Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Kansas 1874: Triumphs, Tragedies, and Transitions
    Kansas 1874: Triumphs, Tragedies, and Transitions
    Kansas 1874: Triumphs, Tragedies, and Transitions
    Ebook244 pages3 hours

    Kansas 1874: Triumphs, Tragedies, and Transitions

    By Robert Collins

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    1874 in the Sunflower State was a time of the Wild West and of Indian attacks, but also of a rising poet and debates on temperance. It was the year the Mennonites first arrived, and when Abilene’s T. C. Henry began to promote winter wheat as a good crop for Kansas farmers. Few other years in state history show Kansas in its transition from part of the frontier to its own identity so clearly.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert Collins
    Release dateJan 5, 2011
    ISBN9781458138149
    Kansas 1874: Triumphs, Tragedies, and Transitions
    Author

    Robert Collins

    Two people with different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities met at a European and Balkan music and dance ensemble named Koroyar and their lives became intertwined, combining their gifts to continue exploring life as an avenue of creative expression. Robert Collins has a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology, and has been an educator in the Los Angeles area for thirty years. He studied writing with Joan Oppenheimer in San Diego, with Cork Millner privately, and also in the Santa Barbara Writer's Conferences. Elizabeth Herrera Sabido, at the age of sixteen years, began working as a secretary at the Secretaria de Industria y Comercio in Mexico City where she was born, then she was an educator for twenty-six years, and a teacher of international dance for The Los Angeles Unified School District. She has also studied Traditional Chinese Medicine, and is a Reiki Master Teacher. Attracted by the Unknown, the Forces of the Universe, and the human psyche, during their lives they have studied several different philosophies. Elizabeth has been involved with various religions, Asian studies, and Gnosticism with SamaelAun Weor, and Robert has explored spiritual healing practices in Mexico, and studied with Carlos Castaneda's Cleargreen and Tensegrity. Elizabeth and Robert start their day at four-thirty in the morning. They enjoy playing volleyball and tennis, and in the afternoons play music, alternating between seven different instruments each. Their philosophy of Personal Evolution has led them to explore over 110 countries between the two of them such as Japan, Nepal, Egypt, Bosnia- Herzegovina, the Philippines, Turkey,Russia, etc.

    Read more from Robert Collins

    Related to Kansas 1874

    Related ebooks

    Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies) History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Freedom Towns

      Nov 23, 2023

      Freedom Towns
      23 min read

    • Article

      WATCHDOGS Of The CHEYENNE

      Oct 26, 2021

      WATCHDOGS Of The CHEYENNE
      11 min read

    • Article

      Bravehearted Women

      Aug 29, 2023

      Bravehearted Women
      7 min read

    • Article

      Nothing Meek About Him

      Jul 28, 2020

      Nothing Meek About Him
      11 min read

    • Article

      'The Bone And Sinew Of The Land' Restores A Lost Chapter Of US History

      Jun 25, 2018

      We’ve long forgotten the African-Americans who lived free – at least some of the time – in the Midwest in the decades before the Civil War.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Book Excerpt

      Sep 3, 2020

      Book Excerpt
      4 min read

    • Article

      Sins Of The Fathers And Mothers

      Mar 4, 2024

      "Oh let me, let me kill them,” one woman cried, a knife in one hand, a rasping file in the other, as she struggled with the soldier trying to restrain her. “They killed my husband. They burned my house and child. Oh, let me through.” It was November

      5 min read

    • Article

      Hoofprints Through History Part 2: Orphans Preferred

      Nov 20, 2018

      In my last column, I talked about the role in history of the Mongolian horse, which enabled Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes to subjugate most of Central Asia. Several hundred years later, and several thousand miles to the west of the Mongol Empire

      9 min read

    • Article

      People Of The Plains

      Oct 1, 2021

      People Of The Plains
      3 min read

    • Article

      Collateral Costs

      Feb 22, 2022

      Collateral Costs
      17 min read

    • Article

      Spaulding's Funeral

      Sep 7, 2021

      Spaulding's Funeral
      19 min read

    • Article

      Key Events

      Aug 10, 2023

      Key Events
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Mission At Waiilatpu

      Oct 1, 2023

      The Mission At Waiilatpu
      5 min read

    • Article

      Freedom Trail

      Sep 25, 2018

      Freedom Trail
      4 min read

    • Article

      Following the Herd

      Nov 1, 2022

      Following the Herd
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Place Of Their Own

      Mar 9, 2021

      A Place Of Their Own
      11 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Kansas 1874

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Kansas 1874 - Robert Collins

      INTRODUCTION

      This book might seem like a departure from what I’ve been doing, as far as my nonfiction goes, but it’s not. I researched and wrote this during 2002 and completed it in early 2003. It came between the biographies of James G. Blunt and Jim Lane.

      What happened was that in 2004 I sold the Blunt biography to Pelican. Just as that book was coming out Hurricane Katrina hit. Pelican wanted to get back on their feet quickly, so I was encouraged to pitch the Lane biography to them (which I was just finishing). They accepted it late in 2005 and it appeared in 2007. From 2005 to 2009 I was doing events to promote both books.

      In 2008 I heard that Amazon had started a print-on-demand service called Create Space. I had a collection of railroad articles, and I decided to use that to publish the collection, Kansas Train Tales. I also used it to publish an updated edition of Ghost Railroads of Kansas. I spent much of 2009 and 2010 promoting those books.

      All that means it’s taken several years for this book to appear in print, even though it was done years ago. Because it took so long, I’m not sure who I need to thank. So I’ll thank all of you who have an interest in Kansas history, and all of you willing to read this book. Thanks for your support!

      Robert Collins

      January, 2011

      BEFORE 1874

      As the year 1874 began in Kansas, no one could have known how much was about to happen in the state between January 1 and December 31. Yet most of the events that transpired would with hindsight be seen as continuations of actions, reactions, and trends that dated back to the opening of Kansas Territory in 1854 and beyond.

      For centuries the place that would be called Kansas was home to a variety of Indian tribes. The east was dominated by the Kansa and the Osage, sedentary tribes that occasionally hunted to supplement their lifestyles. North-central Kansas was part of the range of the Pawnee who also hunted and farmed, and were often at odds with the Kansa and the Osage. The western high plains were home to the nomadic hunting tribes, the Cheyenne, the Arapaho, the Kiowa, and the Comanche.

      The intertribal relationships became more complicated starting in the 1830s when the American government began to relocate tribes west. Tribes mainly from the Great Lakes region were sent to reservations in Kansas where they were supposed to adopt more white lifestyles while still being isolated from whites in a permanent Indian frontier. Among the tribes sent to Kansas were the Sac and Fox, the Kickapoo, the Delaware, the Wyandot, and the Potawatomi. However, this concept of a permanent Indian frontier lasted only a decade or two.

      The breakdown occurred due to the issue of slavery. By the 1850s the United States was equally divided between states that had slavery and those that didn’t, or the free states. From the founding of the republic to then there was a delicate balance between slave and free states. The balance began to be upset when Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, long interested in opening Nebraska and Kansas to white settlement, proposed a bill in 1854 that would allow the settlers of those territories to decide whether they would become slave or free states. Up to that point states were admitted as free or slave based on their location in the nation. What Douglas was proposing was called popular sovereignty. Before passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, treaties were made with the Indians to move most south to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).

      Passage created a new problem for the nation. Popular sovereignty meant that the majority of settlers would get to decide if the territory would become a free or a slave state. Kansas Territory was thought to have a more favorable climate for slave-labor crops like cotton. The territory was close to Missouri, a slave state. Naturally Missourians and other southerners moved to Kansas Territory to create a slave state.

      Many of the opponents of slavery decided against allowing Kansas to become a slave state. Abolitionists from New England raced to Kansas Territory to make it free as soon as the 1854 act was passed. They hoped that by denying Kansas to slavery, they could diminish the power the slave states held. A victory of abolitionists in Kansas could, they believed, be the start of a nationwide effort to outlaw slavery.

      The proslavery forces quickly gained control of the territorial authority. Both sides resorted to force to intimidate the opposition and settle disputes. Then an interesting trend emerged: emigrants arrived in large numbers from states north of the Ohio River. Although they were anti-slavery, their motivation was more for economic than moral reasons. These midwestern settlers became a majority of the residents of territory, and turned Kansas irrevocably towards being a free state. For a time the proslavery forces tried to manipulate the system in their favor, but the population was against them. When Kansas was admitted as a state on January 29, 1861, it was as a free state.

      Within a few months the nation was ripped apart by the Civil War. Kansas did her share during the conflict. A Kansas general, James G. Blunt, helped wrest control of the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) and northern Arkansas for the Union. Kansas regiments marched under Grant and Sherman. And the state did her share of suffering, too. On August 21, 1863, the town of Lawrence was burned by Confederate guerillas; over 150 men and boys were killed, all noncombatants. A Missouri general tried to retake that state for the Confederacy in the fall of 1864, which led to the only major battle fought in Kansas, the battle of Mine Creek on October 25. But the Price Raid was an unmitigated failure, and Kansas emerged from the war battered but far from broken.

      Emigration to Kansas resumed after the war, and railroads started to construct lines to the interior of the state. The nomadic buffalo-hunting tribes were still on the high plains. They had become resentful of the encroachment of white America onto their lands, the excessive slaughter of the buffalo by white hunters, and the uncertainty that seemed to be in their future. There were violent clashes between whites and Indians in 1867 and 1868. However, they simply did not have the numbers to resist the U. S. Army. Over the next few years the tribes were forced onto ever-shrinking reservations with tighter and tighter restrictions placed on their traditional lifestyles and activities.

      As this wild era of Kansas history ended a new one began. In 1867 an Illinois businessman, Joseph McCoy, noticed the explosion of the cattle population in Texas during the war. He also observed that there was a need for meat in the northern part of the United States. The problem was getting the cattle to northern meat packers and markets. As yet no railroad from the north or the south had entered Texas. If the cattle were to get to where they were needed, a new approach would be required.

      McCoy hit upon the idea of driving the cattle to a dedicated town in Kansas, or a railhead. At that town along the tracks the cattle could be loaded onto trains and shipped east to fill the national need for beef. McCoy decided to use a trail created by an Indian trader, Jesse Chisholm, as the route for these cattle drives. The town he selected for the loading point was Abilene in Dickinson County.

      That first year, 1867, some 35,000 head of cattle were driven to Abilene. The venture had succeeded and Abilene boomed. Over the next four years around a million head came through Abilene. But by 1872 a railroad line had crossed the Chisholm Trail well to the south. In addition, the residents of Abilene had become tired of the wild behavior of the cowboys driving the cattle north. So in that year the drives terminated in Newton. After a single violent season Newton had had enough, and the next year the terminus became Wichita. It was here that the first noteworthy event of 1874 occurred: the hunt for a cowtown fugitive.

      ROWDY JOE

      Joseph Rowdy Joe Lowe was one of the many men who were making money off the drovers coming to Wichita. He and his wife Kate, sometimes called Rowdy Kate, first appeared in the Kansas cattle town and frontier trading post of Ellsworth around 1870. There they ran what a census taker called a house of ill fame. This was a saloon that apparently also served as a brothel. The Lowes moved to Newton and in 1872 were indicted for running a Common Bawdy house and Brothel. It was also here that Joe shot a man who had threatened him.

      By the summer of 1872 Joe and Kate were plying their trade in Wichita. More specifically, they were in Delano on the west bank of the Arkansas River. Wichita itself sat on the east bank of the river, along with the railroad and the stockyard. But if one walked across a bridge at Douglas Avenue they could enter Delano, also known as West Wichita. Delano was where the saloons, gambling halls, and brothels were to accommodate not just the cowboys but all the rough characters of the frontier who came to or passed through Wichita.

      Indeed, rough characters and respectable citizens were all doing business in and around Wichita during these years. Perhaps with some pride in this activity one of the two newspapers in town, the Weekly Eagle, reprinted a description from the Emporia News on May 28, 1874 that told of the plucky town’s diversity.

      It is a motly [sic] crowd you see. Broad-brimmed and spurred Texans, farmers, keen business men, real estate agents, land seekers, greasers, hungry lawyers, gamblers, women with white sun bonnets and shoes of a certain pattern, express wagons going pell-mell, prairie schooners, farm wagons, and all rushing after the almighty dollar.

      That included Rowdy Joe. The Kansas Daily Commonwealth of Topeka felt obliged to mention him when it reported on Wichita in October of 1872. The correspondent wrote that any account of the city was incomplete without mentioning Lowe’s notorious dance house. The proprietor was described as having been a frontiersman for many years and had experienced about as much roughness as any other man. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, Lowe was able to maintain the best of order in his saloon. No one is disposed to pick a quarrel with him, or infringe upon the rules of his house. Though he might not be a model for Sunday school scholars, other men who claimed to be gentlemen had hearts black in comparison with Rowdy Joe’s. However, he proved to have his own dark heart when a dispute between himself and another saloon owner erupted in violence the following autumn.

      On the night of October 27, 1873, Lowe and E. T. Red Beard got into some sort of fight, the nature of which isn’t entirely clear. The man Lowe faced off against was an unlikely opponent. Red Beard was an educated man in his mid-forties from Illinois and the son of a wealthy town founder. When he came to Wichita Beard had three children described as being almost grown and completely unaware of their father’s vocation. Beard’s nickname came from the fact that he had long curly red hair.

      If Beard’s background didn’t make him the typical cowtown tough, his experience in Wichita made him a fearsome opponent. He was reported to be one of the best shots on the border. The previous summer a group of Army soldiers burned his dance house and tried to kill him. He managed to wound several of his attackers, but may have sustained an injury himself. It seems that the only reason he was in this disreputable business was to get a new start in the world, probably after suffering some financial loss in the east.

      On that October night Beard and Lowe, after indulging in what the Wichita Eagle said afterward was distilled poison, got into some sort of dispute. They tried to settle the affair with pistols and shotguns to blistering effect. Lowe was grazed by a pistol shot in the back of his neck. Beard was hit in the right arm and hip by duck shot; the arm was shattered. They were not the only casualties of the drunken gun battle. A dance hall girl, Annie Franklin, was mortally wounded. Another man, Bill Anderson, described by the Eagle as someone who through mistake had killed another, was shot between the eyes but survived. Soon after the incident Rowdy Joe turned himself in to authorities. He was arraigned and then released on $2,000 bail.

      Within two weeks Beard’s wounds became infected and he died. In mid-November Lowe was bound over for trial for murdering Beard, but he was again released on bail. The trial got underway in early December. It began as many modern ones do, with the defense challenging the impanelling of jury members. The jury was seated in an hour or so.

      There was considerable evidence to get through, including testimony from prosecution and defense witnesses. One of those who testified was the bartender in Beard’s saloon, Walter Beebe. Although Beebe gave a detailed account of the crime, he provided no motive for the shooting. Beebe’s wife gave evidence that suggested the intended target of Lowe’s rage was not Beard but Josephine De Merritt, an associate of Beard’s. Finally city marshal Mike Meagher testified that Lowe had turned himself in and on the night in question was uncertain as to whether he had shot Beard or not.

      Despite the prosecuting attorney getting applause from the court spectators for his closing remarks, on December 11 the jury found Lowe not guilty. Immediately charges were filed against Lowe for the shooting of Anderson. The authorities were not willing to let Lowe off so lightly. That may have put a considerable amount of fear into Rowdy Joe Lowe.

      There followed this item in the December 18 edition of the Eagle: I will give $100.00 reward for the apprehension of one Joseph Lowe, alias Rowdy Joe, a fugitive from justice from Sedgwick [C]ounty, Kansas. Lowe was described as being about 28, 5’9, heavy set, with a dark complexion, hair, and mustache, and having gruff manners." The message was sent out by county Sheriff William Smith throughout the west. Rowdy Joe had skipped town.

      A week later a man named Walker wrote to Marshall Murdock, editor of the Eagle, that he had seen Rowdy Joe in Osage Mission, Kansas. Unfortunately before the notice of Lowe’s status arrived he left, apparently heading for Texas. He next surfaced in Leavenworth, Kansas, around January 1, under the name A. A. Becker. He was arrested by local lawmen who quickly found out who he was and that he was a fugitive. He had over $8,000 on him, and when he was picked up he was supposedly having a gay time with the boys.

      But then something unusual happened. Lowe’s wife Kate showed up in Leavenworth a few days later. Kate Lowe went before the police chief to insist that her husband’s money had been taken illegally. An advising attorney agreed and the authorities handed it to her. Next she went before a local judge to insist that Mr. Lowe was being held without a reason. The judge issued a writ to the police chief inquiring as to why Lowe was being held. The chief and the arresting officers brought telegrams before the judge to show that Lowe was a wanted man, and that the Sedgwick County sheriff was on his way to pick up Lowe.

      However, the writ had been directed against the police chief. The chief was willing to let Lowe go free, but the arresting officers objected. The judge asked one of the officers if he could answer the writ; he couldn’t. The judge had no choice but to let Lowe out of jail. Although there were accusations that the judge had been bribed by Mrs. Lowe, the real cause for the release may have been a lack of communication between the chief and his officers.

      This time Lowe disappeared for good. On October 14 the Wichita Weekly Beacon printed a letter from Texas, dated October 1, that mentioned that Rowdy Joe was in Denison along with the usual number of loafers and gamblers. However the Eagle reported later that month that Rowdy Joe was killed in an Indian attack in the Black Hills in late October. The truth of the Beacon’s information was later seen in two items from the spring of 1875. In a letter printed on March 31 Rowdy Joe and his wife were said to be in San Antonio, Texas. Then on May 26 the Beacon reprinted a story from San Antonio that Joseph Lowe was found guilty of assaulting Kate Lowe. Rowdy Joe was fined $100; the cause of the assault was said to be inconstancy. Lowe’s name didn’t appear in Wichita newspapers again until 1899 when his death at the age of 72 was reported.

      The incident involving Rowdy Joe was seen as a black mark on Wichita, but the Eagle viewed parts of it as having a positive effect. Writing on January 8, 1874, the newspaper said, Rowdy Joe made a telling shot that night. It shot ‘Red’ into eternity; himself out of the country; Anderson through the head; Beebe, Red’s bar tender, into the penitentiary; [Josephine] De Merritt, Red’s mistress, into the penitentiary; Rowdy Kate to parts unknown; and Smith, Omet and another into jail for perjury.

      ***

      As 1874 got underway Wichita had the unpleasant appearance of the a typical frontier town. Garbage littered streets, the vacant lots, and even the yards of residences. Animals and animal waste were everywhere, and dead hogs littered the Arkansas River. The town was dusty in dry weather and muddy after it rained. The boards used to make sidewalks were full of knot holes, bristling with nails and splinters, and the space between them made them resemble a ladder or the side of a hen-coop. However, cleaning up the town was not the first priority of the city’s leaders. Their primary concern was the money being made from Texas cattle. Even though Wichita would observe Arbor Day in 1875 and plant trees to beautify the town, a real effort to improve the city had to wait until it became an impediment to business.

      Not that Wichita was the stereotypical cowtown of the dime novels and movie westerns. The first religious services had been held in 1868 when the town was little more than a Chisholm Trail trading post. An Episcopal congregation was organized in 1870, and two years later the Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and Catholics were all similarly organized and meeting. Not every congregation had its own church building by 1874, but those that didn’t were working hard to raise money for one.

      The religious element did try to combat the vice that had come with the cattle trade. Sermons were given, editorials were written, and revival meetings were held to protest the sin business. But Wichita was making a good living from catering to the vices of the cowboys, so little could be done to curb the drunkenness and rowdyism.

      The reason for this, and why characters such as Rowdy Joe congregated here, was because of the nature of the cattle drives themselves. The drives were long, lasting a number of weeks, and the work was monotonous. Their only company were the other cowboys in the drive. When the cowboys arrived and the herd was sold they were paid, and they spent their pay celebrating the end of their labor.

      It also helped that cattle towns like Wichita were at or past the edge of

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1