Barton County KS Archives Biographies.....Towers, George 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com October 3, 2005, 12:56 am

Author: George Towers

GEORGE TOWERS

I CAME from Wisconsin with a colony to Fossell, now called Russell. About sixty
persons came out on the first train, us each a business, lot and a residence
lot. I think it was about April 15, 1871, at 3 p. m., we landed at Fossell. A
section house and a water tank of the K. P. railroad were all the buildings we
found there, and these were run by the section foreman. His name was John Cook.
Many of the old settlers know him now. Before we got there the Indians killed
two of the section men and they were [sic]

Captain Ruger and myself were partners. It cost us $20 each to join the colony.
That gave buried on what is now Main street, Russell. We all took homesteads or
pre-emptions and broke up land and planted sod corn, beans, potatoes and other
vegetables, but the dry weather set in and hot winds prevailed, and farming was
not a success. Some of us heard what a fine valley there was on the Arkansas
river. So we made up a small party of men, composed of J. H. Hubbard, E.M.
Benedict, John Cook, Edward Swan, Edward Dewey, Art Moses and his father, J. E.
Dodge and George Towers. The first day we made Walnut creek, Barton County.
There we found the only two settlers of the county. Their names were Mecklem and
John Reinicke. We camped that night with them. They told us about the land down
the creek and said the A. T. & S. F. R. R. surveyors were coming west laying out
the road. It was only completed at that time to Newton. They told us the number
of the section they were on, so we very soon knew what section we could locate
on. As the odd sections were claimed by the railroad John Cook staked the first
claim down the creek, Edward Dewey the next and then J. E. Dodge, Benedict and
Swan the next ones in rotation. Hubbard staked the Goforth ranch. The next night
we camped at Walnut creek at old Fort Zarah, which had just been abandoned. All
the other boys staked claims on the creek or as near as they could. The second
morning they said: "George, where did you put your stake?" I told them I had
found no place to put it. I said "Let us go up the river and see how it looks."
When we got to where Great Bend now stands the whole counttry was covered with
buffalo. We killed a buffalo near where the court house now stands. I looked
around and said to the boys: "Well, you have all taken timber claims, so I will
put my stake here for a homestead." As there were so many buffalo around I told
them while they had staked timber claims I had staked a stock ranch. My stock
soon disappeared. We then started back for Fossell. When we got there we
reported what we had found and done. In a short time the most of the boys
returned to make improvements on their claims. As I was in partnership with Nick
German in a blacksmith shop I would not then get away to make my improvements.
John Hubbard and Capt. Ruger went into partnership and put up a little above on
Hubbard's claim. Capt. Ruger run the store, while Hubbard went into the land
business making out filing papers, and sending them to the land office in
Salina. I gave him my money and my discharge papers and told him to find out if
my stake was on a government section and if so to make out a soldier's
homestead. About two months  after he came up to Fossell for supplies, when he
told me he was sorry he had not made out my homestead papers and that a colony
from  Quincy, Ill., had jumped my claim and had laid out the town of Great Bend.
The ones who located and laid out the town were D. N. Heizer, Geo. Moses, Thos.
Stone, Morris, and Murphy, A. S. Allen, Edw. Tyler were the first settlers oŁ
the colony. In the month of January, 1871, Capt. Ruger came up to Fossell and
said that they had laid out a town about one mile east of Fort Zarah and had
named it Zarah City and were going to make a railroad town of it, and wanted me
to go down there and start a blacksmith shop and they would give me two lots if
I would do so. Next day Capt. Ruger and I started for Zarah City. The captain
had taken a claim north of Zarah City, where we stayed all night. Next morning
we went over to the city. We found a good sized store in operation, owned by
Perry Hodgen and Tike Buckley from Salina. They were the head men of the city.
There was a two-story hotel and restaurant owned and run by Dick Strew. A livery
stable owned by John Roberts and John Moore, and a saloon owned by Lee Herzigg
from Ellsworth, and run by Edw. Martz. They gave me a corner lot next to the
livery stable. A stockman by the name of Jack Jamieson, who had wintered a
thousand head of cattle there and drove them in the spring to Montana, said he
wanted me to start in business to do his blacksmithing as he had considerable
work he wanted done before he started the drive sometime in June. About the
first of March, 1872, I moved down to Capt. Ruger's where both our families
lived together. I put up a small shop and had a good trade while it lasted. The
A. T. & S. F. R. R. was then completed to Hutchinson. Then Zarah City and Great
Bend got to fighting, over the question as to which was to be the railroad town.
Great Bend won out and I never will forget the first dance in Great Bend. It was
at the Stoneham hotel, run by Thos. Stone. Capt. Ruger and myself furnished the
music. I want to say we had a gay old time. Everyone had a jolly good time whiie
at the dance. I met Sid Crane, one of Jamieson's herders. He told me that he had
filed on some land about one and one-half miles west of Ellinwood. He had done a
little plowing on it and would take five dollars for his rights. I gave him the
money and put my homestead papers on it. They had laid out a town at Ellinwood.
Capt. Ruger, Joe Howard and I went down and helped lay out the town. The
railroad company gave each of us a lot for doing the work. Capt. Ruger and
Howard put up a hotel. They gave me the corner lot where the Cyclone store now
stands I bought the adjoining lot for $40. I put up a small shop and did
blacksmithing for the settlers and cowboys. As many of the settlers were people
of limited means they soon run through with what they had and could not pay for
their smithing. I told them I would do their work and they could break up some
land for me on my claim and I would allow them three dollars per acre. In that
way I got sixty acres under cultivation. I built a small house and had a good
well of fine water and one acre of orchard. The first year I rented it to Jim
Wilkinson on shares, each one-half of the produce. We did very well. The next
year I rented it to John M. Harris. Each furnished one-half of the seed. I got
one-half of the crop of forty acres of wheat which yielded well. The next year I
rented to a preacher, Hackensmith. He raised a fine crop of forty acres of wheat
which he cut with a header and put it into fine stacks; sixteen acres of
roasting ears, when one of the Kansas hail stone storms and blizzards came and
destroyed everything I had. Our wheat stack was blown for miles away. The corn
and vegetables were all gone when the storm cleared away. I did not have enough
left to fill my hat That sickened me of farming, so I sold out for almost
nothing and in 1880 came to Colorado. Although I know now if I had stuck to old
Kansas I might he in better circumstances than what I am now in or perhaps I
might have been in the pen. My brother, Matt Towers, came to Hoisington since I
left Kansas. He has now two hundred acres of land and has made a success of
farming, but has had worse luck, losing a good wife, a great deal worse than
losing a little old 40 acres of wheat, as I think I might be worse off after
all. I made more money in Kansas killing buffalo than I have made in the hills
of Colorado hunting gold.


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Biographical History Of Barton County

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