Gove County KS Archives History - Books .....The Texas Cattle Trail 1930
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Book Title: History Of Gove County, Kansas

CHAPTER X
THE TEXAS CATTLE TRAIL

  The population of Gove county fell away half in the big drouth, and the fields
began to go back to the primitive sod. The legislature of 1881 took the county
away from Ellis county and attached it to Trego. The year 1881 saw the death of
all the county papers; the Grainfield Republican breathed its last in January;
the Buffalo Park Express went under in August. In June J. G. Coutant & Sons
started the Golden Belt Advance at Grainfield but it gave up the struggle in
October, and with its death the newspaper history of Gove county closes for four
years.

  At the first national election held in Gove county, in 1880, a total of 158
votes were cast. For president the vote was Garfield, Republican, 101; Hancock,
Democrat, 40; Weaver, Greenbacker, 17. The vote for governor was St. John,
Republican, 102; Ross, Democrat, 40; Vrooman, Greenbacker, 15. The vote on the
prohibition amendment to the constitution was 88 for and 45 against.

  The county administered its own affairs as a township of Trego county, and
every election resolved itself into a contest between Grainfield and Buffalo
Park. Buffalo Park was the voting precinct and its faction was generally the
stronger. At the election of 1881 Buffalo Park won by a vote of about 100 to 56
all round. E. C. Baker was elected trustee without opposition; Frank Sharp beat
his Grainfield opponent for road overseer by 103 to 55. In 1882 L. H. Lassel
beat George Platz for trustee 50 to 48; Frank Sharp and F. S. Adams were elected
justices of the peace. F. W. ("Fred") Martin started a contest against Adams on
the ground that he had a homestead in Sheridan county and was only residing in
Gove county to escape taxation on his cattle, but Adams beat the contest by
giving up his homestead and announcing himself a citizen of Gove county for
keeps. So little was the value placed on land in the west in those days! George
Platz was elected trustee in 1883. In 1884 Platz and D. L. Greenfield were rival
candidates for trustee; Platz was elected on the face of the returns but the
election was contested and the matter carried before the Trego county
commissioners at WaKeeney who decided in favor of Greenfield. Some one claimed
to have made the discovery at this time that by a decision of the supreme court
Gove county had not been properly attached to Trego and was consequently a sort
of No Man's Land and all its official acts were illegal. However, no great
issues hinged on the matter and no great harm was done.

  The hostility between the Buffalo Park and Grainfield factions caused a split
in the Republican party in 1880, each faction holding a convention and sending a
different set of delegates to the state and district conventions.

  The rivalry of the two towns shows up in the correspondence in the WaKeeney
paper after Gove county's papers ceased to exist. Nov. 5, 1881, the Buffalo Park
correspondent boasts thus of his town: "Four good stores in the town—only
hardware store in the county—the only money order office and the only railroad
well—the first sermon ever preached in the county was here—first church,
Congregational, was here—the first school taught and first school house in the
county worthy of the name was built at Buffalo Park—the U. P. railroad has here
the only stock yards in. the county." Next week the Grainfield correspondent
comes back with the following: "The professions are represented here by two
ministers, Presbyterian and Methodist, one physician and one lawyer. The
Presbyterians have a church building paid for and we have two terms of school a
year. The county is unorganized as yet and we have no taxes to pay; but when it
is; organized Grainfield will be the county seat."

  Decoration Day was celebrated at Grainfield in 1882. There was but one
soldier's grave to decorate, that of Chas. A. Nichols who had died at Grainfield
while on a visit to relatives there. About five hundred were present, of whom
seventy five were ex-soldiers. Fred Martin was chairman and C. M. Burr acted as
Officer of the Day.

  Buffalo Park celebrated the Fourth of July in 1883. J. J. Dixon of Bunker Hill
delivered the oration of the day and David Ritchie (now a prominent lawyer of
Salina) read the Declaration of Independence. The baseball game between Buffalo
Park and Bunker Hill resulted 40 to 22 in favor of Buffalo Park. Even in those
days Gove county had a champion baseball team.

  In its issue of April 30, 1880, the Republican notes that the Kenneth baseball
team of Sheridan county came down to Grainfield and played a team made up of the
Grainfield and Buffalo boys, the Gove county boys getting the victory by the
score of 39 to 33. The names of the players are net given but the paper states
that this was the first game ever played in Grainfield. On the following 4th of
July the same teams met again at Kenneth, the Gove county boys again winning, 23
to 18. In spite of their rivalry it is evident that the two Gove county towns
would get together if necessary to beat another county for the baseball
championship. The large scores look rather stranse to us now; but baseball was a
different sport then, played without gloves, and the games were remarkable for
heavy hitting instead of fast fielding and scientific pitching.

  But the biggest thing in the history of Gove county at that time was the Texas
cattle drive. Tens of thousands of the long horns were being driven through the
county every season. The history of the cattle drive dates back to the years
immediately following the Civil War. Texas at that time was full of cattle but
they were scarce at the north. Cattle were wanted for the feed lots of the corn
belt and, after the buffalo had been exterminated and the Indian subdued, cattle
were needed to stock the ranges of the west and northwest. Joseph G. McCoy of
Abilene was the originator of the drive; and the cattle at first were driven to
Abilene, which was for a time the western terminus of the U. P. railroad. Later
the drive was made to Hays, to Wichita and to Dodge City. These changes were
made because the railroad was being extended farther west to those points, and
because as the settlers filled up the plains of central Kansas they refused to
allow the cattle to be driven through their settlements and sought and obtained
legislation pushing the traffic farther west.

  The "dead line" as established by the legislature of 1879, beginning at the
boundary of the Indian Territory, ran up along the east side of Clark and Ford
counties to the Arkansas river, thence west along the river to Dodge City, and
thence along the east side of Finney, Lane, Gove, Sheridan and Rawlins counties
to the Nebraska line; no driving was allowed east of this line. The effect of
this regulation was to direct the stream of cattle to Dodge. Here some of them
were shipped to eastern markets over the Santa Fe road, and those destined for
more northern points continued on their way up the trail. The Santa Fe and Union
Pacific were then the only railroads in the country and after leaving; Dodge no
settlements were met with till the neighborhood of Buffalo Park was reached.

  The trail entered Gove Co. 6 miles west of the southeast corner of the county
and struck across country in a direction slightly west of north, to Buffalo
Park. The old trail can still be traced for a part of its course across the
county, wherever it has not been obliterated by the plow; it is particularly
plain just south of the Hackberry where it sweeps by the base of Round Top.

  The cattle were driven in herds numbering hundreds or sometimes several
thousands. At the camping places along the streams they were allowed to scatter
out and graze, but on the march they were strung out by the drovers in a long
thin line. Land marks were set up where necessary to mark the trail. The Buffalo
Park Express, June 3, 1880, had the following mention of the trail: "The right
of way has been obtained from the settlers over their claims, and a new cattle
trail marked out with two furrows about two hundred feet apart all the way
through the settlements in Gove county. The new trail is very near the old one,
has better crossings on the creeks, and is shorter than the old trail. Soon
after crossing the Hackberry coming northward you strike the new trail which
crosses the old one three times before arriving at Big Creek and thence you have
a perfectly straight route between the furrows for five miles over smooth level
ground to the stock yards in Buffalo." The number of cattle that traveled the
trail can only be conjectured. We have the figures for one season only. The
editor of the Express kept a partial record for 1880. In one day of that year
11,600 head arrived at Buffalo Park. Thirty thousand came in one week. By July 8
the arrivals numbered 89,220; by August 5 there were 165,220. After this date no
more figures were given, but as the run of range cattle usually continues till
fall it is evident the record is far from complete. The cattle did not all come
to Buffalo Park; some herds crossed the railroad near Grainfield and Grinnell,
and it is probably conservative enough to estimate that a quarter of a million
head of Texas cattle passed through Gove county during the one season of 1880.
Some of the cattle were shipped from the stock yards at Buffalo Park to the east
or to the west, but most of the herds were driven on. to find their final
stopping point in Nebraska or the territories of the northwest. The cattle moved
leisurely, sometimes taking weeks for the trip, and often making long stops when
the grass was good and water abundant. Some of the herds were known as "time
herds," because they had been bought by the government to furnish rations for
the Indians on the reservations and were under contract to be delivered at their
destination by a certain time.

  The cattle drive soon became unpopular in Gove county for the same reasons
that had caused it to be outlawed in the older counties. The cattle destroyed
the crops of the settlers, who could collect no damages. It was charged that the
cattle brought disease into the country. The cowboys went on sprees at Buffalo
Park and Grainfield and once "shot up" the town of Grinnell; the cowboys got the
worst of this affray (June, 1880) the net result being one cowboy killed and one
citizen wounded.

  Petitions were circulated asking the legislature to remove the "dead line"
farther west. The bill was introduced in the legislature of 1881 and passed the
House but was killed in the Senate. Being unable to get relief from the
legislature the settlers tried another tack and secured an order from the
commissioners of Trego county that after the first day of August, 1881, no stock
should be allowed to run at large in the night time in Gove county. This night
herd law may have helped some but the Texas cattle drive continued till 1883;
the legislature of that year changed the law and removed the dead line to the
westward of Gove, Sheridan and Rawlins counties, and the Texas cattle drive
ceased to be any longer a disturbing factor in the history of Gove county.



Additional Comments:
History of Gove County, Kansas
by W. P. Harrington

Gove City, Kan.	1930


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