Chapter II
THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT, HOME OF THE BUFFALO.
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On a goodly portion of the land at
that time there was comparatively nothing growing except short tufts
of buffalo-grass, but in places farther out on the frontier a
plentiful growth of cacti and sage-brush was always visible. Except
along the streams that coursed through the wide expanse, there was
hardly a tree or shrub, and little of anything else in the shape of
vegetation. As marked on the maps so prominently at that time, it
was practically an unknown region, a great portion of it thought to
be about as worthless and barren as the great Sahara. |
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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, |
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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 |
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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 |
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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, |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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. |
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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. |
Careful authorities put the number at fifteen millions. They once existed in New York, a number of buffaloes having been killed in the western part of that state, near where the bustling commercial city of Buffalo is built, which will perpetuate the name of the now practically extinct American animal. In western Pennsylvania, near the salt-licks, a number of buffaloes were found; and, according to an early explorer, a few head were found in the District of Columbia and large numbers in Virginia. According to early writers, they were found in the Carolinas and along the northeast coast of Georgia, the only record known of their existence on the Atlantic seaboard. East of the Mississippi, they ranged south as far as northern Alabama and were found in places throughout Mississippi and Louisiana. Large numbers abounded in Texas. They were also found in the northern provinces of Mexico, New Mexico, a portion of Utah, and also in Idaho, Washington, and in the arctic circle as far north as Great Slave Lake. The natural home of the buffalo, however, was on the plains between the Missouri river and the Rocky Mountains, their northern and southern limits extending from Great Slave Lake to the Rio Grande. Outside of the limits of their real home the few small herds that existed were stragglers. Daniel Boone, the famous Kentucky hunter, once found a herd of buffaloes in his state which numbered about 1000 head. That was then believed to be a big herd, but it was not then known that there were herds numbering millions of buffalo grazing on the plains embraced in the region known as the "Great American Desert," lying between the Missouri and the Rockies. The pioneers of Kansas, particularly a number who settled on the frontier along the upper valleys of the Smoky Hill, Republican, Solomon and Saline rivers practically owed their lives to the existence of the buffalo. For years in the '60's a goodly portion of the meat consumed by those early settlers was cut from the carcass of the noble, shaggy animal which so long existed as monarch. of the plains. Thousands of people who at an early day went overland to Utah, Oregon and California drew their supply of meat from the buffalo. Where this life-preserver was found, it was known that, by following their paths, near by water would be found. The principal article of fuel found on the frontier for cooking the meat of the buffalo was the dried excrement of the animal, known in early Kansas and Nebraska parlance as "buffalo |
chips." The buffalo was one of the noblest of all animals. It seemed indispensable. It furnished man with an abundance of the most wholesome meat; the hide was made into shoes and garments worn during the day, and it made a comfortable bed and supplied warm covering in or out of doors at night. The building of the Pacific railroad was made possible at so early a day simply because the buffalo existed. From the mighty herds the vast army of railroad builders drew their daily supply of fresh meat, and thousands of the animals were annually slaughtered for food while pushing to completion, in the '60's, the great transcontinental line. For a few years in the '70's the railways did an enormous business carrying East train loads of hides and buffalo bones, these for a number of years being the principal articles of commerce gathered from the plains. For years the great West resembled a vast charnel-house. Losing their crops, the pioneer settlers gathered up the bleached bones that covered the land, and they were shipped to the carbon works in the East, from the sale of which enough was realized to enable them to pull through another season. In the natural-history building of the Kansas University can be seen the finest group of mounted buffalo in the world. They are in Prof. L. L. Dyche's collection of North American mammals. The specimens are remnants from both the great northern and southern herds, and are exceptionally fine. While this group is probably the finest ever seen, Professor Dyche sooner or later will have nine more choice skins mounted, taken from buffalo that were natives of southwestern Kansas. Kansas was the natural home of the buffalo. "Old Tecumseh," a buffalo bull that for several years had a home in Bismarck grove, at Lawrence, is now said to be in Yellowstone park, in a domesticated herd on an island in Yellowstone lake, the herd being viewed and greatly admired by thousands of visitors annually. Doubtless the largest specimen ever secured for museum work is in the National Museum, at Washington. It was secured by W. T. Hornaday, author of a valuable work upon the "Extermination of the American Bison." While there are some good live specimens to be found in a few city parks throughout the country, it is alleged by Mr. Hornaday that they can in no way be compared with the buffalo in his wild and native state. The buffalo, in color, is brown, but the shade varies as the |
seasons advance. It was in every respect a peculiar animal, unlike any other. It was impossible, before its extermination, to turn a herd from its course. After a few years of cruel, relentless war upon the shaggy animals, the few that remained became extremely wild. A characteristic of the animal is that it never trots, but walks or gallops, and it usually travels against the wind. Its sense of smell is so keen that it can scent a foe two miles distant to the windward. The last herd of buffalo I ever saw in the wild, native state was in the fall of 1870. It was along the Kansas Pacific railroad, near the head waters of the Smoky Hill river. The railroad had just been built, and the animals seemed terribly frightened at the cars. In their mad race westward along the railroad, they actually kept up with the passenger-train, which was moving along from fifteen to eighteen miles an hour. The race became exciting, and all the passengers--many of whom had never before seen a buffalo--held their breath in suspense. It was noticed that the animals never changed their course, but kept steadily coming nearer the train, apparently determined to cross the track at a curve a short distance beyond. Not caring for a collision which might possibly derail the train, the engineer gave up the race and whistled "down brakes," stopping within a few rods of the animals to let them cross. A parting salute was given by some of the passengers, who emptied the chambers of their six-shooters among the beasts, but which they did not appear to mind any more than a blast from a toy pop-gun. While these animals used to cover the prairies and plains of western Kansas and Nebraska in countless millions, hardly one of them is now left to remind us of the once noble and powerful herds originally known in the great West as "crooked-back oxen." The best meat we used to get on the frontier in the early days was buffalo. The markets at Atchison, Leavenworth, Topeka and a number of other Kansas towns, as early as 1857 and for some years following, were often supplied with buffalo meat, brought in from central Kansas. No beef, it was said, could excel, even if it could equal, that of the buffalo; especially the hump upon the shoulders, which was invariably spoken of as a "choice morsel." Rich, juicy buffalo steaks and superb roasts were as common in the '60's on the plains as were other fresh meats in the best of well-regulated city markets. |
The tongues, when boiled, were exceedingly rich and tender, and were eagerly sought after--almost invariably bringing good prices. Most of those who had once tasted of buffalo tongue thought nothing could equal it. Thousands of the tongues were dried and shipped east to the New York and Boston markets, where they were in great demand, and brought big prices. Under the head of "Buffalo Oxen," the following interesting account of the American bison is taken from the American Farmer (vol. VI, p. 260): "The animal known by the name of the buffalo throughout the valleys of the Missouri and Mississippi differs materially from the buffalo of the old world. At first view, his red, fiery eyes, his shaggy mane and long beard, the long, lustrous hair upon his shoulders and fore quarters, and the comparative nakedness of his bind quarters, strongly remind a spectator of the lion. "In the size of his bead, in bulk, in stature, and in fierceness, he resembles the buffalo of Buffon; but the bump or protuberance between his shoulders, the shape of his head, his curled forehead, short, thick arms and long bind legs mark a much stronger affinity to the bison. "He carries his head low, like the buffalo, and this circumstance, together with his short, muscular neck, broad chest, and short, thick arms, designate him as peculiarly qualified for drawing; the whole weight of his body would thus be applied in the most advantageous manner to the weight drawn. "The milk of the female is equal in quality to that of the cow, but deficient in quantity. It has been supposed that the smallness of the udders is more remarkable in those that have the hump large, and that the diminished size of the bump is evidence of a more abundant secretion of milk. The hump, when dressed, tastes like the udder of the cow, and is deemed a delicacy by the Indians. But there is one other particular which distinguishes the buffalo of the new world from its Eastern namesake more distinctly than any variety of confirmation could do. The cow refuses to breed with the buffalo of Europe; and such is, the fixed aversion between these creatures that they always keep separate, although bred under the same roof and feeding in the same pasture. The American buffalo, on the contrary, breeds freely with the domestic cattle, and propagates a race that continues its kind." |
What a shame, what an outrage on civilization! that the buffalo--that once noble race grazing between the Missouri and the Rockies--was so ruthlessly slaughtered. Millions of the shaggy beasts were indiscriminately shot down by the white man in the '60's and '70's, apparently just for the "fun of the thing." I remember well in the early '60's, while residing at Atchison, when long ox trains, loaded exclusively with buffalo hides, frequently were brought in from the plains by freighters. The wagons were unloaded on the levee and the skins shipped on board steamboats down the Missouri river for St. Louis and Cincinnati. Later, I saw hundreds of wagon-loads of these skins on the plains, in 1863-'65, when riding on the overland stage along the Platte and Little Blue rivers. Several years afterward such trains were frequent sights at various towns on the Missouri. Most of the wagon trains bearing the cargoes of untanned robes from the "Great American Desert" were from the Platte valley; some bound for Omaha, some for Nebraska City, some for St. Joseph, and most of the balance for Atchison and Leavenworth. Hundreds of wagon-loads of the skins from the plains went into Kansas City from the "Old Santa Fe Trail." In St. Louis was a large company of fur dealers, with a branch house in St. Joseph, which bought, in 1871, about 250,000 of these skins. Besides, there were many other companies on the Missouri river dealing in buffalo hides. At some of the railroad stations were large sheds packed with dried buffalo skins, and later this was a common sight at a number of towns in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, and as far north as the Dakotas, in the '70's. There are parties who well remember seeing, at Cheyenne, Wyo., a shed on the Union Pacific road 175 feet long, 60 feet wide, and 30 feet high, so crowded with buffalo hides that it would seem almost impossible to squeeze in another. In 1872-'74, there were auction sales of buffalo hides at Fort Worth, Texas, lasting a day or two, and as many as 200,000 skins were disposed of. According to a writer in Harper's Magazine a few years ago, Fort Benton--a military post about 2500 miles up the Missouri from St. Louis--in 1876, alone sent 80,000 buffalo hides to market, Toward the close of their career on the plains the animals had divided into two great herds--the southern and northern. The great southern herd, however, was the first to go, being practically extinct at the close of 1872. A few straggling herds only, |
after that date, were to be found. The early '80's was about the last seen of the wild buffalo of the plains, which a quarter of a century or more before was so numerous between the Missouri river and the Rocky Mountains. The greatest slaughter of the beasts was in 1872-'74, when, it was estimated, the number slain ran up into the millions. Hundreds of the best shots from all over this country and Europe, in the early '70's, were on hand to take a farewell hunt before the shaggy bison became extinct. Scores of noted Nimrods come from England, Scotland, Russia, and Germany--in fact, from almost every part of Europe. The Grand Duke Alexis, youngest son of Emperor Alexander, of Russia, with quite a numerous retinue, came with a party from St. Petersburg, and went on a tour through "Buffalo Land" in the winter of 1871-'72. While on their royal hunt the party numbered seventeen persons. After the grand buffalo chase on the plains of western Kansas, in charge of "Buffalo Bill" and Generals Sheridan and Custer, the royal party moved on westward to take a view of the glorious old Rocky Mountains. They spent several days in and around Denver and received a magnificent ovation. The day following their arrival in the "Queen City of the Plains" they were driven about the place in carriages, the festivities winding up in the evening with a grand ducal ball at the American House. The Indians themselves, up to the later '60's, had killed thousands of the animals merely for the hides and tongues, for which there had already become a good market. As time passed, there was an increased demand for these articles at the numerous ranches and trading posts along the Platte. Previous to that time, for a number of generations, however, the buffaloes were slaughtered by the Indians only for the meat and skins they themselves were in need of, and such slaughter did not diminish the numbers in the herds. A year or two before the stage-coach was forced from the overland route by the Pacific railroad, it was estimated that the number of buffaloes roaming the plains between the Missouri river and the Rocky Mountains aggregated at least nine and a half millions. At the same time there were over 150,000 Arapahoes, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Pawnees and Sioux living in the buffalo region, largely dependent upon these animals for their supply of meat. -3 |
For four years--1865 to 1869--during the lively era of constructing the Pacific railroad and its branches, no less than 250,000 buffaloes were slaughtered in Kansas and other Western States. From 1869 to 1876 the greatest slaughter took place, and the number in those years slain ran up into the millions. The animals had become quite scarce in the later '70's and early '80's, yet no less than one and a half million buffalo were killed. The year 1870 was a great year in hunting the buffalo, during which time upwards of two million were killed in Kansas, Indian Territory, and Texas. The most conspicuous person engaged in the great slaughter was the intrepid scout and Indian fighter, Col. William F. Cody, who has been more familiarly known as "Buffalo Bill." In 1867, when the Kansas Pacific railroad was being built across the plains to Denver, Cody, then a young man, made a contract with the railway officials to keep its army of workmen supplied with buffalo meat. For doing this he received $500 per month. He was engaged in this work eighteen months, during which time he killed an average of about eight a day--in all 4280 buffaloes; and this is how Cody became the renowned "Buffalo Bill." It was seldom that any one on the stage, as late as 1863 or 1864, got a shot at a buffalo, though there were thousands of them along the route, often in plain sight, only a mile or two back from the Platte. So enormous was the overland traffic in the '60's, that the buffalo became shy, and kept too far away from the road to give sportsmen any opportunity for fun in that direction. To get them then required a special trip and proper equipments. The last buffalo east of the Mississippi river was killed in 1832. For the first third of the present century, according to a number of explorers, those crossing the plains were never out of sight of the buffalo, immense herds of them being visible all the way between the Missouri and the Rockies. The wild buffalo were all gone many years ago, but, in their place are not less than one hundred million head of cattle, sheep, and hogs; and, while the Indians with their wigwams have nearly all disappeared from the plains, ten times the number of white men and women--most of them in comfortable homes, living in cities, towns, and villages--now occupy their places. Nearly all the trading posts along the Platte were called "ranches," and there were more than a dozen of them in a dis- |
tance of 200 miles, between Fort Kearney and old Julesburg, and about half as many on the remaining 200 miles between Julesburg and Denver. Many of those engaged in the business were among the shrewdest traders to be found in the West. From their prices for any articles they kept in stock, it was plainly evident that they were not in the business merely "for their health." Where they were firmly established, at commanding locations convenient to grazing and good water, with choice places for camping--they made piles of money bartering with the half-dozen or more tribes of Indians that could be seen occasionally at intervals along the Platte. For a pound or two of a cheap grade of brown sugar, or an equivalent of some low grade of coffee, they could buy from one of the redskins a buffalo robe then considered to be worth from five to ten dollars at the Missouri river towns. For double the amount of those staples they could get one of the very finest cow robes. Some of these were painted in fine aboriginal style, with many of the hieroglyphics peculiar to the superstitious red man of the plains, and were greatly admired by purchasers who lived in the East and bought them for souvenirs of the frontier. Thousands of the finest robes that could be picked up were bought and highly prized as souvenirs of the "Great American Desert" by parties going East and West in the '60's. Such robes would fetch at this day at least fifty, perhaps seventy-five or one hundred dollars each. An ordinary robe, originally costing not to exceed fifty to seventy-five cents in goods, was retailed by the traders to stage passengers, tourists and freighters along the Platte for from three to six dollars--the very finest selling for seven dollars and fifty cents. As early as 1863, the trade in buffalo robes with the Indians on the Platte had increased until it was simply enormous. Hundreds of thousands of the animals were annually killed, and I have many times seen long trains returning from the mountains loaded almost exclusively with robes, hauled by oxen, horses and mules along the overland route eastward to the Missouri river to Omaha, Nebraska City, St. Joseph, Atchison, and Leavenworth; thence shipped by steamboat, consigned to leading firms engaged in the trade at St. Louis. Every person in any way connected with the overland freighting business in the '60's had one or more buffalo robes. In fact, |
on the "Overland" such robes were indispensable. Scores of persons traveling the plains were provided with an overcoat made from the skin of these bisons. Every freighter and ox and mule driver also had buffalo overshoes, made with the hair inside. After a lapse of thirty years and more, it is almost impossible to find a first-class buffalo robe anywhere in the country, and what few can at this date be picked up readily command big prices. During the immense overland traffic in the early '60's, portions of the plains were fairly white with bones of the buffalo. The animals had first been killed by the Indians for their food and robes, and, later, millions of the shaggy beasts had been indiscriminately slaughtered by the white man just for sport, their carcasses left a prey for the wolves, and their bones to bleach by the wayside. In the '50's and '60's their bones were scattered promiscuously in certain localities for hundreds of miles in central and western Kansas, and between Fort Kearney and Julesburg along the Platte, as far back from the river as the eye could reach. No one seeing the apparently endless mass of bones even dreamed that any use would ever be made of them; but, after the completion of the Union Pacific railway and its branches across the "Great American Desert," and, later, the building of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe line into the Southwest, an immense new industry was early inaugurated in Kansas. Kansas was the natural home of the buffalo, and, during the '70's, hundreds of merchants in the western part of the state had a regular trade established and did a lively business buying and shipping buffalo bones to Eastern markets. For about a quarter of a century the business has been an extinct industry. The immense trade carried on in it at the time aggregated astonishing figures. It is estimated that in ten years the trade in these bones alone amounted to fully two and a half million dollars. With the bones in market, the price averaged about eight dollars per ton. Of those shipped from Kansas, it is believed they represented the carcasses of no less than thirty million buffalo. Millions of the animals were annually killed in the later '60's and '70's, when the work of building railroads was actively going on in the state. It is no exaggeration to say that the animals slaughtered would have loaded hundreds of thousands of cars and packed them to their fullest capacity. The Topeka Mail and Breeze, speaking of the extinct industry, says that, |
"allowing forty feet for a car--which is crowding 'em--it would make a string of cars 7575 miles long--enough to more than fill two tracks from New York to San Francisco." Statistics show that, in 1874 alone, there was shipped east over the Kansas Pacific and Santa Fe roads, over ten million pounds of these bones, over one and a quarter million pounds of buffalo bides, and over six hundred thousand pounds of buffalo meat, the bulk of all the shipments being from the state of Kansas, where the animals roamed at will over the prairies and plains before the advent of the iron horse. The bones gathered up and shipped east were used for fertilizing purposes, while thousands of the horns were polished, and made beautiful ornaments for the sitting-room and office. The most unique and valuable of office ornaments were the mounted buffalo heads, which were quite common after the completion of the Union Pacific railway. In the ticket office of almost every prominent Union Pacific depot, and in many of the metropolitan hotels all over the country were elaborate and beautifully painted signs of the great overland pioneer road, beside which would almost invariably be seen one of the elegantly mounted souvenir buffalo beads, probably at the time the most appropriate design for advertising the great road that could possibly be devised. A few only of the mounted heads are still to be found in colleges and universities, but they are becoming scarce and very valuable, for they represent a once mighty, powerful but now almost extinct race. In Flathead lake, Montana, is Wildhorse island, on which is being perpetuated a herd of forty buffalo, which one of the enterprising Flathead aborigines has saved from ruthless slaughter by the white man. Flathead lake is said to be the seventh largest lake in the United States; in area, ten to twenty miles in width and thirty miles long. On the mainland, not far from the lake, it is learned from Albert R. Greene, of Lecompton, Kan., there is a herd of 300 of the shaggy animals, belonging to the same owner. This is doubtless the largest number of wild American buffalo to be found on the globe. Some idea of the value of the two herds may be had when it is learned that a choice buffalo robe is valued at about $75; and, when made into a stylish, artistic overcoat, will readily fetch from $150 to $200. This Flathead is evidently a level-headed Indian. |
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First Daily Overland Mail Coach on Way Across The Plains. |
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