALTY OF
CHOICE CITY BUSINESS AND ACRE PROPERTY
FOR SUB-DIVISION, AND MAKE INVESTMENTS FOR NON-RESIDENTS,
HANDLING THE SAME ON OUR JUDGMENT IF DESIRED.
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IMPROVED AND UNIMPROVED
STOCK, GRAIN, and DAIRY FARMS and LEASED CATTLE RANGES
IN THE INDIAN TERRITORY.
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We write Life and Fire Insurance in all the leading companies, pay Taxes, furnish Abstracts of Title, etc., buy and sell City, Township, County and School Bonds and will cheerfully answer correspondence from any one wishing information regarding Kansas Investments or who wish to come here to engage in any avocation.
IMMEDIATE MONEY TO LOAN.
ARKANSAS
CITY
AND SURROUNDINGS.
SOUTHEASTERN
KANSAS.
A Graphic and Glowing Sketch of the Climate, Topography, Soils, Grasses, Water and Timber Supply. Productions and Agricultural Possibilities of THE BEAUTIFUL ARKANSAS VALLEY. The Land of the Orchard and Vine—Home Pictures of the Herds and Herdsmen, Breeders and Feeders, General Agriculture, Schools, Railways and Future of
COWLEY COUNTY.
A Review of the Location, Commerce, Industrial Life, Railway Facilities, Marvelous Material Progress, Splendid Water Power, Matchless Material Advantages, Rapid Growth and Manifest Destiny of
ARKANSAS
CITY.
The Gateway to the Heart of the Beautiful Indian Territory—The Key to Oklahoma. The Famous and Fabulous Land of Valleys and Parks, Rich as the Nile and Fair as the Old Eden.
THE CANAL CITY
Of Mills and Factories, Solid and Fast Growing Trade. The Coming Railway and Manufacturing Center of Southern Kansas. Sketches of Burden and Maple City and the Fertile and Productive Farm Country that Environs Them.
A Fair and Fruitful Land
under Genial Southwestern Skies.
What a splendid country is this broad, sweeping, far reaching
ARKANSAS VALLEY,
dipping with graceful curve and incline to the clear, swift waters of the noble river that is born of a thousand fountains in the foot-hills, and gathering new and grander impulse from numberless and nameless rivulets by the way, flows down through hundreds of leagues of royal meadow and corn-land to where it is lost in the turbid waters of the broader parent stream below. This land of bright waters and genial skies whose pastoral charms rival those of Cashmere, and whose radiant climate is an everlasting benediction! In the very heart of this beautiful Middle Arkansas Valley and the garden of
SOUTHEASTERN KANSAS,
whose equable climate, generous soils, incomparable landscape, clear streams, beautiful woodlands, fruitful orchards, green hedge-rows, splendid farms, noble herds, and happy homes are the glory of the Sunflower State, is
COWLEY COUNTY,
with an area of 1,112 square miles—711,680 acres. This county was organized in 1870 with a population of 1,175, which in 1875 had increased to 8,963. In 1885, the population had reached 29,555 and at the close of 1886, a grand total of 36,000. In population and production, Cowley now ranks as the fourth county in Kansas. It is bounded on the North by Butler County; on the West by Sumner County; on the East by Elk and Chautauqua counties and on the South by the Indian Territory. The
EARLY HISTORY
of Cowley County is briefly outlined in the following statement: On the 3rd of March, 1867, the State Legislature fixed the bounds of the county and named it in honor of Lieut. Matthew Cowley, a gallant soldier of the 9th. Kansas Vol. Infantry; but up to 1868, it was held by the Osage Indians, whose villages were located on the banks of the Arkansas River and Timber creek.
[PICTURE CAPTION: FIRST WARD SCHOOL HOUSE, ARKANSAS CITY.]
THE PIONEERS
of civilization were led by N. J. Thompson, who made the first settlement on the Walnut River, near the Butler County line, in August, 1868, and who was followed soon after by Messrs. Quimby and Sales, who located near by. During the same year, some cattle men came into the county to buy stock from the Osages. In 1869, a dozen more families settled on the Walnut, above Winfield, and Cliff N. Wood opened a provision store for trade with the new settlers and Indians. Several families settled on Posey creek the same year and E. C. Manning located his claim on the present site of Winfield and began trading with the Indians. During the summer of this year too, H. C. Endicott, Geo. Harmon, Ed. Chapin, W. Johnson, Pat. Somers, Pat. Endicott and Z. K. Rogers took claims near the present site of Arkansas City. It is said that all of these settlers and traders were obliged to pay a $5 per capita tribute to Chetopa, the head chief of the Osages, on account of the unlawful occupancy of their lands before the “Osage strip” had been formally ceded to the U. S. Government. On the 1st of January 1870, the four quarter sections on which Arkansas City now stands, were claimed by John Brown, John Strain, T. A. Wilkinson, and G. H. Norton. A little later, the Grouse Valley was settled by a full dozen claimants and the close of the year found nearly 1,200 people within the limits of the county. Cowley County has
A FORTUNATE LOCATION.
It lies in the fairest portion of Southeastern Kansas and the great valley of the Arkansas near the geographical center of the Union, at the latitude of Southern Kentucky and Southern Virginia, and within
THE PRODUCTIVE MIDDLE BELT
of the continent; a strip of country less than 450 miles wide, lying between the latitudes of Minneapolis and Norfolk, reaching from ocean to ocean, and within which are located all the great commercial, financial, and railway centers, 90 per cent of the manufacturing industries, the strongest agriculture, the heavy fruit and dairy interests, the densest, strongest, most cosmopolitan and progressive population, all the great universities, and the most advanced school systems of the country. Better still, it lies in the pathway of transcontinental travel and in the garden spot of the “Great Central State,” which, by virtue of its splendid aggregation of resource, is bounded to the social, commercial, material, and political life of the Union by the strongest ties, and must forever feel the quickening of its best energies, from every throb of the National Heart. It has, too, what is of primary importance to the immigrant, the genial and grateful
CLIMATIC INFLUENCE
that has given enviable fame to the mild and equable temperature of Southern Kentucky and Southern Virginia. The climate of Cowley County is a vast improvement over the older and colder Eastern and Northern States, and by comparison, seems like an inspiration. A mean altitude of 900 feet above the sea; mild and generally open winters, with light and transient snow-fall; long, glowing, friendly summer days, tempered by inspiriting southwestern breezes and followed by delightfully cool, restful, refreshing nights; glorious autumns, a mean temperature of 58 degrees and freedom from swamps, marshes, lagoons, and stagnant water, give to this region a genial and thoroughly enjoyable climate and
THE HIGHEST AVERAGE HEALTH
known to any good agricultural country on the Continent. As I had occasion recently to write of a neighboring county: “This charming southern country is
A DELIGHTFUL REVELATION
to the visitor from the higher latitudes. All the springs of life yield quickly to the reproductive influence of spring-time. I well remember the balmy, semi-tropical south winds, soft blue haze, green grasses, and the humming of bees and bird-songs along the Arkansas and Walnut rivers in the early spring of 1877, while my Northern and Eastern friends were snow and ice-bound, and the very memory of that glorious spring-time is a benediction.”
[PICTURE CAPTION #1: M. E. CHURCH AND PARSONAGE, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE CAPTION #2: UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AND PARSONAGE,
ARKANSAS CITY.]
Whatever may have been said of the old Cowley County, in the uncertain days of pioneering, the ample
YEARLY RAINFALL
of the present decade reaches the handsome range of thirty to forty inches, and is much more evenly distributed over the growing season than in Illinois, Ohio, or Pennsylvania. The
NATURAL DRAINAGE
of the county, too, is almost perfect, the generally rolling surface, deep set and rapid streams, frequent draws and ravines, and the open porous structure of the sub-soils, readily carrying off the surplus rains and leaving the gardens and fields available to the plow or cultivator, hard after the heaviest rains. I cannot better describe the face of this beautiful county, than by quoting here, a passage from my late hand book of a sister county.
THE LANDSCAPE
is an inspiration. From end to end, Cowley County is a region of marvelous, bewildering, scenic beauty, whose impress can never by effaced from the memory of the visitor. The stranger is moved with a sense of its matchless loveliness the moment he crosses the border, and the spell is never broken until he passes into the region of the commonplace beyond. If the county be wanting in the rugged grandeur of the mountains, it is immeasurably rich in the more
PEACEFUL PASTORAL CHARMS
of a landscape that no pen or pencil can give adequate portraiture. These grand, billowy prairies, and sweet, pastoral, low lying valleys, coursed by clear, rapid, forest-fringed glades and intervals flanked by leagues of rich bottoms lying in the shadows of picturesque bluffs and mounds, and resplendent with the glory of matchless cornfields and meadows; the bold, rocky headlands, whose terraced slopes and curves abound in numberless lines of grace and beauty, wrought by the ancient water currents; the wild, wooded glens and canons, and, above all,
THE TABLE MOUNDS,
that mark the primitive land levels, and have the semblance of vast, well-defined, artificial earthworks; the ranges of low hills graduating in graceful slopes, that drift imperceptibly into the lower valleys; these, and many a minor feature that will be nameless here, lend an impressive charm to a landscape in which is no sense of weariness, bleakness, or monotony, nothing abstract or startling, but everywhere unity and harmony and beauty in endless variety. The table mound (Mesa) is
THE CROWNING GLORY
of these landscapes, and standing out against the blue horizon, in the mellow haze of this southern atmosphere, seems a beautiful realm above and apart from the sordid lower world of sinful men. Standing upon the outer rim of these grand elevations, the vision takes wonderful range and the soul is moved with an unspeakable sense of the infinite. The herdsman will tell you that they are only fit for “stock range” and the grain-grower deprecates their presence as a blemish upon a fertile and fruitful land; but to the lover of the beautiful they stand out against the sky,
A PERPETUAL INSPIRATION.
Below them along the slopes and valleys, life may be never so prosaic in bread-getting, but these blue mounds are the monuments that mark the way of the soul into the higher ideal land. They
CALL A HALT
in the march of avarice, and give impulse to every noble and refined sense. If they have little commercial value, they are yet priceless in esthetic worth, and may be numbered among the inalienable possessions of the soul.
[PICTURE CAPTION #1: HOME OF COL. A. V. ALEXANDER, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE CAPTION #2: RESIDENCE OF H. O. MEIGS, ARKANSAS CITY.]
Cowley County has
AN ADMIRABLE WATER SUPPLY.
The Arkansas river flows across the southwest corner of the county, a distance of thirty miles, entering the Indian Territory just below Arkansas City. Its principal local tributaries are Sand, Spring, Beaver, Little Beaver, and Oyster creeks. The Walnut river crosses the county from north to south and joins the Arkansas at Arkansas City. To these two noble rivers may be added another list of minor streams, embracing Trib’s, Maple, Eight-mile, Durham, Spring, Dutch, Little, Turkey, Elm, Timber, Badger, Posey, Richland, Cedar, Plum, Pebble, Silver, Grouse, Shell Rock, Rock, Otter, Short, Gardner, Goose, School, Crabb, Deer, and Stewart creeks, scores of nameless spring brooks, hundreds of living soft and hard water springs, and numerous soft and hard water wells obtained at ten to fifty feet depth. No county in Kansas has a better or more evenly distributed water supply, many of the stream springs and wells yielding the purest soft water. The
MINERAL WATERS
of this county, notably those at Geuda Springs, have attained world-wide celebrity for their medicinal virtues, and there are scores of nameless springs within the county that will yet become famous in their healing qualities. The streams are all rapid, all fed by cold springs and nearly all as clear as a mountain trout brook. The salt springs at Geuda are among the most valuable saline waters in the West, but up to the present date have been little utilized. The larger streams afford
SPLENDID WATER POWER,
most of which is now running to waste. The Arkansas River at Arkansas City alone affords at common stage, 9,700 horsepower, a good portion of which is now available through the lately completed canal of that city. The Arkansas and Walnut are now turning eight flouring mills within the county and have waste power capable of driving 200 more mills of even greater capacity.
THE NATIVE FORESTS
that are found on the fringes and ground along all the streams above named, combine about 15 per cent of the county and embrace fine growths in cottonwood, black walnut, elm, ash, hickory, hackberry, mulberry, coffeebean, honey locust, box elder, white maple, linden, pecan, and kindred woods. Supplementing these native wood lands are fully
TWO THOUSAND DOMESTIC GROVES
planted by the hands of the more enterprising farmers and ranging from half an acre to twenty acres in extent. These groves of catalpa, ash, box elder, walnut, cottonwood, maple, and mulberry, many of which are grown for their stateliness, lend indescribable grace to the landscape; give the country the semblance of a vast and beautiful park, and have so many economic uses that even the most prosaic farmer is inexcusable for neglect of an industry so profitable and entertaining.
[PICTURE #1: JUDGE I. H. BONSALL’S PROJECTED BLOCK, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: THE CARDER, ENDICOTT AND NEWMAN BLOCK, ARKANSAS CITY.]
Cowley County has an inexhaustible supply of
BUILDING STONES
of every variety known to Kansas. Vast deposits of white magnesian rock are found in different portions of the county, those near Arkansas City, Burden, and all along the Walnut being of superb quality and extensively quarried for local uses and exportation. They are easily worked by the saw, plane or chisel; are susceptible of high finish, and go into the make-up of public and private buildings, bridges, and fences on a grand scale. So too of the gray limestones which are even more common and extensively quarried at Arkansas City, Burden, and other points, both for local use and export. These stones are entirely stratified in smooth layers, ranging from thin flagging up to the thickness of massive dimension stone, and thousands of their loads are annually shipped all over the State for the finer public and private buildings, walks, etc. Blue limestones of superior hue and quality are now being largely quarried at Arkansas City for corners, capitals, caps, sills, water-tables, cornice, and other uses in the best order of buildings. The new suburban quarries of Mayor Frank Schiffbauer, on the “Frisco” road, just outside of the city, are especially rich in this variety of limestone, which is pronounced by experts chemically pure and perfect. Extensive deposits of gypsum of high quality are found at Geuda Springs and fine quarries of sand and stone are worked at several points in the county.
COAL
has not yet been found in sufficient quantity for profitable mining. The presence of sub-carboniferous rocks and the nearness of the country to the rich coal fields of the Indian Territory give strong promise that this country will yet yield abundantly of the very best bituminous coal. Potters’ clay of good quality is quite abundant, which of itself is a most excellent indication of coal.
THE FENCE QUESTION
in Cowley County is easily solved by the universal and perfect growth of Bois d’ Arc (Osage orange) hedge, of which there is upward of 2,000 miles within the county, many of the farms embracing from six to twelve miles of this permanent and beautiful fence. The early fence-builders laid several hundred miles of substantial stone wall, for the construction of which there is abundant and superb material in nearly every township. The later fencing is mostly barbed wire, which here, as everywhere in the West, is the cheap, democratic, universal fencing material of the farmer and ranchman.
THE HERD LAW
is in force here; all classes of live stock are restrained under strong penalties; fencing is not compulsory, and the traveler is often greeted with the novel sight of grain fields, orchards, vineyards, gardens, and lawns without enclosures and with no other protection than that which the herd law affords. The character of the
HIGHWAYS AND BRIDGES
is a compliment to the county. The larger streams are spanned at the principal crossings with heavy iron and wooden bridges of the most approved patterns. The public roads are among the finest in the Western country, require little working, and for ten months of the year are superior to the best macadamized turnpikes in the older States. The Eastern reader will want to know about
THE SOILS,
which in Cowley County, as in all portions of Eastern Kansas, are a marvel of productive wealth, only in the infancy of development, and capable of sustaining an agricultural population of 100,000.
THE VALLEY AND BOTTOM LANDS
which cover nearly, or quite, one-fifth of the county are dark, rich alluvial, from eight to twelve feet in depth, the accumulated wash of ages from the higher plains, plateaus, and foot-hills, and every whit as fertile and productive as the Genesee, Mohawk, Cumberland, Missouri, and Rhine valleys of world-wide fame.
THE HIGH PRAIRIE SOILS
cover about 65 per cent of the county and are mostly dark, flexible loams and moulds, rich in humus, and nearly identical in kind and productive power with the upland prairie soils of Iowa and Illinois.
THE BLUFFS
and rougher hill districts cover about eight per cent of the county and generally present more or less out-croppings of cretaceous and other rock formations, which unfit them for profitable cultivation, but they are everywhere covered either with native timber or a rich growth of native grasses which make them quite as valuable for grazing as the richer loams and alluvials are for grain growing. Here and there, along the Arkansas River, are limited areas of sand-hills, always found to the leeward of the open river sand-bars, but even these are abundant in nutritious, herbage. Indeed, there is not 1,000 acres of really waste land in all the county. Supplementing the rich, friable loams and molds of the high prairies are even richer sub-soils, largely composed of
SILICEOUS CLAYS AND MARLS,
so rich in silica, lime, and magnesia, carbonate, lime phosphate, alumina, and organic matter that they are practically as imperishable as the famous loess, or lacustrine deposits of the Missouri, Rhine, and Nile, and will prove a basis of incalculable wealth to the more thorough cultivators of the future, long after these rich superficial soils have found their way into the bed of the ocean. These sub-soils are open and porous in structure, quickly absorb water, and retain it through season of drouth with wonderful tenacity, giving it slowly back to vegetation by capillary attraction and will endure greater excesses of rain-fall or drouth than any other soils known to husbandry. The superficial and sub-soils above mentioned give
THE WIDEST RANGE OF PRODUCTION
known to American agriculture. It is the justifiable pride and boast of the Cowley County farmer that he can grow in perfection all the grains, grasses, fruits, vegetables, and plants that flourish between the Red River of the North and the northern limits of the cotton fields. Both the
SURFACE INDICATIONS
of the soil and its native productions show marvelous versatility and bounty. Hazel brush, burr oak, red elm, linden, mulberry, wild cherry, walnut, sumac, resinous woods, and kindred growths, found in nearly every neighborhood, indicate exceptionally rich and versatile soils.
[PICTURE #1: CHILOCCO INDIAN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, FOUR MILES SOUTH OF ARKANSAS CITY IN THE INDIAN TERRITORY.]
[PICTURE #2: UNION BLOCK, ARKANSAS CITY.]
CORN IS KING
of grains in Cowley County as blue grass is King of herbage in old Kentucky, the total annual yield of the county ranging from 3,500,000 to 6,000,000 bushels, and the yield per acre running all the way from thirty to one hundred bushels, according to soil, season, and culture. The total corn crop of this county for 1885 reached 5,975,000 bushels, exceeding the combined corn crops of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Oregon, and Colorado for the same year, and yet the entire corn plant of the county covered only 131,778 acres. There are no finer corn lands on the Continent than the valley and black prairie soils of this county, which not infrequently, in good seasons, yield from seventy to a hundred bushels to the acre. Cowley County is
A CAPITAL WHEAT COUNTRY,
and with its limestone basis and quick, warm soils, carrying a large per cent of lime carbonate and phosphate, not only produces heavy crops, in favorable seasons, but the quality is equal to any of the finer white wheats grown in America. The winter wheat crop of Cowley County for 1885 reached a grand total of 1,141,660 bushels or more than the combined wheat crop of the six New England States for the same year.
OATS
make a fine crop here, the yield per acre running from 30 to 70 bushels and the total crop of the county from 500,000 to 800,000 bushels. Of
OTHER FIELD CROPS
barley does well, but in this prohibition country is unprofitable and unpopular, and little grown, except for stock feeding. Tobacco and flax both do exceedingly well, but are not extensively planted. Castor beans flourish in perfection and are profitable, but are grown only to the extent of 40,000 to 50,000 bushels annually.
BROOM CORN
makes a generous and perfect growth, the quality of the brush being equal to the best in the market and might be made the most profitable field product in the county, but is only moderately cultivated.
IRISH AND SWEET POTATOES
are at home here, the former being annually grown to the extent of 100,000 bushels. The sweet potato is grown in profusion and perfection in all gardens and hundreds of fields, the quality being but little inferior to the sweet potato of the Carolinas.
[PICTURE #1: HERMAN GODEHARD’S STORE, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: THE NEW GLADSTONE HOUSE, ARKANSAS CITY.]
SORGHUM
is generally grown for home use in the form of syrups, and is rapidly coming into use for winter stock feed by the more enterprising stockmen, many of whom give it the first place among forage crops. Millet is generally grown by farmers, gives a generous yield, and is highly esteemed by stockmen. Beans, peas, and root crops all do finely and are more or less cultivated by the best farmers. Cowley County may well be denominated
THE GARDEN LAND
for if there is on earth a region where all the products of the middle latitudes reach perfection and are grown with half the care required in the older countries, it is in these warm, quick, genial, generous Cowley County soils. Cotton reaches perfection here, in four years out of five; peanuts make a large and profitable crop, and there are scores of minor productions, which must be nameless here, that find no more congenial conditions than in this beautiful county, which is also
A ROYAL FRUIT COUNTRY.
And why not? Here are the finest fruits, the proper elevation, the equable temperature, the medium humidity, and thousand natural sites for orchards and vineyards, being an unmistakable basis for successful husbandry. Better still, there are upwards of 1,000 orchards, already in bearing, and which embrace 60,000 bearing apple trees; times as many bearing peach, plum, cherry, and pear trees, and twice as many more of all not yet in bearing. The trees are clean, thrifty, and the fruits as perfect as the Michigan, Ohio, New York, or Delaware. The apple is perfectly at home here. The peach orchards are the finest I have seen west of the great lakes, and bear superb fruit three out of five. The entire Murrelo cherry fruit reach perfection here. The pear and quince do well in clay soils and more than a dozen varieties of the red and yellow plum (the Chickasaw family) fruit generously. The whole Arkansas valley may appropriately be styled
THE NEW VINELAND.
The native forests are profusely festooned with wild vines, rich in fruitage and as luxuriant as a semi-tropical village. Supplementing these are hundreds of domestic vineyards, whose precious fruits are as delicious in flavor and delicate of hue as the famous grapes of the Ohio valley and the islands of Lake Huron. The warm exposures of the bluffs and mounds present hundreds of natural sites for vineyards and will some day reflect the fragrance and beauty and fruition of a new Italy.
Smaller
GARDEN FRUITS
are quite as much at home here as in any of the older States; all the standard varieties of the strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, and other small fruits, giving abundant returns to the intelligent and enterprising cultivator.
[PICTURE #1: THE FIRST HOUSE BUILT IN ARKANSAS CITY, IN THE SPRING OF 1870. NOW THE PROPERTY OF JUDGE I. H. BONSALL.]
[PICTURE #2: TANGLEWOOD—HOME OF B. F. CHILDS, ARKANSAS CITY.]
This beautiful Arkansas valley, from the base of the foot-hills to the wilds of Arkansas, is
A NATURAL GRASS COUNTRY,
Cowley County being especially rich in native grasses, and numbering upward of 150 varieties, nearly all of which have more or less value for hay or grazing. The short, nutritious buffalo grass of the early day, the delight of nomadic herdsmen, and the fast-fading perennial herbage of the plains, is now almost a thing of history in this county, the more abundant rains of later years, the tramp of the domestic herds, and increasing humidity having well nigh extinguished it. In its stead, everywhere, is
THE STALWART BLUE STEM,
of swarthy and magnificent growth, equally desirable for hay or pasturage, and next to the corn fields, the most valuable product of the county. But even these courser and stronger grasses are steadily yielding to the rapacity of the herds and the march of the plowman, and their extinction is only a question of time. Will they be succeeded by the standard
DOMESTIC GRASSES?
That is the absorbing question with Eastern people unacquainted with the situation. Well, yes; why not? Where wild grasses flourish tame grasses never fail to follow. Better than all theory are the 6,000 acres of clover, timothy, blue grass, orchard grass, and alfalfa already here to attest their perfect adaptation to local conditions of soil and climate.
BLUE GRASS,
the glorious, tenacious, imperial, all conquering and matchless herbage of the middle latitudes, and the pride and best capital of the stockman, is here to stay. The incredulous visitor may find it in the village and city and country lawns, in the park, orchards, groves, fields, and highways; fresh, green, and succulent, from January to December, save only in the dry, hot weeks of mid-summer, and whoever has the fortune to visit Cowley County ten years hence, will find it growing in luxuriance from the water lines to the crown of the highest hills.
CLOVER AND TIMOTHY
too, have come to stay, and may be found in hundreds of fields, from five to forty acres in extent, with a growth as thrifty and strong as in Michigan, Ohio, or New York. Indeed, clover is much more tenacious here, than in either of the States named, while timothy is rapidly growing in popular favor. Orchard grass and herds grass have proven a decided success, and alfalfa—the popular herbage of the arid mountain plateaus and the Pacific slope—does finely in the dryer and lighter soils of this valley. If the Eastern reader is led, by the foregoing notes on the climate, water supply, timber, and grasses of Cowley County to infer that it is
AN ADMIRABLE STOCK COUNTRY
he is not likely to go far wrong in his conclusions. The native grasses are equal in growth and quality to any in Kansas; the native woodlands, gorges, glens, and canons afford splendid natural shelter from the winter storms; corn is raised for half the cost involved in the older States; the winters are mild enough to admit of almost constant pasturage and all that is needed to make
PERENNIAL GRAZING
in Cowley County is more rye fields, and more timothy, clover, orchard grass, blue grass, white clover, and alfalfa, all of which flourish in these soils as if “to the manor born.” Cattle mature here a full year earlier than in the colder Northern States; grazing lands and corn lands are 200 per cent cheaper, and the cost of wintering stock not a fourth as great as in Ohio, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania. The great stock markets of Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are brought to the very doors of the stockmen by competing railways, and as between the Eastern breeders and feeders, and those of Southern Kansas, the race for supremacy is clearly with the latter.
NOTHING PAYS SO WELL.
Nothing is better adapted to the country than stock growing. Cattle, sheep, horses, mules, and swine are all grown and fed with profit in Cowley County, the industry in good hands paying yearly net returns of 20 to 40 per cent on the investment, and it must be remembered that these figures are below the measure of profit in prosperous years.
CATTLE BREEDING AND FEEDING,
in connection with swine raising and feeding, is the great industry of the county, leading all other departments of husbandry by a big margin. High grade short-horns, of model types bred from the best beef getting sires, are kept by most of the growers and feeders, the steers being followed by an equal number of prime pigs which fatten on the droppings and litter of the feed yard. There are scores of feeders in the county, who annually full feed from six to fifteen car loads of heavy steers and pigs, a good percent, on the steers selling to buyers for the European trade. Hundreds of smaller feeders annually turn off from two to half a dozen car loads.
[PICTURE #1: J. L. HOWARD’S LAND OFFICE, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: HOME OF W. H. NELSON, REAL ESTATE BROKER, ARKANSAS CITY.]
THE HIGH CHARACTER OF THE HERDS
of Cowley County is an agreeable surprise to visitors from the older States. The scrub and scallywag are mainly things of history, and in their stead are pure bred and high grade Short-horn, Hereford, Holstein, Galloway, and Jersey cattle; Merino, Cotswold, and Down sheep; Poland and Berkshire pigs; fine types of English, French, and Canadian draught horses, and home bred turf, road, and general purpose horses. That the local breeders are carrying their work up to the best levels of this noble industry, is well attested by their successful exhibits at the county, district, and State fairs. The
EXTENT OF THE INDUSTRY
in this prosperous county is fairly indicated by the assessor’s returns for 1884, showing a grand total of 9,869 horses; 1,802 mules; 32,905 cattle; 96,479 sheep, and 70,559 swine. The later returns, excepting only sheep, will show an increase of 20 to 30 per cent over these figures. From the above statement, it will be seen that Cowley County has more horses and mules and nearly as many cattle as the State of Rhode Island; more sheep than Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined, and more swine than either of the States of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Connecticut, or Delaware.
THE YEARLY EXPORT
of fat steers, sheep, and swine from this county, including cattle that are summer grazed in the Indian Territory by Cowley County feeders, aggregates more than 3,000 car loads, worth at the present low price more than $2,000,000. Stock raising and feeding, in connection with corn growing, is
THE SAFEST AND MOST SATISFACTORY
industry that can be pursued by the Cowley County farmer. Few men who have followed the business for a term of years, and resolutely abjured speculation, have failed to make money. It beats special grain growing three to one. It beats speculation of every sort, for it is as sure as the sunshine and rains. What are stocks, bonds, mining options, town lots, or any other form of speculation compared with these matchless and magnificent grasses that come of their own volition, and re fed by the sunshine and dews and imperishable soils of such a country as Cowley County? If the life of the herdsman be eminently practicable and surely profitable, so too, it
HAS A POETIC CHARM
and appeals to the best heart, brain, and enterprise of the world. It is something better than mere human drudgery to grow the green nutritious grasses, develop the highest lines of animal grace and beauty, tend flocks and herds on the green fragrant range, live in intricate sympathy with the higher forms and impulses of the animal life in one’s care and feel the inspiration of the basic sentiments and traditions of honorable breeding; it is
A LIFE TO BE COVETED
by the best men of every land. A comparison with the grasses, herds, and herdsmen of such a country as Cowley County, the men of the great wheat fields are novel! These men of the flocks and herds live a far more enviable life than the Hebrew shepherds led in their old dead centuries, for they have their flocks, tune their shepherd reeds, live with and love one woman, and raise honest children in
THE SWEET ATMOSPHERE OF CONTENT.
They are at peace with their neighbors, live manly lives, and look upon as far a landscape as ever graced the canvas of Turner. The skies above are as radiant as those above the Golden Horn, and if the finer arts of the older lands are not cultivated by the stockmen of the peaceful valleys, they are yet devoted to the higher art of honorable human living.
DAIRY FARMING
is not one of the “lost arts” in Cowley County, but is greatly neglected by the easier ways of general stock raising and feeding, and yet there is no part of the West more abundant in cold rock springs, clear streams, succulent grasses, and natural sites for creameries, cheese factories, and private butter factories, than this region. Better still, Arkansas City, Wichita, the Indian Territory, the territories and the mountains to the westward, offer illimitable and splendid markets for expansion of products under the present order. So, too,
POULTRY RAISING AND MARKET GARDENING
for the products which these local cities and districts furnish a most tempting market.
FRUIT FARMING
too, might be prosecuted on a grand scale and with profit in Western Texas, the Indian Territory, Western Kansas, the mountains. The whole country offer the best markets in America for staple fruits of the garden, vineyard, and orchard.
The admirable
RAILWAY FACILITIES
of the county bring all these regions within easy command of the local producers and shippers. The Santa Fe system is already here with its Newton, Wichita, Arkansas City, and Ft. Worth divisions, opening up the entire west and south to Cowley County products. The Southern Kansas is here with direct Kansas City and Western Kansas connections. The “Frisco” line is here direct from Fort Smith, Arkansas, and St. Louis, and like the Southern Kansas, is heading southwestward with its extension at a rapid rate. The Missouri Pacific system is building into the county by its Ft. Smith and Denver, Memphis & Atlantic lines. The Douglas and State Line branches of the Santa Fe system are also building into the county. The Chicago & Alton and the Rock Island lines are pushing their way from the east. The Kansas City and Pan Handle branch of the Missouri Pacific is coming this way from the northeast. The Ft. Smith, Wellington & Northwestern will soon be here, and so will the Wichita, Cedar Vale & Southeastern. Half a dozen other lines are “on the cards” and some of them will be realized. The county already has 160 miles of railway and twenty-one shipping stations, and within the present year (1887) will have more than 200 miles with thirty shipping stations, and four fifth of the producers of the county will live within five miles of a railway station.
[PICTURE #1: JOHN KROENERT’S COTTAGE, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: VIEW OF SUMMIT STREET, ARKANSAS CITY, LOOKING NORTH.]
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[PICTURE #1: STACY MATLACK’S NEW BUSINESS BLOCK, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: PEARSON BLOCK, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #3: RESIDENCE OF H. P. FARRAR, ARKANSAS CITY.]
Cowley County is
NO LONGER WESTERN,
but central, and is fast building up commercial relations with the whole country. Less than 100 miles from the geographical center of the Union, this favored county, which, a dozen years ago, lay close to the wild Western border, and found its only valuable markets in the East, now commands the vast mining and grazing region of the Southwest, West, and Northwest, the cotton and sugar fields and rich forests of the South, and the great cities of the East, by competing railway lines that are giving wonderful impetus to local development. It is a high privilege to live in a country with such material, commercial, and agriculture advantages—a county whose
THIRTY-SIX THOUSAND PEOPLE
hail from every civilized land and represent the best blood, heart, brain, skill, experience, working power, and ambition of the oldest States, the Provinces, the British Islands and Europe, and are, by virtue of this composite make-up, the most cosmopolitan people to be found in any agricultural country in the world. The social, commercial, religious, political, and industrial friction of these diverse elements has worn away the provincial prejudice and conceit, born of more homogeneous conditions, and developed in this heterogeneous mass a broad, comprehensive, and liberal
WORLD CHARACTER,
embracing the advanced thought, the best impulse, the richest experience, the maturest judgment, the highest courage, and the best usages of all the peoples represented, and the result is everywhere apparent in the independence, frankness, easy self-command, self-assertion, bravery, wonderful enterprise, marvelous working ability and liberal tendencies of the people. They are well emancipated from cant and dogmatism, are neither creed-bought nor hide-bound, but keep step with the march of human progress, and are making a splendid destiny for a royal country. In the midst of an intensely material and practical life, they find ample time and inclination to build school houses, found academies, foster newspapers, rear temples to the spiritual and ideal, and cultivate the finer arts and social graces like men who believe in something higher than lands and livestock and gold. They believe in popular education and have in the county
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FREE SCHOOLS
supported by a direct tax, a liberal State school fund, and the “higher law” of advanced public sentiment, and afford the precious gift of an English education to every child of fortune, or lowly birth, within the county. Half a dozen of these are graded high schools that afford the advantages of higher education free of charge, to the more advanced pupils.
[PICTURE #1: BISHOP BLOCK, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: A. A. NEWMAN’S OLD STORE, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #3: DR. J. A. MITCHELL’S HOME, ARKANSAS CITY.]
THIRTY CHURCHES,
representing all the leading and some of the minor denominations, are here to foster and advance the moral and spiritual interests of the people, and the newcomer will find the church of his choice within easy reach from any point in the county.
LOCAL JOURNALISM
is represented by a dozen weekly and four daily newspapers, each and all worthy exponents of the social, commercial, material, moral, industrial, and political interests of the county.
A DOZEN BANKS
with an aggregation of capital and with exchange, deposit, and discount exhibits that would open the eyes of Eastern people, afford ample means for the accommodation of borrowers and the general business public.
[PICTURE #1: BAPTIST CHURCH, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: JOHNSON LOAN AND TRUST CO.’S BUILDING, ARKANSAS CITY.]
A DOZEN MILLS
driven by steam or water-power, are grinding the grain to feed the million, and some of them rank with the best in the country, both in the character of their equipage and the high quality of their product, which has recently led the flour and meal exhibits of the world.
THE COUNTY FINANCES
are in capital shape. The new assessment of real and personal property, the coming Spring, will clearly approximate $7,000,000, which is less than a fourth of the real wealth of the county. Taxation is low by comparison with the tax levies of the older States; the county finances are administered with scrupulous care and economy; the public obligations are promptly and faithfully honored at maturity; there are no repudiators of honest public indebtedness, and the public credit is as high as that of the State itself. From end to end Cowley County presents
A PICTURE OF MATERIAL THRIFT
that is assuring to see. The visitor may ride for days and days over this beautiful and prosperous county, among fine, well-cultivated grain fields, green meadows, green hedgerows and groves, and fruitful orchards and vineyards, thrifty herds, and delightful farm homes that would honor any of the older Western States. A full score of Cowley County farmers and stockmen represent personal and real estate worth all the way from $30,000 to $100,000, not a few of these being rated at much higher figures. A full hundred more might be named whose estates are valued from $.0,000 to $30,000. A still larger number own farms and personal property worth from $12,000 to $20,000, and a good sized army of men have farm and personal properties worth from $6,000 to $10,000. It must be remembered, too, that most of these men came to Cowley County eight, twelve, and fifteen years ago, with little or no means, and that full 80 per cent of these handsome estates have been
MADE OUT OF THE SOIL AND GRASSES,
and represent, in small measure, the partially developed wealth of the grain and grazing fields, herds and orchards and gardens of the county that are capable of sustaining a rural population alone of 75,000 souls. Does the reader ask about
LAND VALUES
in Cowley County? Well, here is my answer. Ten years ago I traversed this matchless Arkansas and Walnut valley region and found wild lands selling all the way from $2 to $5 per acre, with here and there a choice tract of bottom land being held at higher figures. Today the same lands are selling at $8 to $10 per acre in the wild state, the price depending on soil and location. A few choice tracts are held at higher prices and some of the rough, rocky hill and bluff lands at lower figures than above quoted. Security Investment Co., leading real estate brokers at Arkansas City, quote improved farms all the way from $20 to $50 per acre, excepting in the neighborhoods of the principal towns, where they command from $60 to $100 per acre, according to location, soil, and improvements. Hess & Norton quote large stock ranches, ranging from 600 to 4,000 acres, with more or less valuable improvements, and more or less wood and water all the way from $10 to $25 per acre, according to quality of land, location, and improvements. In the eastern and southeastern portions of the county are considerable tracts of wild land, held by non-resident owners, that could be turned into stock ranches of a good size at something less than the prices above quoted.
[PICTURES ON PAGE 13: ARKANSAS CITY WATER WORKS; STAND PIPE.]
A FURTHER ADVANCE
of 20 to 50 per cent in land values within the present year is almost certain. The building of new railways, the inflow of new land buyers, new capital and new enterprise from the East, good crops, the growing confidence in the essential value of these rich soils, improved farm methods, the steady improvement in the character of the flocks and herds, the marvelous growth of the towns, and the all-conquering energy and enterprise of the people—these, and other equally potent influences are giving
NEW AND STRONG IMPULSE
to the value of Cowley County lands, and the next five years will carry them close up to Illinois prices. To these general notes upon this noble county, I am pleased to add the following review of
ARKANSAS CITY,
the chief commercial town of the county, and with a single exception, the most promising city in the great State of Kansas. The pioneer settlement of the lands upon which Arkansas City now stands, as already recorded in these pages, was made by John Brown, John Strain, T. A. Wilkinson, and G. H. Norton, on the first of January, 1870. A little later came a party of well-known Emporia gentlemen and formally laid out Walnut City. The name of the new town was subsequently changed to Delphi, and a few months later to Cresswell, in honor of the late Postmaster General. Still later the founders adopted the name of Arkansas City as more appropriate to the location. The
ADMIRABLE LOCATION
of the city is a compliment alike to the good taste and business sagacity and clear forecast of its founders. It stands upon a commanding and beautiful elevation, between the Arkansas and Walnut rivers, just above the point of their intersection, and three hundred feet above the sea. It has superb natural drainage, and embraces hundreds of delightful building sites that command charming river and valley views. Half encircling the city on the west and south, winds the broad Arkansas, fringed with stately cottonwoods, and flanked on the further side by ranges of graceful hills that drift gradually into the rich table lands beyond. A mile to the eastward sweeps the clear, winding Walnut, down through leagues of matchless valley, forest, and corn land, to where it is lost in the grander parent stream. Picturesque bluffs and hills form a fitting background to this fairest of suburban landscapes. Table mounds and wooded hills on the north complete the environment of the city, which really forms the salient central figure in a landscape bounded by an amphitheater of beautiful hills, that are yet to be crowned with the elegant and stately homes of a great metropolis. Beyond the aesthetic charm of its surroundings, Arkansas City is singularly fortunate in the
STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE OF ITS LOCATION.
It is 250 miles southwest of Kansas City, 200 miles northwest of Fort Smith, 250 miles north of Fort Worth, and fifty miles south of Wichita, all cities of destiny and with a single exception, has material advantages superior to any of them. There is room and the other principal requisites for the building of a splendid city here. The location naturally commands the finest portions of Southern Kansas and the Indian Territory. Here is a water-power second in magnitude to none west of the Mississippi. The water supply of the city is unexcelled. The coal, timber, iron, cotton, and herds of Missouri, Arkansas, Texas, and the Indian Territory, and the grain fields of Kansas, are all easily commanded by railways already built and now building into the city. Stone, sand, and lime of highest quality and measureless quantity, lie at the door of the city, and a railway system of which any city in Kansas might well be proud, is rapidly centering here. Supplementing these advantages are half a hundred
INVINCIBLE TOWN-BUILDERS
whose organized capital, effort, and influence in the City Council, Board of Trade, canal, milling, hotel, water and manufacturing companies and building and banking associations, are equal to the building of a strong city. Only seventeen years ago, this town site was a wilderness of wild flowers and grasses, the home of the Osages, and the grazing ground of the wild herds. The writer saw it a half a dozen years later, when less than 500 souls were here, but they were brave souls with a sublime faith in the future of Arkansas City. Up to the coming of the Santa Fe railway, in the fall of 1879, the town had made little additional growth. Railway connections and the construction of the canal, early in 1880, gave
NEW LIFE,
new impetus, new hope, and new ambition to the denizens of this brave little city, and from that day began the organization of mental, material, and commercial forces that have given the city its later and
MARVELOUS GROWTH
in population, trade, solid wealth, and high rank among the stronger commercial towns of the Sunflower State. In the spring of 1882, the population had grown to 1,300; in 1884 to 2,800, and in the spring of 1886, to nearly 5,000. There are fully 9,000 people on the town site today, and before the close of 1887, the population will reach 12,000. The wonderful material progress of this city is well illustrated by the
BUILDING OPERATIONS
of 1886, which covered 300 new structures, embracing homes, stores, hotels, factories, shops, barns, water works, the city hall, and kindred enterprises, the total cost of which, including the canal extension and other public works, reached a grand total of $800,000. The building operations of the present season including the plant of the Santa Fe Railway Company, the new cotton mills, the electric light, street railway, and gas plants, improvements on the new parks, the new hotel and opera house, the twenty new business blocks, 250 new homes and other work now under construction and contract, will involve an expenditure of $1,300,000. The city is
FINELY PLATTED AND SUBSTANTIALLY BUILT.
The principal thoroughfares and avenues are laid on a scale that impresses the visitor with a sense of amplitude and a conviction that men of sagacity and forecast have been at the helm here. Solidity, permanency, and practical adaptation are stamped upon every feature of the town. All the later public and business structures are solidly built of brick, stone, and iron.
[PICTURE: FOURTH WARD SCHOOL HOUSE, ARKANSAS CITY.]
The later
PUBLIC AND COMMERCIAL ARCHITECTURE
is in refreshing contrast with that of the older towns, much of it embracing a happy union of the best modern types, and the highest utility. The new City Building, the new Gladstone Hotel, the Johnson Loan & Trust Company Building, the new loan and land office of Frank J. Hess, the First National Bank, Howard’s new building, and the new Syndicate Block, all designed by W. A. Ritchie & Co., are each and all fine specimens of architectural taste and solidity. The Union Block, built and owned by Messrs. Sherburne, Shepard, Bittle, Pickle, and Mrs. Wm. Benedict; Highland Hall, built and owned by Messrs. Newman, Farrar, Huey, Schiffbauer, Godehard, Sleeth, Benedict, and others; the Commercial Block, owned and built by Messrs. Newman, Farrar, Cunningham, etc.; the new Summit Block, built and owned by Messrs. Newman, Gooch, and Pickle; the new cracker factory, Herman Godehard’s Block, the Houghton Block, and Frick Bro.’s Cresswell Block, Matlack’s Block, Newman’s old store, the new Syndicate Block, Matlack’s new store, Carder and Pearson’s new Blocks, and the new Arkansas City Bank are all tasteful and substantial buildings that would honor a city of 50,000 souls. The new water works building, planned by Mr. Quigley, the owner of the plant, is a model of fine architecture, and so, too, is Judge Bonsall’s projected block. The designs of Mr. Wm. Gall for new business houses and homes, to be built the coming summer, are among the finest in the State. The public school buildings, especially the new Second Ward school, designed by Mr. Gall, are fine types of modern school architecture. Among
OTHER SALIENT FEATURES
of this booming city are two daily and three weekly newspapers, three banks, nine churches, a Masonic chapter and Blue Lodge; an encampment and lodge of Odd Fellows; a lodge and uniformed rank of the Knights of Pythias; a lodge of the Ancient order of Red Men; strong organizations of the Knights of Labor, G. A. R., the A. O. U. W., and the Young Men’s Christian Association, and a full hundred solid business concerns. The
SOCIAL LIFE
of the city is thoroughly rational and enjoyable. Here, as in all portions of Kansas, are the liberalizing forces of a composite population, that give bravery, breadth, and frankness; freedom from meaningless constraint and cheap etiquette, and above all, the spirit of a wholesome and refreshing independence to the social order of a sensible, cordial, and hospitable people, who always accord a generous western welcome to all worthy newcomers. They have, too, much more than the average mental and social culture of western towns, and make the finest practical display of
UNITY AND PUBLIC ENTERPRISE
that I have found anywhere in the West. The infernal spirit of clique and division and discord that has blighted the fair prospects of many a western town, has never entered Arkansas City. The people are a unit on anything and everything that promises the material advancement of their favorite town. Every good enterprise meets a ready and hearty response from the stalwart workers of this brave, bustling, buoyant, busy, and booming young city. The local Board of Trade with its committees on railway extension, trade extension, public improvements, industrial enterprise, city extension, finance, etc., are doing a grand work for the city. So, too, is the city council, another group of stalwarts in public enterprise. Supplementing these are a dozen corporations that have built enduring monuments to personal and corporate enterprise. The canal, the water works, the mills and factories, the handsome new blocks and hotels, the location of new railway lines, the building of bridges, and kindred work, are the creation of the splendidly organized working ability of these agencies for city advancement. The representative businessmen of the city have the
ENERGY, FAITH, AND PERSISTENCE
to build a city on the borders of Sahara. With the best elements of town-building on a grand scale lying about them in profusion, their task is an easy one. If some of them are wanting in abundant cash capital, most of them have a big stock of the higher capital of heart and courage and brains, with the tact to turn it to the best possible uses. They have boundless faith in the future of Arkansas City, because they have faith in themselves. They wait not on extraneous forces to build them up, but resolutely
BUILD THEMSELVES UP
by the elements and agencies at their command. Better or braver men never came together in the rough work of pioneer town building than they who planted their commercial and industrial standards along Summit street, and the neighboring river-side, from 1870 to 1875. The writer found them here when their work was only well begun, and remembers as if it were only yesterday the familiar forms and faces of A. A. Newman, the brothers James and Wm. Benedict, O. P. Houghton, J. H. Sherburne, I. H. Bonsall, H. O. Meigs, H. D. Kellogg, Capt. C. M. Scott, Capt. G. H. Norton, Maj. Wm. Sleeth, S. P. Channell, Harry Farrar, R. C. Haywood, J. L. Huey, Hon. Timothy McIntire, Amos Walton, and a dozen others who must be nameless here—all prime men and inspiring workers for the young city. Other men of kindred sympathies, ambition, and impulse were later attracted hither by sympathetic magnetism, until the pioneer hamlet has grown to the strong commanding city, whose clear-sighted businessmen are
MAKING THE MOST OF THE SITUATION.
[PICTURE: SECOND WARD SCHOOL, ARKANSAS CITY.]
The pioneers laid well and wisely the basis for comprehensive work, and the men of today, with characteristic spirit and energy, are carrying it to a splendid issue. In the undercurrent of “the life they live,” may be something of the ideal, but to the casual observer, the city is intensely materialistic. They are living and laboring here in stern, practical Roman methods, and articulating facts, instead of fancies. Their purpose is to build a strong, central commercial and industrial city, that shall worthily represent the best phases of our progressive materialistic civilization, and the observant visitor is compelled to believe in and acknowledge their success. It is assuring to the Eastern observer to pass a day, or a week, in a city that gives
NO SIGN OF WAITING,
or doubting, but is everywhere radiant with tokens of material advancement. I confess to a nature set mainly in the minor key, and to a love of sentiment that is sometimes all-absorbing, but am compelled to admire and commend the bravery and confidence and self-assertion of these men, who live and labor and love in the stern realism of a creative and progressive life. There is
NOTHING STINTED OR SORDID
in the make-up of a live commercial city. Commercial life is pre-eminently liberal, progressive, and humane. Commerce molds and leads civilization, gives cosmopolitan type to thought and action, and gets a generous hospitality, such as I have an hundred times met in the banks, offices, hotels, stores, mills, and workshops of this radiant and driving young metropolis of the lower Arkansas Valley. There is very little hide-bound conservatism among the leading businessmen of Arkansas City. Half a dozen sordid “skin-flints” will cover the entire list. And happily, there are few dead-and-alive money-groups, who live upon the misfortunes of their neighbors, and to whom “two per cent a month” is a higher and grander prerogative than the founding and building of a noble city. Among all the growing towns of this glowing and glorious Sunflower State, Arkansas City is singularly and
EXCEPTIONALLY PROSPEROUS.
It grows like magic, but is the creation of human hands. No wonder-working Monte Christo has passed down this beautiful valley, while the world was sleeping; strong men of muscle and brain and gold have wrought here, and a live, luminous, driving city is their characteristic and appropriate issue—a city without cant or whine or hypocrisy; a city of fortune and splendid destiny. Local capital mainly absorbed in bricks and stone and iron and mortar and merchandise and machinery; in motive power and the manifold ways of material and commercial enterprise. Other societies live, and for a season may thrive on speculation alone. The prosperity of Arkansas City rests upon
A SOLID AND ENDURING BASIS.
[PICTURE #1: FRICK BROS.’ CRESSWELL BLOCK, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: HOME OF DR. J. T. SHEPARD, ARKANSAS CITY.]
While it is true that speculation in city realty has made fortunes for scores of men in the last year, and will make fortunes for other men the present year; the real estate is rapidly advancing and hundreds of strangers from all parts of the country are coming here with hundreds of thousands of new capital for investment; that the city is building up at a unprecedented rate, and that rents are strong and steadily advancing; real estate value in trade, building, and manufacturing enterprises, railway development, and all other vital interests of the city are
FAR BELOW THE MAXIMUM,
and every movement in local values and advancement is inspired by a profound conviction that Arkansas City is destined to become one of the really great cities of the Southwest; nor is this feeling confined to old timers and property owners here. It is shared by every sagacious and clear-sighted visitor. The growth of the city is not a question of half a dozen or dozen years and 10,000 people, dependent on the agricultural development of limited local territory; it is patent to the dullest observer that Arkansas City is coming to be
A RAILWAY CENTER
of no ordinary magnitude. The lines already built and under construction will give her merchants and shippers and manufacturers ready command of a broad and exceedingly rich country.
[PICTURE #1: G. W. MILLER’S HARDWARE STORE, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: S. MATLACK’S DRY GOODS HOUSE, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #3: HEAD OF CANAL, ON THE ARKANSAS RIVER, FOUR MILES ABOVE ARKANSAS CITY.]
THE GREAT SANTA FE SYSTEM
is already here with its Gulf line across the Indian Territory to Fort Worth and Galveston, opening up to Arkansas City the vast grazing fields of the Indian Territory and the richer cotton fields of Texas, and daily through trains from Kansas City to the Gulf halt here for change of engines and refreshments. This great corporation has also established a freight division here, and its train crews are made up at this point for Kansas City and Texas. The “State Line” Railroad, which is simply an extension of the Independence and Western, will be built into Arkansas City from Cedar Vale, and become a part of the Santa Fe system the coming summer. As a further evidence that this gigantic corporation has determined to make Arkansas City an important radiating centre for its Southwestern lines, they have secured lands and other valuable local franchises worth nearly half a million dollars, and are now constructing capacious and elegant stone freight and passenger depots, a round house, eating house, mechanic shops, side-tracks, etc., at a cost of $375,000, and before the close of the year will have a plant here second in magnitude only to their Topeka plant.
[PICTURE #1: HIGHLAND HALL, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: HOUGHTON BLOCK, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #3: NORTH VIEW OF THE HEAD GATES AND WASTE-WEIR, ON THE CANAL 2½ MILES ABOVE ARKANSAS CITY.]
THE ST. LOUIS & SAN FRANCISCO
line is already here, direct from St. Louis and Arkansas, giving this city close connections with the railway systems of the South and East. The Geuda Springs, Caldwell & Western, an extension of the “Frisco” line, from Arkansas City westward, is already in operation to the county seat of Harper County, and is pushing westward to the Pan Handle and Colorado. The same system have also in operation a branch from this city south to Cale, on the line of the Indian Territory.
THE FORT SMITH ROAD,
under the corporate name of the Kansas & Arkansas Valley Railroad, is being rapidly built from Van Buren and Fort Smith, in Arkansas, up the valley of the Arkansas to this city, where the company have secured valuable lands for their terminal shops, round houses, offices, etc. The recent acquisition of this line by the Missouri Pacific system, will give Arkansas City direct connections with Fort Smith, Little Rock, Memphis, and the rich coal fields of the Indian Territory, the vast pine and hard wood forests of Arkansas, and the cotton fields of the lower Mississippi by the Missouri Pacific and Iron Mountain lines. THE FT. SMITH, WELLINGTON & NORTHWESTERN, which is really an extension of the Ft. Smith road into Northwestern Kansas and Colorado via Wellington and Hutchinson, is under contract or construction and before the close of the year will give Arkansas City command of the great grain and grazing fields of Kansas and Colorado and the illimitable coal and mining fields of the foot-hills and mountains. A branch of the Ft. Smith road will also be built from this city up the Arkansas to Wichita. The
KANSAS CITY AND PAN HANDLE
railway, branching from the St. Louis, Ft. Scott & Wichita (Union Pacific) line at the division town of Reece in Greenwood County, Kansas, and running southwest to Arkansas City via Burden and Leon, has secured valuable grounds and other franchises in this city and will be built the coming summer, giving direct, short line connections with Kansas City by the Missouri Pacific system. This line is projected from Arkansas City across the Indian Territory, southwestward to the Pan Handle and El Paso, and covers some of the finest farm and grazing regions in America. The
DENVER, MEMPHIS AND ATLANTIC,
another Missouri Pacific line, already running from Chetopa to Dexter, is rapidly building down the Grouse Valley into Arkansas City, with its main line, and will push on to Wellington and further northwest to connections with its interminable Western Kansas and Colorado system.
THE CHICAGO & ROCK ISLAND,
another of the great trunk lines, is pointing this way and arrangements are being perfected for its entrance into the city when it comes. Not to be outdone by their great rivals,
THE CHICAGO & ALTON
folks are securing franchises from the Missouri border southwest to this city, and propose to handle their share of the southwestern business centering in the “Canal City.” Other lines are in prospect and, as sure as the tides, will come this way.
[PICTURE #1: HOME OF J. W. STANFORD, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: SUMMIT BLOCK, ARKANSAS CITY.]
Next to its railway system, the most potent factor in the present and future growth of the city is
THE CANAL,
of which several views are herewith given. This noble enterprise had its inception in the organization of the Arkansas City Water Power Co., composed of Gen. James Hill, A. A. Newman, Stacy Matlack, Maj. Wm. Sleeth, and T. H. McLaughlin, all prominent businessmen of the city, and was carried to a successful issue in the summer of 1880. The old canal tapped the Arkansas river just above the city, carrying its waters across the town site and discharging them into the Walnut river, two and a half miles below, under a fall, or water-head of 22½ feet, giving the company control of
THE STRONGEST WATER POWER
in Kansas, at a cost of about $75,000. It was found necessary to dam the river to utilize the volume of water needed at low stage, and in order to save the cost of more or less dam repairs after heavy freshets, and to further increase the capacity and security of the canal, the company last year ordered an extension of the work to a bend of the river, four miles above the city, where the channel of the stream is easily turned into the canal whose eight large head-gates have a capacity equal to the
NINE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED HORSE-POWER
of the river at low stage. This extension, which was completed last November at a cost of some $90,000, not only largely increases the water-head but gives the spirited projectors and owners of the work the finest water-power west of the Mississippi river. The company own lands bordering on the Walnut for a good distance below the foot of the canal, giving them the further advantage of extending the work, thereby increasing the water-head, and adding largely to the area of advantageous grounds for manufacturing purposes. Of the immense and invaluable water motor permanently secured by this grand improvement, only about 300 horse-power is yet utilized for driving the three large flouring mills and planing mill already in operation. Other manufacturing works are likely to be planted the coming Summer, among them a large wood-working establishment for lumber dressing and the manufacturing of sash doors, blinds, moldings, and kindred work, for which there is a heavy and increasing local demand. It is impossible to estimate the advantages accruing to the city from this splendid water-power, for it means the early planting here of scores of
NEW MANUFACTURING ENTERPRISES,
including car shops, railway machine shops, general foundry and machine works, cotton and woolen mills, paper mills, furniture and farm machinery works, new flouring mills and minor industries, for all of which there is abundant power and building grounds along the lower division of the canal, which is now five miles long, and the most complete water improvement of the kind in the Western country. The early completion of the railway system of the city will not only give her command of cotton, wool, hard and soft wood lumber, coal, iron and other raw materials for conversion into common wares, fabrics and machinery, to the inspiring music of wheel and spindle and lathe and waterfall, along the banks of this superb industrial channel, but in like measure, will open up to the city broad and fruitful market fields for the products now mainly supplied from the older manufacturing States.
[PICTURE #1: RESIDENCE OF O. INGERSOLL, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: SOUTH VIEW OF HEAD GATES, ON THE CANAL, 2½ MILES ABOVE ARKANSAS CITY.]
FORTUNATELY FOR THE CITY
the builders and owners of the canal are among the most sagacious and public spirited businessmen and property owners, and from its inception, with characteristic energy and enterprise, they have pushed the work to early completion, far more with reference to its influence on the growth of the city than to the advancement of their private interests. In the sale or lease of water privileges the company, have from the first, pursued the most
LIBERAL POLICY,
always favoring transfers of power that would most encourage permanent manufacturing enterprises and best influence the prosperity of the town. Many a water-power of less magnitude than this has inspired the building of, and is now fostering Eastern cities of 30,000 to 50,000 people. That this great motor shall nearly or remotely have an equally gratifying issue to Arkansas City is more than probable. It is a noble public enterprise, complimentary alike to the city, county, and State; to Mr. E. B. Wingate, the chief engineer in its later construction, and to the public spirit, nerve, and executive ability of the gentlemen who have carried it to successful completion. Gen. James Hill, the President, or Major Wm. Sleeth, the Secretary and Treasurer of the Water Power Co., will be pleased to confer with parties desiring an interest in the water privileges or further knowledge concerning the work.
The city has another element of primary importance in its
INCOMPARABLE WATER SUPPLY
which, for purity and volume is not excelled by any public water supply in the West. The waters of the Arkansas river, fresh from the melting snow and cold rock springs of the foot-hills and mountains, and filtered through a mile of sand and gravel, under twenty feet of sand rock, and thence delivered through fissures in the rocks, into the great reservoir of the Arkansas City Water Power Co., free from alkali, clear as amber, and soft and limpid as rain water, are a blessing to be coveted by the fairest city in the land. And such a water supply is the singular good fortune of Arkansas City. The means for its distribution are
THE ARKANSAS CITY WATER WORKS,
constructed in the Summer of 1886, by the Inter-State Gas Co., of St. Louis, and its legal successor, the Arkansas City Water Co., which have laid for this city the most complete and perfect water-works plant in the State of Kansas. The entire plant, in its minutest details, embraces the most approved materials and mechanical appliances known to modern water works mechanism. Among the salient features of the plant are two compound-duplex Blake pumps, each with a capacity of 1,000,000 gallons, and equal to the distribution of water, for public and private uses, to a city of 50,000 souls. The two steel boilers, each with thirty-two 18-foot flues, are fed by an improved Lowe feed water-heater at a saving of 50 per cent in full over the old methods. The plan already embraces upward of seven miles of pipe, the mains being laid on a plan involving the environment of the entire city and system, which gives a local fire pressure at any point equal to the pressure at the pumps. The mains are supplied with Chapman valves, or gates, at all crossings, in order that any section or line of pipe may be cut out in case of accident, or for repairs and extensions, without interfering with the balance of the system. Ninety-six public hydrants and four public drinking fountains have already been provided for the immediate needs of the city.
[PICTURE #1: HOME OF D. L. MEANS, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: ARKANSAS CITY ROLLER MILLS, AT THE FOOT OF THE CANAL, ARKANSAS CITY.]
THE STAND TOWER,
which has ten feet diameter and is 125 feet high, is centrally located at the highest point in the city and rests on a massive stone foundation, twelve feet deep, with a diameter of thirty-two feet at the base and twenty-four feet at the top. The tower is anchored to massive iron plates at the bottom of this foundation by a dozen heavy bolts, which are fastened to equally strong brackets riveted to the immense lower plates of the tower. The tower is constructed of the best charcoal iron, the plates used ranging from five-eighths of an inch thickness at the base to three sixteenths at the top. It has a capacity of 80,000 gallons, which affords ample pressure for private uses of water, leaving the pumps at rest a good share of the time. The pipe at the tower is provided with a gate by which the tower itself can be cut off from the system, when the full power of the pumps is required for the strongest pressure in fire emergencies. The Water Co. maintain a fire-alarm system, connecting the pump-house with the central office in the new city building.
THE PUMP HOUSE,
a view of which is given, is 35 x 70 feet on the ground, two stories above the basement, and is built of heavy gray limestone trimmed with the elegant blue limestones that abound in this neighborhood, and is a model of fine style, solidity, economic arrangement and superb finish. The base of the building is planted in the bed rock directly over the fissure and borings from which the water supply issues, its basement walls forming the ample reservoirs from which the water is forced into the system by the pumps. The engine and boiler room floors are of Portland cement; the pumps are finished with elegant walnut lagging and nickel mountings, and the rich wainscoting, massive and elaborate double doors, cathedral windows, and finely frescoed ceilings of the pump room are fit for a modern drawing room. The office and private apartments above are finely planned and finished; the roof is of the best galvanized iron car-roofing, the grounds represent a charming miniature park, with shade and ornamental trees, shrub walks, grass plats, and fountain; and the entire plant, both in its practical and esthetic phases, bears the impress of the engineering skill and cultivated taste of Mr. J. B. Quigley, who planned the works, and Mr. L. P. Andrews, under whose immediate supervision they were carried to completion. From end to end of the works, there is not a dollars worth of superficial work in a total expenditure of nearly $100,000. Mr. J. B. Quigley, the president, and now sole owner of the works, has predicated this large expenditure and the high character of the works, on his faith in the future of the city, which he has further complimented by making his home and business headquarters here. He also owns the gas works plant in the city of Hutchinson, has planned and constructed many of the finest water and gas plants in the Southwest, and is a gentleman of exceptionally strong business sense, fine executive ability, high professional standing, and capital social qualities, and, like his bright and genial young friend, Mr. L. P. Andrews, the secretary of the company, is delighted with the city. It is safe to say that no town of its class in Kansas has so many of the elements of
A STRONG TRADING POINT
as Arkansas City, a fact which largely justifies the high confidence of investors in the present and prospective value of local property and business enterprise. Unlike most interior towns, which depend upon comparatively small tributary districts and whose commercial situation is essentially local, Arkansas City has a dozen extraneous sources of commercial strength, quite beyond the limits of her own rich Cowley County territory and trade.
[PICTURE #1: FOOT GATES AT THE LOWER END OF THE CANAL, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF ARTHUR H. GREEN’S MAGNOLIA FARM, ON WALNUT RIVER, 10 MILES NORTHEAST OF ARKANSAS CITY.]
THE INDIAN TRADE
with the tribes located on the neighboring reservations, alone amounts to more than the total trade of the average city of this class. From twenty-five to 140 miles away, are scattered the reservations and agencies of the Poncas, Tonkaways, Otoes, Pawnees, Kaws, Osages, Sac and Fox’s, Kiowas, Comanches, Wichitas, Cheyennes, and Arapahos, among whom are annually disbursed several millions in cash by the Government, a good share of which is exchanged for all classes of merchandise in this city. Only five miles to the southward of the city, just across the Indian border, is
THE CHILOCCO INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL,
for Indian boys and girls, embracing massive and elegant stone buildings with dormitory capacity for 300 pupils. A beautiful 2,500 acre experimental farm with fine stock, grain fields, young orchards, garden and fruit yards, teams, farm machinery, workshops, etc., are connected with the school, which is supported by the Government and gives to Arkansas City merchants trade advantages equal to the location of a college or asylum. The city is also the key to
A HEAVY TRADE IN RANCH SUPPLIES
for a large area in the Indian Territory, embracing ranches that aggregate fully 300,000 cattle and horses, many of whose owners or managers reside here and conduct their business from this base. It is, too,
THE GATEWAY TO OKLAHOMA,
the famed and fabulous land toward which a million eyes and hearts are turned today with covetous longing—land of romance and superlative scenic loveliness, whose winters are but Northern Indian summers, glorified by the soft blue haze, the perennial green of the mistletoe, and the green and crimson and gold of semi-tropical woodlands. Land of languor, love, and beauty, whose dreamy air, genial skies, sunny waters, and sweet pastoral landscape, revive memories of the old Italy; what a splendid destiny awaits thee! Just
A LITTLE FURTHER ON,
when the cry of the landless becomes the rallying cry of the nation and a sickly sentimentalism shall no longer hold the imaginary line at Chilocco, an impassable barrier to the march of a genial civilization, Oklahoma will be crowned with the glory of grain fields, orchards, vineyards, town, and homes, and the “canal city,” no longer the camping ground of “Oklahoma boomers,” will be the great distributing point for yearly millions of Oklahoma trade. The city has developed
A PROSPEROUS JOBBING TRADE,
which began in a small way with the minor neighboring towns half a dozen years ago, and has gradually spread well into the territory, until it has grown to a magnitude of several millions a year. Only the full development of the railway system is needed to vastly augment this trade in the territory of Kansas, Arkansas, and Texas. The mill stuffs of the city are now distributed well over Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, and other States. Groceries, provisions, grain, baled hay, wagons, and kindred merchandise are largely sold in job lots all over the north-central portions of the territory, and it is no uncommon thing to see whole train loads of these goods laid down here in a single week on the orders of four or five of the leading houses. A liberal jobbing trade in dry goods and hardware is gradually growing up here, and it is only a question of two or three years when other lines will be represented by wholesale dealers and stocks commensurate with the growth of transportation facilities, the tributary trading country, and the city itself.
[PICTURE #1: HOME OF J. H. HILLIARD, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURES #2 AND #3: I. D. HARKLEROAD’S LONE OAK BREEDING AND FRUIT FARM, FIVE MILES EAST OF ARKANSAS CITY.]
THE RETAIL TRADE
of the city is exceptionally heavy for a town of its class, the large and thrifty tributary farm region, the neighboring military force at Chilocco, the extensive grazing interest, and enormous freighting from this point into the territory, the local manufacturing interests, and the concentration here of a large force of railway builders and operators, swell the retail trade of the city to proportions that many a western town of 10,000 souls might envy. It is no exceptional or singular sight to see from 500 to 1,000 whites and 100 to 200 Indians, with 200 and 300 teams and long trains of freighting wagons on the streets of the city, for five days of the week, and double the number on Saturday, all of them contributing more or less to the trade of a full hundred merchants, millers, and shop-keepers. In this connection a
COMMERCIAL REVIEW
of the city for 1886 will be of special interest to the reader. It must, however, be held in mind that an exhibit of this kind will barely approximate the business of the city whose rapid material and commercial advancement and frequent business changes make an accurate review quite impossible.
THE DRY GOODS TRADE
embraces four principal houses and several small stores, carrying about $200,000 worth of staple and fancy dry goods, boots, shoes, notions, clothing, furnishing goods, and kindred stocks, the aggregate yearly sales of which reach about $345,000. The leading dry goods houses of A. A. Newman & Co. and Stacy Matlack are among the strongest, best conducted, and most successful mercantile concerns in Kansas, and are managed by gentlemen to whom trade is art rather than a mere speculative venture—men whose mercantile discipline, metropolitan methods, high commercial standing, large and heavily stocked houses, heavy and growing trade, and fine managerial ability give them rank in the first commercial circles of the commonwealth. Both have grown from small establishments to their present fine proportions, the former beginning almost from the founding of the town and the latter in 1878. Both do more or less jobbing; a branch of their trade that is likely, in the near future, to assume strong proportions.
THE GROCERY AND PROVISION TRADE
is represented by some fifteen houses, four or five of which do more or less jobbing and nearly all of which carry queensware, wooden ware, canned goods, and everything usually handled by the grocery trade. The total value of stocks carried by these houses is about $250,000, and their annual sales $575,000. So rapid, indeed, is the growth of this branch of trade that it is very likely to reach $1,000,000 in 1887. Mr. Herman Godehard, one of the oldest and most successful retail grocers in the city, reports this branch of the business more prosperous than at any time since the founding of the town. Staple and fancy crockery, glassware, lamps, and oriental ware are handled exclusively by only a single house with about $7,000 stocks and a $12,000 trade.
HEAVY AND SHELF HARDWARE,
stoves, tinware, and kindred stocks are carried by five standard houses and as many smaller stores and shops, to the extent of $65,000, and their yearly sales foot up to $200,000. Howard Bros., and G. W. Miller & Co., both excellent hardware concerns, report a strong, steady, and healthful growth in this line.
DRUGS, SUNDRIES, BOOKS, STATIONERY,
fancy goods, etc., are handled by ten houses, with aggregate stocks valued at $60,000, and yearly sales covering $160,000. Like the hardware trade, this line is entering the jobbing field in a moderate way, but with fair promise of a prosperous future. The
HARNESS, SADDLERY, AND HORSE FURNISHING
business is conducted by two principal concerns with combined stock worth $15,000, and a yearly output of $50,000. This line of trade, too, is having a marked growth and has a bright future.
CLOTHING AND GENTS’ FURNISHING
goods are handled by four houses, whose aggregate stocks reach close to $60,000. The total yearly trade of these concerns is $125, 000. Most of the dry goods and general merchandise firms handle this class of goods also and their total yearly sales will cover more than twice the amount above given.
BOOTS AND SHOES
are handled exclusively by only three concerns, with combined stocks valued at $20,000, and all yearly sales estimated at $57,000. The dry goods and general merchants all handle this class of goods on a liberal scale and it is probable that a careful estimate would swell the grand total to $150,000. Exclusively considered,
GENERAL MERCHANDISE
is handled only by a single firm with $7,000 stocks and $30,000 sales. The metropolitan method of dividing general trade into special branches, each handled by dealers in specialties, has pretty much broken up the old country-store habit of handling everything under a single roof.
FURNITURE
and kindred stocks are sold by two houses and some second-hand shops to the extent of about $80,000 annually, the value of the combined stocks being about $20,000. A fair jobbing trade in his line has recently sprung up, with indications of a strong and rapid growth.
BOOKS, STATIONERY, AND FANCY GOODS
are handled, exclusively, by a single house with $3,000 stocks and a $10,000 trade. Most of these goods are largely sold by the leading drug houses, and their sale aggregates a handsome sum.
JEWELRY,
watches, clocks, diamonds, plated and silver wares and fancy goods are held in stock by three houses, to the amount of $15,000, and their yearly sales cover about $18,000. These goods are more or less handled by other dealers, and it is impossible to more than approximate their relation to the general trade of the city. The trade in
FARM MACHINERY, WAGONS, CARRIAGES,
buggies, etc., is conducted by three principal concerns with average stocks of $50,000 and annual sales of $130,000. Other parties handle more or less of this class of merchandise and the total sales reach much higher figures. The
COAL, GRAIN, BALED HAY,
wood, and general feed trade of three concerns will cover 1,200 car loads a year, and is roughly estimated at a value of $175,000. Frick Bros., who handle a good share of this business, report an unprecedented growth in most departments of their trade.
[PICTURE #1: RESIDENCE OF J. L. HUEY, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: ARTHUR GREEN’S MAGNOLIA FARM HOME, 10 MILES NORTHEAST OF ARKANSAS CITY.]
THE LUMBER TRADE
of the city, which includes pine and hardwood lumber, lath, shingles, doors, blinds, mouldings, cement, plaster, lime, hair, building paper, prepared paints, bricks, and coal is conducted by four concerns, representing total stocks valued at $55,000, and total yearly sales amounting to $195,000. Mr. D. J. Buckley, the genial manager of the Chicago Lumber Co., at this point, reports a strong and healthful growth in this line of trade and believes in a grand future for the city.
MUSICAL MERCHANDISE, MILLINERY,
second hand house furnishing, bakeries, restaurants, and small shop keepers, represent a total yearly business of $75,000. The commercial value of the
SAND AND GRAVEL
annually handled by a single firm, largely for export, reached the handsome sum of $5,000, and is steadily increasing.
PHOTOGRAPHY,
the most delightful and satisfying of all the arts of portraiture, is well represented here by two firms, one of which, Messrs. Prettyman & Miller, ranks with the very best in the State. These gentlemen have the quick, delicate insight, subtle sense of form and color, warm, artistic, and poetic impulse, fine mechanical skill, and genuine love of art, characteristic of all connoisseurs in the finer arts, and are turning out photographic work that would honor the best studios of the metropolitan cities. The yearly photographic work of the city is measured by about $6,000. The trade in cut meats is conducted by half a dozen
MARKETS
representing a total investment of $20,000 and yearly sales of $75,000, a good per cent of which goes to the ranches and Indians in the territory. The half dozen
LIVERY, FEED, AND SALE STABLES
of the city involve an investment of $30,000 and do a yearly business of $55,000. There are half a dozen minor interests involving several thousand dollars, which are not included in the foregoing report. The
INDUSTRIAL INTERESTS
of the city, though only in their infancy, make a most flattering showing. Among the more important of these, and one fraught with decided and lasting benefit to the town is
THE ARKANSAS CITY CRACKER FACTORY,
owned by the Arkansas City Cracker Co., which was organized in the spring of 1886, by a company of local capitalists, of which J. L. Huey is president; G. W. Cunningham, secretary and treasurer; and L. B. Davidson, manager. The organization resulted in the building of a handsome three-story brick building, 50 x 70 feet, with a substantial addition, and its equipment with the latest and most approved machinery for the manufacture of crackers, sweet biscuits, and fine confectionery. The factory has been in operation something over a half year; employing fifty skilled work men under the supervision of Mr. Davidson, who has had large experience in this line of work; employs several traveling salesmen, and from the day of its opening has proved a marked success, its product being in popular demand far in excess of the present output. It has a daily capacity equal to the absorption of 100 barrels of flour and the employment of 150 hands, and is the first of a series of manufacturing enterprises which involve a union of local capital with the skill and experience of the old manufacturing States, for the planting here of many permanent and profitable industries. The capital involved in this cracker company enterprise including the cost of the plant, is about $35,000, and it is safe to estimate the value of the first year’s output at $125,000. The two small
PLANING MILLS
which also include the manufacture of sash, doors, blinds, moldings, brackets, scroll work, etc., and are run in connection with contracting and building, involve an investment of about $9,000, and a yearly business of about $12,000. This industry will be carried to much greater proportions, after the completion of the Fort Smith Railroad, which penetrates the finest hard pine, walnut, cypress, oak, and other hard wood regions in the Southwest. The single
FOUNDRY AND MACHINE SHOP
of the city, too, which now involves a $7,000 plant and a yearly business of $12,000, is simply pioneering on grounds that will soon enough be covered with a good sized army of skilled iron, steel, and brass workers. The four
FLOURING MILLS
of the city, three of which are located on the canal, have a daily capacity of 675 barrels, but owing to the extension of the canal, last year, the value of the total output was only about $750,000. Ordinarily, the flour mills disburse three-quarters of a million dollars for wheat and corn, and measure their output in flour, meal, and coarser mill stuffs, by a round million dollars.
[PICTURE #1: N. T. SNYDER’S COTTAGE, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURES #2 AND #3: BUILDINGS NOT IDENTIFIED.]
[PICTURE #4: FAIR GROUNDS AND DRIVING PARK OF THE ARKANSAS CITY AGRICULTURAL FAIR AND MECHANICAL ASSOCIATION. FOUR MILES SOUTH OF THE CITY, ON THE BORDER OF THE INDIAN TERRITORY.]
THE ARKANSAS CITY ROLLER MILLS CO.,
composed of James Hill and John Landes, own and operate the Arkansas City Roller Mills, and the Diamond Mills, both located on the canal, the former 44 x 51 feet on the ground and four stories high, above the basement, and exclusive of the attic, which is largely filled with machinery and equivalent to an ordinary story. These mills are built of gray limestone and equipped with a full roller plant, embracing the latest and best flour making appliances. These new and model mills have a daily capacity of 250 barrels, and a yearly output of 75,000 barrels of standard and fancy brands, which is sold to dealers in Kansas, Arkansas, Georgia, Texas, and New Mexico. The Diamond Mills, located near by, are also built of stone, 40 x 40 feet on the ground, two stories above the basement, and have full roller process machinery, with a capacity of 100 barrels of kiln-dried meal in twelve hours. They are finely equipped for the manufacture of kiln-dried pearl meal, hominy and grits, all of which find ready sale in the Kansas, Arkansas, and Texas markets. The large mills were built in 1883, and the Diamond Mills were reconstructed and newly stocked with machinery in 1886. The entire milling plant cost the company $80,000. The proprietors are men of capital, executive, and managerial ability and marked public spirit, and with their large and productive milling properties are a strong factor in the growth and prosperity of the city wit which they are otherwise prominently identified. The Canal Roller Mills and the old Newman Ills, the latter on the Walnut river, are owned and successfully operated by Messrs. Searing and Mead, whose yearly milling business reaches a handsome figure. The two mills have a daily capacity of 250 barrels and cost in the neighborhood of $40,000.
THE CITY BANKS,
of which there are now three, with the fourth to be established the coming summer, represent banking capital equal to the growing needs of trade. They are in capital hands and are managed with significant ability.
THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK reorganized in July, 1885, to succeed the old Cowley County Bank, which was founded in 1872, has paid up capital of $125,000, a surplus fund of $15,000, and average deposits of $300,000. Maj. Wm. Sleeth, the president, Calvin Dean, Vice-President, H. P. Farrar, Cashier, F. W. Farrar, Assistant Cashier, are among the pioneers and leading property owners of the bank and from early to late have managed the affairs of the bank with exceptional ability and fidelity. They are all men of fortune and good character and standing, and have each and all taken a strong hand in leading building and industrial enterprises, and have given the First National solid entrenchment in the popular confidence and hold rank among the leading banking houses in Kansas. The directors and shareholders of the bank are among the ablest and most influential men of the city and county; its yearly business runs up into the millions; its management is eminently sound, conservative, and popular; its stock commands a handsome premium; its fine buildings and admirable appointments are among the best properties of the city, and its future is bright with financial promise. Closely related to the First National Bank is
THE JOHNSON LOAN AND TRUST COMPANY,
organized in the spring of 1885, with a capital of $100,000, for the purpose of loaning money on unencumbered real estate in Cowley and the neighboring counties. The company embraces a strong list of Eastern and local capitalists of acknowledged ability, and began business in May, 1885, with the following corps of officers. H. P. Farrar, cashier of the First National Bank of Arkansas City, President; J. L. Huey, cashier of the Arkansas City Bank, Vice-President; A. B. Johnson, general manager; J. P. Johnson, treasurer, and A. D. Prescott, secretary. From the date of its formal business opening, the Johnson Loan and Trust Company has been an unqualified success, the sterling business and financial character of its managers, its conservative policy and practice, and the ample means at its command, giving it high rank among the leading loan companies of the State. The company is especially fortunate, too, in the selection of these rich, productive, and populous counties, in the very garden of Kansas, for its field of operations. No region in America offers better security to investors in first mortgage loans on good farm lands, than Cowley, Sedgwick, Sumner, Harper, and the contiguous counties within which the clear sighted managers of this solid corporation have made, for the best class of farmers, a long list of prime loans in the last two years. The close relations of the individual members with Eastern capitalists; their willingness to guarantee the principal and interest payments on their loans, and the high character of the securities themselves, have given the farm mortgages of the company great favor with Eastern money lenders and made their ready sale quite independent of money-market contingencies. The possession of the public confidence, reasonable rates of interest, the writing of their own mortgages, and the prompt payment of cash on the execution and delivery of the requisite papers, have made the work of securing farm loans by the Johnson Loan and Trust Company an easy task. That this company has achieved unprecedented success in the negotiation of farm loans, and are carrying their work up to splendid proportions, is no matter for marvel; the farmers wanted the money and offered ample security. The Johnson Loan and Trust Company had the capital and character and credit, with the right sort of men for the work in hand, and under the personal management of A. B. Johnson and A. D. Prescott, have within twenty months, compassed a work which less able men have been content to accomplish in half as many years. The company have recently built and now occupy a handsome three-story brick building, which for fine architecture, solid construction, and elegant finish, is not excelled in Southern Kansas. There is no stronger or better managed institution in the city; none whose work rests on a sounder basis; none that will ultimately cover a broader field, and none that reflects higher credit on the business character of the city than the Johnson Loan and Trust Company.
THE ARKANSAS CITY BANK,
is another solid institution, closely identified with the best interests of the city. It was organized in 1886, with Samuel Newell, president; Calvin Dean, vice-president; and J. L. Huey, cashier, Like the First National, the management of the Arkansas City bank is in the hands of men whose ability, enterprise, public spirit and ample fortunes have long been under tribute to the material advancement of the city. The bank, which is doing a large and rapidly growing business in loan discounts, exchange and deposits, and has deservedly high standing in banking and commercial circles, was reorganized last fall, increasing its capital from $100,000 to $200,000, and continuing Messrs. Newell, Dean, and Huey in the executive offices. The directorate is composed of Samuel Newell and G. L. Whitman, of New York, and J. L. Huey, Chas. Hutchins, and Frank J. Hess, of Arkansas City, all gentlemen of liberal fortune and high standing in the business community. Mr. Huey, the popular mayor and one of its best businessmen, is enterprising and public spirited to a fault, and from its organization has managed the affairs of the bank with distinguished ability. Its rapidly growing business has necessitated a new bank building, which will be completed the coming summer, and which for architectural elegance and appointments, will rank with the finest bank buildings in Kansas.
[PICTURE #1: FRED W. FARRAR’S COTTAGE, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: HOME OF R. B. NORTON, ARKANSAS CITY.]
THE REAL ESTATE INTERESTS
of the city were never so prosperous as now. As already indicated in these pages, there is strong speculative demand for all classes of realty, but the seemingly high figures at which it is daily bought and sold, are fully justified by the material and commercial situation. While many investors have made 100, 200, and even as high as 300 per cent on real estate transactions in the last six months, it is well for the reader to remember that up to the beginning of 1886, real estate was surprisingly low—so low, indeed that an advance of 100 per cent would have surprised a level-headed man, but when it fairly dawned on the general public that Arkansas City was soon to become a real railway and manufacturing centre of no mean proportions,
A REAL ESTATE BOOM
took possession of the city and has ever since held it, daily increasing in volume and strength as new projects for the advancement of the city were unfolded. It came unheralded, but is here to stay. Sagacious men saw it with clear enough vision from the standpoint of years ago, and quietly gathered in the neglected outlying tracts and today are gathering in shekels by hundreds of thousands. While men looked in amazement upon last year’s purchases and sales until they had swelled to $4,000,000, the lookers-on of today will be no more surprised to see the real estate transactions of 1887 run up to $10,000,000. Meantime, the railway boom and building boom and manufacturing boom will take good care of all the investments that are likely to be made for years to come. Scores of Kansas towns are booming (in a speculative way) on the building of half a dozen stores and a score or two of homes. Arkansas City builds whole squares of fine commanding brick and stone business houses and hundreds of homes, but all of them are under lease before they are half completed—often before they are begun.
For further information concerning city and country realty, the reader is confidently referred to the Security Investment Company, which is one of the strongest and most reliable real estate concerns in the Southwest. This company, of which ex-Mayor F. P. Schiffbauer is president; Chas. Schiffbauer, vice president; B. F. Childs, treasurer; Jas. Benedict, secretary; and E. E. Meeker, assistant secretary; are handling wild lands, grain, fruit, and dairy farms and stock ranches, both in Kansas and the Indian Territory, and have for sale some of the most valuable and popular properties in the city, among which are several new additions. They make a specialty of acre property, buy, sell, and lease all classes of city realty; have a large and growing business in real estate loans; buy and sell all classes of municipal bonds, make investments for non-residents, pay taxes, make abstracts of title, and write insurance in the leading companies. The company, which is chartered by the State of Kansas, is composed of some of the strongest and most capable men of the city; is backed by ample capital; has high credit in business circles, and solicits correspondence from all parties meditating settlement or investment in this city or region. The members of the company are among the most public spirited and are influential men of the city, and largely identified with its leading interests.
To the foregoing notes upon the business interests of the city, I am pleased to add the following
SUMMARY OF BUSINESS FOR 1886.
Stocks Carried. Sales.
Dry Goods, clothing, etc. ...................................... $ 200,000 $ 310,000
Groceries, provisions, etc. ..................................... 250,000 575,000
Crockery, queensware, etc. .................................... 7,000 12,000
Hardware .............................................................. 65,000 200,000
Drugs and sundries ................................................ 60,000 150,000
Harness and saddlery ............................................. 15,000 50,000
Clothing and furnishing ......................................... 60,000 150,000
Boots and shoes ..................................................... 20,000 57,000
General merchandise ............................................. 7,000 30,000
Furniture ................................................................ 20,000 80,000
Books, stationery, etc. ........................................... 3,000 10,000
Jewelry and kindred stocks ................................... 12,000 18,000
Farm Machinery, Wagons, etc. ............................. 50,000 50,000
Coal, grain, hay, etc. ............................................. -------- 190,000
Lumber and building materials ........................... 55,000 195,000
Music, millinery, fancy goods, etc. ..................... -------- 35,000
Gravel, sand, and stone ....................................... -------- 75,000
Meat markets ....................................................... 20,000 60,000
Livery stables ....................................................... 30,000 55,000
Minor industries, not named ................................ -------- 10,000
Cracker factory .................................................... 35,000 125,000
Planing mills ........................................................ 9,000 12,000
Foundry and machine shops ................................ 5,000 9,000
Flouring mills ...................................................... 120,000 750,000
Expended in building ........................................... ---------- 800,000
Real estate sales ................................................... ---------- 4,000,000
Total: $8,123,000
If to the above, be added the hotels, general freighting, post office, railway, insurance, loan and professional business of the city, it will swell the grand total of business transactions for the year, to $9,000,000, a record which many a city of 20,000 souls might be proud of.
[PICTURE #1: FRANK J. HESS’ LAND, LOAN AND INSURANCE BUILDING, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: HOME OF FRANK J. HESS, ARKANSAS CITY.]
THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
are quite as much a matter of public pride with the people of this prosperous city, as its remarkable commercial, and industrial thrift. The three public school buildings and their appointments have cost the city $65,000 and are in high degree creditable to its public spirit. The public schools, which embrace an enrollment of 1,400 pupils, are admirably graded, finely disciplined, and conducted by some twenty teachers, most of whom are graduates of the State Normal school, and all of whom are capable instructors. The superintendent, Prof. J. C. Weir, is an efficient organizer and instructor, and is steadily advancing the grades, standard of scholarship, and general morale of the schools, which are among the best in Kansas. Prof. Weir took his college honors at the Indiana State University, and is a scholarly, earnest, enthusiastic, and liberal minded educator, whose work here is a compliment to his profession and the city. The
HOTEL FACILITIES,
though unequal to the growing wants of the town, are excellent. The new Gladstone House, recently completed and furnished at a cost of $65,000, is a beautiful stone building, of fine style, admirably suited to hotel uses, and is one of the finest establishments of the kind in the West. There are several small hotels, and the pressing demand for further accommodations in this line will soon be met by the building of the largest and most elegant hotel in Southern Kansas, $100,000 having been recently pledged by an association of public spirited citizens for this purpose. Local
JOURNALISM
is represented by two daily and three weekly newspapers, and is squarely up to the dignity of its commercial and material surroundings. The Arkansas City Traveler, founded in 1870 by Capt. C. M. Scott, and the daily and weekly Republican, have recently been purchased by Rev. Mr. Campbell, a wealthy and public spirited clergyman of this city, and consolidated under the title of the Republican-Traveler, which is issued daily and weekly. The new journal publishes the press dispatches, is a progressive and able Republican journal, and is doing capital service in the material advancement of the city.
The Canal City Dispatch, a sterling democratic paper established in January, 1887, by Amos Walton, is now published daily and weekly and is cordially welcomed by a newspaper fraternity, the general public, and a big list of Mr. Walton’s friends, who have long esteemed him for his integrity and fine mental and social gifts, and especially for his unselfish and eminently successful work toward the advancement of Arkansas City. Mr. Walton’s editorial ability, liberal views, marked public spirit, and devotion to his party and the city of his adoption, eminently fit him for the work in hand and the promise of a bright future for the Dispatch, which is already in receipt of generous patrons; and with its lively and entertaining evening issue, is an honor to its founder and the city.
The Arkansas Valley Democrat, edited by Mr. Timothy McIntire, and published by C. McIntire, as its name indicates, is an able, representative exponent of Democratic principles and policy, and bears in every part, the impress of the candor, courtesy, and liberal intelligence of its owner and manager.
[PICTURE #1: DANKS BROS. FOUNDRY AND MACHINE SHOPS, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: OHIO RANCH, NEAR MAPLE CITY.]
A new syndicate of Topeka capitalists have recently secured electric light and street railway franchises and already have these enterprises under way.
The new
GAS WORKS
have a handsome building, 30 x 136 feet, and will rank with the finest gas plants in the Western country.
THE ELECTRIC LIGHT WORKS
will also be equal to the needs of a large city, the power for generating electricity being furnished by the Water Power Co., which also furnishes the motor for the new
STREET RAILWAY LINES,
which will involve several miles of track along the principal thoroughfares of the city. Supplementing these public works, comes an order from the city council for the grading of the principal business streets and avenues, which are to be immediately
MACADAMIZED WITH LIMESTONE
and Walnut river gravel, giving to this beautiful city a system of pavement equal to any in the West. One of the grandest industrial enterprises ever inaugurated here, is the late incorporation of a $200,000 stock company of New York, Boston, and Arkansas City capitalists for the immediate construction and operation of
COTTON MILLS,
which will be the largest and most complete in the West, and furnish employment to several hundred skilled operatives. In good time, too, comes the organization of a local stock company for the building of
THE NEW OPERA HOUSE
at a cost of $75,000. This structure, which will be one of the finest of the kind in the West, is well under way; and with its model appointments, will be open to the public the coming autumn.
A steamboat company, composed of public spirited citizens, has lately been chartered, and with an available capital of $20,000, are preparing for the construction of pleasure and commercial steamboats for use on the Arkansas and lower Walnut rivers.
[Page 29. MAP OF ARKANSAS CITY, KANSAS.]
The recent organization of the
ARKANSAS CITY AGRICULTURAL FAIR
AND MECHANICAL ASSOCIATION
is a capital acquisition to the new forces that are rapidly carrying this booming and brilliant city up to a proud place among the strong commanding towns of the Southwest. The association, which is composed of J. L. Howard, of this city; J. M. Collins, of Owingsville, Ky.; T. J. Young, Louisville, Ky.; A. C. Springs, of York, N. C.; and J. O. Wilson, of St. Louis, have recently purchased the town site of Cale, four miles south of the city, on the border of the Indian Territory and in full view of the famous Chilocco Indian Training and Industrial School, and are rapidly converting these beautiful grounds into a splendid driving park, the new improvements embracing a fine hotel (already completed), a model one mile track, ample stables, amphitheater, exhibition halls, walks, drives, pools, fountains, shade trees, cottages, and other appointments of a first-class driving park. These public-spirited gentle-men will spare no pains or expense in making their new park one of the principal points in the Southwestern circuit, its fortunate location involving the movement of horses and horsemen from Texas and the South to Arkansas City in the early Spring, on their way to the Northern cities, and a Fall meeting here, on their return to the usual Fall and Winter meetings in the South. The location is especially fortunate for the plans and purposes of the management, which not only involves annual Spring and Fall meetings here in conjunction with a grand district Agricultural and Mechanical Fair, representing Southern Kansas and the Indian Territory, but also the establishment of training stables, and grounds on a scale commensurate with the needs of the great Southwest. The mile track will be connected with the city by a grand boulevard beginning at the new Gladstone Heights bridge and extending across the finest suburban district in Kansas, to the hotel and grand entrance to the park in full view of the Chilocco Indian School at the gateway to the Indian Territory. The “Frisco” railway, too, will run special trains from the city to their passenger station on the Western border of the park, and the coming Autumn meeting and fair, which will be advertised in due time, is expected to be one of the most successful exhibitions ever held in Kansas. If liberal cash premiums, thorough preparation for the meetings, and the purpose of the management to make the city and park a grand rallying point for the best horses and horsemen of the country, can give high success to this splendid enterprise, it is assured from the beginning.
THE GLADSTONE HEIGHTS AND LONGVIEW
additions to the city, in which these gentlemen are largely interested, and upon which themselves and friends are building some of the most attractive homes in the city, are simply beautiful suburban parks to whose natural charms the skill of the ambitious builders and the landscape gardener are adding every attraction that ample means and good taste can compass, and from this part of the city on the Western bank of the Arkansas river, to the driving park and fair grounds, is destined soon enough to become the finest public drive in the Sunflower State. For further information concerning the association, the reader is referred to Mr. J. H. Howard, president; A. C. Springs, treasurer; and J. M. Collins, secretary. Among the many needs of the city, first of all is
A PUBLIC PARK,
covering a full hundred acres and embracing a section of the Walnut river with its beautiful woodlands and picturesque bluffs, ledges, glens, gulches, and miniature canon, where charming walks, drives, boating, bathing, and play-grounds may be provided on a scale equal to the wants of a large city. On both economical and esthetic grounds, the city should lose no time in purchasing and improving a Riverside Park, which anywhere along the Walnut, within reach of the city, might be made one of the most inviting places of public resort in Kansas. And the council will kindly permit the writer to suggest that in addition to the good work they have already done for the advancement of a busy, bustling, hard-working city, they create an enduring monument to their own sagacity and the public spirit and pride of a noble city, by the necessary procedure for the immediate purchase of one of the superb natural park districts along the Walnut, and its early dedication to rest, pleasure, and recreation for the denizens of a city that will soon enough be thronged with an overcrowded population. The grounds of the Island Park Driving Association, covering a beautiful wooded peninsula, nearly encircled by the two rivers, embrace many of the best elements of a public park, but they are wanting both in bluff advantage and sufficient area for the uses named. Arkansas City has other and pressing needs, but they are likely soon to be met by the new capital and enterprise now flowing into the city in generous volume. Old forces and new, are fast working out for her
A NOBLE DESTINY.
Before her are 48,000,000 acres of the marvelous and magnificent Indian Territory, with incalculable wealth of resource and its border but four miles away. Behind her is Kansas, with the finest grain fields, orchards, and gardens of the continent. Her river sands and matchless quarries furnish the basis for the building of a great city and the builders are strong in numbers, courage, faith, and working power. Her water power and water supply, her splendid and growing commerce and railway system, are “all and singular,” sources of wealth and growth, which with many another element of power, that shall be nameless here, are steadily and surely bearing her on to a proud destiny.
[PICTURE #1: HOME OF MR. GOOCH, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: FIRST NATIONAL BANK, ARKANSAS CITY.]
To these notes upon Arkansas City, I append with pleasure, the following sketches of some of the
REPRESENTATIVE FARMS AND FARMERS
of the rich tributary country that is doing its full share toward the building and fostering of a town that next to Kansas City, is, and has been, the finest grain market in the trans-Missouri country. Among the more noteworthy neighboring country places is Mr. J. D. Harkleroad’s
LONE OAK
breeding, feeding, and fruit farm, six miles east of the city. It is 525 acres in extent and embraces 210 acres of elevated valley, half encircled with abrupt rocky bluffs that form an impassible enclosure and afford admirable stock shelter. Beyond the level crest-line of these bluffs, the balance of the farm covers a charming plateau that commands delightful views of the Arkansas river and valley far into the Indian Territory. The farm has 340 acres under plow and is further improved with seven miles of rock, hedge, and wire fence, fine young orchards and vineyards, a pretty cottage, two tenant houses, comfortable sheds, stables, corrals, and a soft water well. It is soon to be further improved with a handsome stone mansion and stock barn, and the orchards are being extended over about thirty acres. Lone Oak is coursed by Silver Creek, embraces some clear rock springs, and is stocked with 550 high grade short horns of fine size and style. Mr. Harkleroad summer grazes his cattle in the Territory and winters them on the farms, where he annually full feeds 100 heavy steers and 200 prime pigs. He grows about 10,000 bushels of corn, puts up 700 tons of native hay, and grows good crops of wheat, but will hereafter devote “Loan Oak” to the breeding and feeding of fine cattle and pigs and the cultivation of standard fruits for the market. Mr. Harkleroad came here from Kentucky in 1871, without a dollar, and has made up this noble estate by the industry, admirable management, and the pure ways of stock husbandry. He is a born stockman of rare sense, warm heart, clear, well-balanced brain, liberal intelligence and generous hospitality, and has made a capital record here. He is held in high esteem by a big list of friends, believes in a grand future for Arkansas City, likes the country better than his native Kentucky, and is one of the squarest men in the kingdom.
Eight miles northeast of Arkansas City, in the beautiful Walnut valley, is
BROADWELL PARK,
the home and 320 acre stock farm of A. H. Broadwell. It is all valley and graceful slope land, of great fertility, and is improved with a pretty cottage, a large and convenient stone barn, ample sheds, a granary, cribs, and stone corrals; wells, windmills, well shaded blue-grass lawns, a model orchard, vineyard, and small fruit garden, and five miles of hedge, wire, and rock fencing. The farm is also watered by clear rock springs and devoted to mixed husbandry with stock raising as the leading feature. Mr. Broadwell has been a successful wheat grower, but is now cultivating corn, oats, and millet, mainly for feeding. He keeps a dozen well bred horses, among them a fine thoroughbred filly, and about 100 high grade short horns and a small herd of exceedingly fine full bred Seventeens, led by a model Seventeen bull, bred by Maj. Gentry. Mr. Broadwell feeds from thirty to ninety prime Poland China pigs, and like his friend, Harkleroad, is a believer in thorough farming and fine stock. He came here with the pioneers in 1869, but was driven out by the Osages, and in 1876 made a permanent settlement on this model farm. Mr. Broadwell is a level-headed, practical, and methodical man, of excellent judgment, liberal knowledge of the world, kindly social nature, and boundless hospitality; is township magistrate, stands high with his neighbors, is delighted with the country, and for all purposes believes South Kansas is much better country than his native Illinois. This fine estate embraces a valuable quarry of fine flag-stone, and will hereafter be mainly devoted to the breeding of high grade and thoroughbred short-horns, which the spirited owner will put on the market through the agency of annual sales at Broadwell Park.
[PICTURE #1: ARKANSAS CITY CRACKER CO.’S WORKS.]
[PICTURES #2 AND #3: BROADWELL PARK—THE HOME AND STOCK FARM OF A. H. BROADWELL, SEVEN MILES NORTHEAST OF ARKANSAS CITY.]
Two miles higher up the river and valley from Broadwell Park, and eleven miles northeast of Arkansas City, is Arthur H. Green’s 1,200 acre
MAGNOLIA FARM.
It is one of the finest estates in Southern Kansas and embraces 500 acres of rich valley and bottom land, drained by a full mile of the Walnut river, which is here skirted by fine belts and groves of native timber. The balance of the farm lies on the neighboring slopes and plateaux, and the estate is further watered by never-failing springs. Magnolia Farm also embraces some fine quarries of gray and white magnesian limestone and is unquestionably the best improved country place in Southeastern Kansas, the permanent improvements including a dozen miles of hedge, wire, plank, and wire fencing, seventy acres of orchard grass, eight acres of fruitful orchards and small fruit gardens; a handsome, elegantly finished stone mansion, and capacious stone ice house; a fine two-story stone shore barn; 30 x 125 feet, and the ground, with the most approved appointments and a model two-story stone general stock barn, 30 x 50 feet, with a one story extension 30 x 75 feet. In the home group of buildings too, is a massive and capacious stone hog house, frame tool house, and mechanic shop; a 700 barrel cistern, spacious and elaborately finished stone corrals and feed yards, and a powerful windmill with a capacious elevated tank, from which the barns, stables, corrals, and feed yards are all supplied with water by a most perfect and convenient system of water-works. The buildings are all under metallic fire-proof roofing and the stables are fire-proof from base to loft. The water-works too, furnish a perfect system of irrigation for the ample blue grass lawns, gardens, and fruit yards, and the buildings are all equipped with the latest and most approved appointments. The elegant home is environed with pretty parks and lawns, and the spirited owner will add other equally fine improvements that are a part of his comprehensive plan to make Magnolia Farm one of the finest and most attractive country places in the West. Mr. Green has made all these improvements since 1883, at a cost of $25,000. He will gradually stock his pastures to tame grasses and the farm with Polled cattle and well bred horses—in preparation for which he has recently purchased the well known imported Galloway bull, “Ploughman” (1967), a member of one of the most illustrious Scotch polled tribes, and an animal of exceptionally fine qualities. Mr. Green has also in his stables the handsome English draught stallion, “King of the Valley” (2,747), a strong, active, spirited, well-fashioned, and finely bred animal of 1,850 pounds weight. He was bred by Mr. Simmons of England, from the famous sire “Old King of the Valley” (1,257), and is a valuable acquisition to advanced stock husbandry in Kansas. Mr. Green gives special attention to the breeding of Poland-Berkshire pigs of which he purposes to breed about 300 annually. He was formerly a New York City merchant, and came here for the quiet of farm life under more genial and satisfactory climatic conditions. His love of the country, ample fortune, keen practical sense, and desire for freedom from the hurry and worry of metropolitan business life, all find a happy expression in the purchase of Magnolia Farm and its embellishment with such improvements as only good taste and liberal means can inspire. Mr. Green is a strong, sensible, practical, thoroughly intelligent and well disciplined man of the world and gentleman; has an estate that would do honor to the Hudson river or Connecticut Valley; is much pleased with the country, and is highly esteemed by his new friends and neighbors for the qualities that anywhere in the wide world, would make him a strong man among men.
Sixteen miles east of Arkansas City, on a beautiful elevated plain, near Maple City is the
OHIO RANCH,
a splendid tract of 3,154 acres of graceful, rolling prairie, lying along the border of the Indian Territory, and watered by Shell Rock and Myer’s creeks. It is improved with a comfortable and tasteful home, and a capacious basement barn, 40 x 100 feet, three stories high, with many of the best modern stable and storage conveniences. Among the other improvements are ample, well sheltered corrals, stock scales, wells, immense cisterns, windmills, fine fences, fine gates, thrifty young orchards and groves, and 300 acres in cultivation to corn, oats, and millet, which are fed on the ranch. The balance of this handsome tract is in native meadow and pasture. This fine property is owned by the Ohio Ranch Co., composed of Col. J. D. Taylor, Hon. Walker Craig, J. M. Amos, A. A. Taylor, J. F. Woodrow, W. M. Martin, and Jas. Wilkin, all well known Ohio farmers and capitalists, and Mr. John S. Wilkin, the resident manager and formerly treasurer of Guernsey County, Ohio. The headquarters of the company are at Cambridge, Ohio. The ranch is now stocked with 500 high grade cattle, and will hereafter be largely devoted to the breeding of draught and road horses and mules. Mr. Wilkin, the manager, is a natural horseman, and believes this branch of husbandry will be more profitable than exclusive cattle raising, an opinion that most stockmen of this region will fully endorse. He is a careful, conservative, methodical farmer and business manager, and handles the ranch in a thoroughly practical manner. He has already on the ground a fine Spanish jack, and will bring on the coming season a good stock of well-bred mares and fillies from Ohio and Kentucky. Mr. Wilkin is a level-headed businessman, admirably suited to the work he has undertaken, and is clearly on the right track. The company have in this ranch a property which in the near future will command $100,000. There are few stock farms in Kansas better located, or that have higher intrinsic value than the Ohio Ranch, which, with its improvements, management, and ownership, is a compliment to Cowley County. Mr. Wilkin represents a strong combination of capital, business sense, and experience in the make-up of the company, and like most Eastern men who have been here for one or more years, is greatly pleased with the country.
These farm notes might be indefinitely extended and with profit to the Eastern reader, but I have already exceeded the bounds of a local handbook, and will conclude my review of “Arkansas City and its Surroundings” by
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
for kind offices from friends whose good words and unselfish services made this Handbook possible. Mr. Frank P. Schiffbauer, the popular and efficient ex-mayor of Arkansas City, and the president of the Security Investment Company, to whose forecast, energy, enterprise, and splendid working gifts, this brightest of all the younger town of Kansas is indebted for a large measure of its prosperity, and to Mr. Amos Walton, another of the stalwart and unselfish workers for the “Canal City,” whose public services, like those of his friend Schiffbauer, will be fully appreciated when they live only in memory. I give my blessing and a wish that they and theirs may long live and abundantly prosper in the beautiful city of their adoption. I am greatly indebted to Mr. B. F. Childs, the genial and cultivated treasurer of the Security Investment Company, and to Mr. James Benedict, the accomplished ex-city clerk, and secretary of the Security Investment Company, for courtesies worth remembering. With a word of thanks to my old friends, Reece and Harkness, Messrs. Prettyman and Miller, Messrs. Quigley and Andrews, and a score of others who must be nameless here, and to Arkansas City—the coming city of the “Great Southwest”—and all the brave, strong men who are directing her best energies and bearing her on to fortune, I give blessing and my regretful goodbye.
[Page 32. PICTURE: D. G. CARDER’S NEW BLOCK, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[Page 33. Last page in book.]
[PICTURE #1: COMMERCIAL BLOCK, ARKANSAS CITY.]
[PICTURE #2: NOT LABELED. TOWN OVERVIEW???]