tlbe Conservative *
the inhabitants of the great southwest
were compelled to take refuge within
doors. The ravaging blast was hourly
doing irreparable damage to the grow
ing crops. The sun went down , but the
scorching wave continued. Its wilting
breath shriveled up every growing thing
everything except the native buffalo
grass , the cacti and the sunflower. On
the first day the thermometer registered
102 degrees in the shade. The follow
ing day it ran up to 108 degrees. The
next day it registered 114 degrees , while
on the fourth day of this terrible heated
blast of parching , burning wind , the
mercury indicated 119 degrees in the
shade.
Desolation and Ruin.
It was a suffocation , indescribable ,
dealing relentless death to the agricul
tural hopes of the great southwest. It
was like an intense heat driven from a
thousand fiirnaces.
For a hundred hours this stifling ,
burning breath belched forth from the
jaws of calamitous destruction ; utter
devastation followed.
On the first day the fields of growing
corn seemed to shrink in timidity ; on
the second day the prpud plumage of
tassel drooped on the stalks ; 011 the
third day the blades whitened and
shriveled and became like some aged
and decrepit thing ; while on the fourth
day the tassels , blades , and even the
stalks were snapped off in their parched
brittleness , and scattered by the winds
of this terriffic tornado of heat. The
fields wore swept of every vestige of
growing grain. The entire country be
came a desolate waste. For a hundred
miles in every direction , no living vege
tation planted by the hand of man sur
vived. The hopes , the labors and
achievements of the farmer wore all
swept into the vortex of absolute ruin ,
and these ranchmen in the southwest
beheld the great American desert as de
picted by the earlier geographers in all
its primitive awfulness.
Farmers became mendicants , business
men paupers , while notes and bonds in
the bankers' hands turned into worth
less paper. A cry went up from the
starving thousand , and once more , trainloads -
loads of provisions came from the east
for the relief of the Kansas sufferers.
Since that time I believe , there has
never been a full crop harvested in the
territory tributary to Meade , Kansas.
The cattlemen have again come into
their own. The gray wolves have
scratched the varnish from the front
door of the town hall. Homesteads
without number have been purchased
for grazing land , in some cases the price
being less than one dollar and twenty-
five cents an acre , the amount paid by
the farmers to the government. When
the fanners refused to sell , the ranch
men had , usually , to wait until there
was a foreclosure by one of the numer
ous mortgage loan companies , which ,
prior to the "great hot wind , " operated
in this country to the sorrow of their
stockholders. Laud is now hold at a
iighor valuation , but there was a time
some ten years ago , when the manage
ment of these loan companies , having
been compelled to buy in farms , placed
the properties on sale at such tormsand
for such prices as the purchaser might
name. Anything saved from the wreck ,
the idea seemed to bo , was all profit.
Dollars Vanished.
Not less than eight millions of dollars
wore lost on farm mortgage loans in the
Seventh Kansas congressional district ,
which included about all of the soiith-
west quarter of the state. Primarily of
course , losses were chio to crop failures ,
but the cupidity , if not dishonesty of
loan agents , led to tvho placing of loans
at absurdly high valuations and an
equally high rate of interest. Seemingly
everyone wanted to borrow money , and
the high rates of interest loosened the
"cash strings" of the east , and a deluge
of money for investment in Kansas
farm mortgage loans flowed like a river
into the great southwest.
"Boom" Growth.
The Kansas people are a wonderful
people. They are tenacious , and they
fought hard and manfully to maintain
their invasion of the Great American
desert. Intermittently there would
come crop failures from drouth , hot
winds , chinch bugs or grasshoppers.
One year , I have forgotten now which ,
the state of Kansas broke all records for
the production of corn , but unfortu
nately prices wore low , and the entire
crop was marketed at the average price
of 12 cents per bushel.
There were but two industries , viz ;
cattle raising and farming. The coun
try had been a range from time imme
morial. Towns and railroads were un
necessary to the cattlemen. Then the
farmer came , and the country boomed
solely on the fact that a wonderfully
rich soil had been discovered , and some
wonderfully gullible easterners wore
willing to loan money on these newly
discovered lands at an extortionate in
terest rate. Then with an enthusiasm
which distinguishes all Kausans , indi
genous or acclimated , the southwestorn-
ors , about 1885 , sot forth to boom
their country , and they boomed it be
yond compare. Railroads wore extended
everywhere , banks established on east
ern money , mortgage loan agents be
came fabulously wealthy in a short
time , hotels and opera houses , costing
thirty , forty and fifty thousand dollars ,
wore built in towns which had not been
on the map six mouths , and which , two
or three years later at farthest , lost all
that part of the population which had
industry sufficient to look elsewhere foi
more promising conditions.
Most of the towns , which , for a time ,
were all but depopulated , are now slowly
improving. Meade , Kansas , fell off in
population from some three thousand
souls to three hundred. At this
time , I understand , it has a population
of one thousand people. But there are
many towns in the Seventh Kansas con
gressional district that have been en
tirely deserted , and probably will not
again become the abiding place of man.
Grass and weeds grow in the streets ,
while sunflower stalks stand , sentinel
like , barring entrance to the door of the
city hall , now the home of bats and
vermin.
During these boom times everything
was bonded. Township bonds wore is
sued , county bonds wore issued , school
bonds were issued , courthouse bonds
were issued , city bonds wore issued ,
while railroad bonds wore floated to the
fullest limit.
The Wichita "Boom. "
Wichita , Kansas , is not , properly
speaking , in the great southwest. It
lies near the Oklahoma line , and is a few
miles east of a line , which , running
from north to south , would divide the
state. Wichita , however , was a metro
polis for us , of the western counties ,
and it was the spectacular spirit of
Wichita's magnificent madness that in
fused itself into the boom of every ham
let , clear out to Richfield , Morton
county , the southwestern county of the
state , where * Hon. Bernard McCaffrey
held forth as mayor of that city. The
boom in Wichita the most remarkable
real estate inflation in American com
mercial history may fittingly bo men
tioned in these recollections of the
southwest , and I will write of enough
of it to indicate the maniacal frenzy
which overswept Kansas.
Wichita boomed on the strength of
the false presumption which brought all
southwestern Kansas prominently be
fore eastern investors. Before its boom ,
Wichita was a thriving.oountry town of
some twenty thousand people doing a
little wholesale business and enjoying
a reasonable measure of prosperity from
the surroundiugjfarming country which
was not nearly so sure of crop failures
as are the lauds farther to the westward.
Its people wore of remarkable enter
prise and were clannish to the interests
of their municipality ; they would go
earlier and more often into their pock
ets for the good of the town , than any
other people with whom I have come in
contact.
The speculative madness the abso
lute lack of accurate fore-sight which
was responsible for the creation of un
necessary counties and the building of
abortive towns , took this thriving little
place , and in a year made of it a city.
Four years later when the boom was
over the town lost all it had gained ,
and fifty per cent of its original popula-
* Mr. McCaffrey is now a partner of Mr. Em
erson's , and lives at Denver , Colorado.- .
