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CHAPTER II. THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT, HOME OF THE BUFFALO.
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CONSIDERABLE
portion of the public domain was marked on the maps a
half-century and more ago as the "Great American Desert." It
was a broad expanse of territory, and embraced most of the
country lying west of the Missouri river now known as
Oklahoma and the Indian Territory, Kansas and Nebraska,
North and South Dakota, and all of Colorado lying east of
the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains. It was a region vast
in extent--practically an empire of itself--taking in for
more than 1000 miles north and south most of the territory
from near the head waters of the great Missouri on the north
to the northern line of Texas on the south. Its area
embraced about 500,000 square miles, aggregating 320,000,000
acres. From east to west the region extended on an average
about 500 miles between the Missouri river and the
continental divide.
beca de Vaca, who, according to his records, preceded Coronado, was on the so-called "desert" about the year. 1536, or six years before. That was over 350 years ago, and both explorers then described that part of Kansas through which they passed as being a region well watered, and the climate and soil the very best for all kinds of vegetation. For about 250 years following their long trip, little or nothing is known of the vast region. Less than a century ago the "desert" portion was a part of the Louisiana tract, which was purchased from France by our Government in 1803. Its area comprises over 1,500,000 square miles, and embraces a section of country practically unparalleled in its varied and wonderful resources. The territory included in the "Louisiana Purchase" comprised at least a quarter-million more square miles than was then possessed by the United States. A portion of this immense region was explored by Lewis and Clarke, who started up the Missouri river on their expedition to Oregon as early as 1804. Zebulon M. Pike came next, and crossed the so-called "desert" in 1806. Major Long, after whom one of the loftiest peaks in the Rocky Mountains is named, crossed in 1816. Sibley crossed it in 1825. Fremont, with his intrepid party, partially explored the "desert" twice in the '40s; Stansbury went through to Salt Lake in 1849, and others from time to time followed later. The Mormon emigration to Utah under the prophet, Brigham Young, passed over the "desert" in 1847, and the great rush overland to the California gold diggings, following the discoveries in 1848, did much toward paving the way for establishing at intervals along the route military posts, ferries and trading points for the tremendous immigration that it was certain would shortly follow. In six weeks during the spring and summer of 1849, following the gold excitement on the Pacific slope, over 1500 wagons crossed the Missouri river on the ferries at St. Joseph. At the few towns on the river from Council Bluffs to Independence, no fewer than 27,000 men and nearly 40,000 oxen and mules were ferried across the Missouri river. There was also a great rush overland from those points in 1850-'52, the emigration each year amounting to nearly 100,000 persons, at least one-half of whom left the Missouri river at St. Joseph. The so-called "Great American Desert" or arid region, |
however, remained a comparatively barren, worthless waste until in the '50's, when Congress established a monthly mail route between the Missouri river and Salt Lake and another between the Pacific and Salt Lake, the two making practically one route across the continent. Service from Independence to Salt Lake was increased to a weekly route for a few months in 1858, when the indications looked promising for a lively war between the Government and the Mormons. The time for making a round trip to Salt Lake was two months. There was also a mail route established across the "desert" from Independence to Albuquerque. N. M., early in the '50's. The discovery of gold on the "Great American Desert" was made in the summer of 1858, along a stream tributary to the South Platte, on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. In the spring of 1859, the result of the frequent discoveries led to the establishing of the "Leavenworth & Pike's Peak Express," from the Missouri river to Denver, when it took ten to fifteen days and nights to go through, a distance of 687 miles, with the fare at $100. The "Pony Express" was the next important enterprise organized and put into operation on the "desert." It made its first trip in April, 1860, and continued its flying runs across the continent twice a week between the Missouri river and Sacramento for a period of about eighteen months. The run from St. Joseph to Sacramento was eight to ten days, or little more than one third the time then occupied by the Southern Overland Mail Company between St. Louis and San Francisco, which began in the fall of 1858, by John Butterfield, of New York. In July, 1861, the first daily overland mail was established from St. Joseph, Mo., later, Atchison, Kan., to Placerville, Cal. It crossed the "desert" on what was known as the "central route." The length of this route was 1920 miles, via Forts Kearney and Bridger and Salt Lake City, and it ran out of Atchison until the summer of 1866. In less than five months after the daily overland mail was established, the fleet pony was followed by the Pacific telegraph. The telegraph line was completed and opened for through business in November, 1861. The "Butterfield Overland Despatch," an express and fast freight line, was started across the "desert," on the Smoky Hill route, in 1866, but within eighteen months, on account of |
financial difficulties, brought on more or less by Indian depredations, the great enterprise was forced to succumb. Then followed a consolidation known as the "Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company," which continued until the iron bands were spiked down, in the spring of 1869--completing the first transcontinental railway line direct from the Missouri river to Sacramento, Cal. Time has effaced from the maps in use by the present generation the last vestige of what remains of the once so-called "Great American Desert." Little, if any, of this "vast waste" is now to be found. A considerable portion of the "desolate, arid region" has also been reclaimed. Portions of it are steadily being settled, but comparatively a small part only is yet under the plow. Hundreds of thousands of head of cattle are grazing on thousands of hills, and vast numbers of horses, mules, sheep and hogs now subsist and grow fat on the "desert." Where fifty years ago not a town, and only an occasional hamlet was to be found, are to-day the homes of more than three million souls. Across its broad areas are a score or more of important trunk roads, and twice as many branch lines traverse it in every direction. The various railways will aggregate fully 25,000 miles. It boasts no less than 300 cities, each with upward of 1000 inhabitants. It has several thousand villages, and more than 5000 post. offices, a great majority of which are furnished a daily mail. The prairies, and that portion designated as the "plains," are dotted with churches and schoolhouses that would be a credit to the oldest and most populous state in the Union. Many of the farmers, stock-raisers and fruit growers have put up palatial residences. In less than a half-century a score or more of seminaries and colleges and universities have been built on the "desert." The region is well supplied with mills and manufactories. Fully 2500 newspapers and periodicals have sprung up--750 of them in Kansas alone since the latter was first opened for settlement, in 1854. Some of the finest fruit and stock farms in the great West are embraced in Kansas, in the section once familiarily (sic) known as the "unexplored region." The foregoing are comparatively a small portion of the advantages possessed by this once-thought-to-be-unproductive section. Among its resources are the largest lead and zinc mines in the country--employing thousands of men--which are being daily worked in Kansas, originally set down as the eastern part of the |
vast "unexplored region." One of the latest Kansas discoveries is petroleum, which promises to yield a supply of oil equal to any section in the Union. The largest quantity and finest quality of salt in the country is produced in Kansas, and the supply is apparently beyond computation. The resources of the state are as numerous as its rich prairie's and bottoms are fertile and boundless. A metropolitan Eastern newspaper not long since said: "If you don't know what you have in Kansas, bore for it." And this is not all. Kansas possesses inexhaustible quantities of the purest gypsum, a superior quality of building stone, and immense deposits of the finest clay, unequaled for vitrified brick. It has also vast beds of material for making choice mineral paints. At Topeka, the capital city, are millions of tons of the best building sand in the world, car-loads of which are shipped away almost daily, while the unsurpassed soil of the state will grow as much wheat and corn and other cereals as any portion of the wide West. It is doubtful if another region on the globe has made such rapid strides in the past third of a century as that known a few generations ago as the "Great American Desert." In the last four decades it has been transformed into a veritable garden spot. This vast--almost boundless--expanse of fertile soil, since irrigation has been introduced, now embraces millions of acres of all kinds of grain, fruit, vegetables, and the choicest grasses. The thousands of hills and countless acres of rolling prairie, covered with cattle, horses, sheep, hogs, etc., comprise a region undoubtedly equal to almost any other section of our broad domain. From the time I was sixteen years old, and just starting out as a "jour. printer" from four years' apprenticeship, I had a strong desire to go out West, as far as the "desert." The great political battle of 1856, I remember, while in my teens, was an exciting one. During the memorable campaign that year, a handbook was freely distributed throughout the country giving a brief history of the life of Col. John C. Fremont, after his nomination for President by the first national Republican convention, which convened that year at Pittsburg. I was greatly interested at that time in reading about the distinguished nominee's explorations in the '40's in search of a route across the continent between the Missouri river and the Pacific ocean. I read the pamphlet with more than ordinary interest. Only a short time before, |
the Kansas-Nebraska bill had passed Congress, and the public lands in both territories had been thrown open for settlement. The beginning of the intrepid "Pathfinder's" journey of exploration was through the region embracing these two territories, and it extended from the Missouri river to the Pacific slope. At that date, fully a decade before it was thought that such territories or states as now occupy the region would ever be carved out of that part of "Uncle Sam's" possessions, it was known as the "Great American Desert." I was then a boy of nineteen years and had just come to Kansas. It was a pleasure to me to read the description of the great explorer's journey up the Kansas river to near Topeka and over the gently rolling prairies to the Big Blue across the plains, up the Platte valley; over the snow-capped Rockies; through the "great basin"; over the Sierras, and beyond to the shores of the Pacific ocean. I little dreamed at that time, however, that it would ever be my lot to make a trip across the plains and "desert" to the Rocky Mountains, much as I had desired to. But changes now and then take place without much warning. In seven years from the time I first saw the little book, and while living in Atchison, and without even a hint on my part, I was surprised by being tendered the position of express messenger on the great "Overland Stage Line." The old four-horse and six- horse Concord coaches were the rapid means of conveyance in the early '60's by the overland route to the Rocky Mountains, to Salt Lake, and to the Pacific coast, notwithstanding it took six days and nights to get to Denver, eleven days to Salt Lake, and seventeen to Placerville; and this was almost continuous riding. The stops were brief. There is probably no part of the West that has settled up more rapidly and with a more thrifty and better class of people than that part of Kansas and Nebraska through which a third of a century ago was operated what was known as the "Central Overland California Stage Line." A portion of this route passed over the so-called "Great American Desert," much of it being a region of unsurpassed fertility--in fact, one of the best agricultural regions in the country, and, besides, well adapted for stock-raising and the growing of many kinds of fruits. Since the close of the civil war, and the building of railroads across the continent, most of the country has been settled up as if by magic. Choice, well |
improved farms are to be seen on all sides; numerous schoolhouses and churches dot the prairies and valleys; mills and shops are found in many localities; while prosperous towns and live, flourishing cities thrive at frequent intervals all over the plains. Hardly one person in a thousand, then traveling on the overland route, would have dreamed of such a change in a single generation. I often wondered, while making my periodical trips across by stage from Atchison to Denver, in 1863-'65, if I would live to see the day when that region would be settled even as far out as Fort Kearney, on the Platte. At that time Marysville--only 100 miles west of the Missouri river--was almost on the outskirts of civilization in northern Kansas. The next nearest town to it on the east was Seneca, more than thirty miles away. Marysville was the last town of consequence on the overland route between Atchison and the Colorado metropolis. There were several settlements and ranches further west, but ranches were extremely scarce, and only to be found in the groves of timber along the valleys. No one thought at that time of taking up land on high, rolling prairie any great distance away from living water. It seemed that it would be a lifetime before they would ever have neighbors in the Little Blue valley, so far were the ranches apart. Where the overland stages used to run daily each way, and where thousands of teams annually passed over the road with merchandise, grain, provisions, etc., to supply the forts, towns, mining camps, trading posts and cities in the far West, now run, various railroads, and little remains of the old landmarks and scenery with which most of the plainsmen were so familiar thirty-odd years ago. Late one afternoon in the summer of 1863, I had an exciting experience that I shall not soon forget. At that time I was in the employ of Ben. Holladay, as messenger between Atchison and Denver, on the "Overland Stage Line," which was operated between the Missouri river and the Pacific. It was out in southern Nebraska, a beautiful section of country, far up toward the head waters of the Little Blue river, at a ranch on the rolling prairie called "Oak Grove," about 200 miles northwest of Atchison. The two buildings on the ranch comprised a small, one-story log house and a short distance north of it a plain log stable, both on the north side of the road. The background was a little bluffy |
and, as its name would indicate, quite a fine growth of oak, for a prairie country. The Little Blue, one of the loveliest streams in Nebraska and Kansas, thinly skirted at intervals with cottonwood and elm, ran easterly from forty to eighty rods distant, to the south of the grove. For some time previous, trouble had been brewing between the Sioux and Pawnee Indians--in fact, ill feeling had existed for years--and on this occasion a band of Sioux warriors was roving over the country hunting for the newest trail made by the Pawnees. For the first time (in that vicinity) the Indians suddenly stopped the coach at Oak Grove, just as it had come out from Atchison on its west-bound trip. The chief came up in front of the stage and, addressing us, began mumbling over something in the Sioux tongue, not a word of which could I understand, and, accordingly, shook my head. He then began making all manner of signs and gestures, reminding me of deaf and dumb signs, but to me these were equally unintelligible. I sat speechless on the seat alongside the driver. The driver himself (he afterwards admitted to me) felt a little uneasy at first, on account of being so suddenly and unceremoniously stopped in time of peace by a band of Indians. He was fortunate, however, for he had been a long time on the plains--having spent a good deal of time in the Indian country--and could understand enough of the Sioux tongue to know the meaning of quite a number of their words, and signs. In answer to the chief's interrogatories and gestures concerning the Pawnees, whom he charged with having run off a number of their ponies, he was informed that they (the Pawnees) had, a short time before, crossed the Little Blue a few miles below Oak Grove, and were then likely pushing their way across the country toward the head waters of the Solomon, one of their favorite localities for hunting the buffalo in the early '60's. For an hour or two, as we afterward learned, this band of Sioux had been stopping at Oak Grove grazing their ponies, and were, just as the stage rolled up, making preparations to start out on the war-path. Their faces, hands, arms and bodies were painted with odd-looking characters in red, black, and other colors peculiar to the notions of the "noble red men." They were dressed in all sorts of fantastic-appearing costumes, in a promiscuous variety of curious styles. A number of them looked decidedly ludicrous. Some had old silk "plug" hats minus the |
crown, ornamented with wild turkey, prairie-chicken and buzzard feathers. Some wore rather dilapidated slouch hats, trimmed with German silver ornaments and gaudy, shining buttons. Two or three had jackets on which were well displayed a variety of colored beads. One had a sort of crown with buffalo horns protruding out above the eyes, giving him more the appearance of Satan than an Indian. A number were quite well dressed, while, as could plainly be seen, some were not dressed enough. Among the costumes noticed, a few had nothing but buckskin leggins and moccasins. No two were dressed exactly alike, except that the most of them were attired in their well-adapted and to them apparently more appropriate and becoming suit--a breech-clout and a red or blue blanket of some kind. Every Indian was painted in aboriginal regulation warlike style, and some looked hideous in the extreme. They had shields and spears, knives and tomahawks, several different kinds of old-style fire-arms, besides their bows, and quivers well-filled with arrows. To me it was most exciting, and I must acknowledge the situation looked anything but pleasant and satisfactory. My heart ad suddenly jumped up into my throat. No language can describe my feelings as I sat there on the box of that stage-coach at the time. It was plain to any one who had eyes that the Indians were warriors, evidently on the war-path. For myself, I couldn't tell whether they were Pawnees, Sioux, Cheyennes, or Arapahoes. In fact, I didn't have much time to think anything about it. I had seen thousands of Indians before, but these were the first band of the kind I had ever witnessed under similar circumstances, and, while sitting there meditating on the situation, I hoped it might be the last. While the combined forces of Indians numbered perhaps not more than twenty-five or thirty, it seemed to me at the time that the number had become greatly magnified, and I believe I could easily have made oath that there were at least 1000 of them. The stage was detained by the Indians perhaps not longer than from three to five minutes, but that short time of anxious suspense seemed to me almost a lifetime. Getting what information they could from the driver, they mounted their ponies, and, at the command of the chief, were soon off, with a volley of hideous sounding whoops and yells. That was a happy moment for both the driver and myself. |
 A Herd of Buffalo on the Plains in Western Kansas. |
The American bison was found by the first colonists of the Carolinas, and other of the Southern and Middle States, from which parts of the North American continent they have long since been exterminated or frightened away. In the latter part of the eighteenth century they were seen in a wild state in Kentucky. Early in the present century the most of these animals in the region east of the Mississippi were exterminated or had found their way to the prairies west of the great river. History informs us they were found by Coronado on his march northward from Mexico as early as 1585, between the Missouri river and the Rocky Mountains; later they were found by Lewis and Clarke, Zebulon M. Pike, and Long, in the early part of the present century; still later by Fremont and others, who made tours of exploration through the great West. Often they were seen by tourists and hunters in immense herds, numbering hundreds of thousands. Lieut. John C. Fremont, while exploring the upper country between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in the later '30's, with Al. Nicollet, a scientific Frenchman, had a grand buffalo hunt for the first time near Fort Pierre, a trading fort more than 1250 miles above St. Louis. In a letter to the New York Tribune, written by Horace Greeley, in a Concord stage-coach, while en route across the plains for the first time by the "Leavenworth and Pike's Peak Express," early in the summer of 1859, the distinguished Journalist reported having encountered millions of buffaloes in western Kansas. The first buffaloes I ever saw were in the streets of Atchison. It was in the early '60's, during the war; but after that I saw them on several occasions. These were domesticated and yoked together, having been driven in by a ranchman from the Republican valley, hauling produce to the Atchison market. They attracted considerable attention from the business men. They seemed to travel all right, were extremely gentle, and, under the yoke, appeared to work quite as nicely as the patient ox. Nothing particularly strange was thought about the matter at the time, when there were immense herds of buffalo roaming wild on the plains ,of western Kansas; but I never, after that year, saw any of the shaggy animals yoked and doing the work of oxen. The number of buffalo in the great West less than half a century ago was roughly estimated at from ten to twenty millions. |
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