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Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for
Spring 2003
Come To The "Champagne Air" Changing Promotional Images Of The Kansas Climate, 1854 -1900
Karen De Bres Columbia University, [email protected]
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De Bres, Karen, "Come To The "Champagne Air" Changing Promotional Images Of The Kansas Climate, 1854 -1900" (2003). Great Plains Quarterly. 2394. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2394
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. COME TO THE "CHAMPAGNE AIR" CHANGING PROMOTIONAL IMAGES OF THE KANSAS CLIMATE, 1854 .. 1900
KAREN DE BRES
Euro-American settlers poured into Kansas Until 1895 the whole history of the state during the second half of the nineteenth cen was a series of disasters, and always some tury, and there they encountered a hostile and thing new, extreme, bizarre, until the name unpredictable climate. Rainfall patterns were Kansas became a byword, a synonym, for erratic, and the extremes of temperature were the impossible and the ridiculous, inviting both demanding and daunting. Countering laughter, furnishing occasion for jest and these conditions, or at least tempering them, hilarity. "In God we trusted, in Kansas we became a task for a variety of individuals and busted" became a favorite motto of immi organizations. The work was straightforward: grants worn out with the struggle, return to transform the image of Kansas in order to ing to more hospitable climes; and for many attract prospective immigrants. As historian years it expressed well enough the popular Carl Becker wrote, this was not easy: opinion of that fated land.!
Many of the problems that beset nine teenth-century Kansans were common to set tlers across the Great Plains. Not surprisingly, some of the solutions proposed to deal with the problems were common across the Plains KEY WORDS: climate, immigration, Kansas, as well, and readers may find echoes of their perception, railroads own states' experiences in those of Kansas. Kansas, like other states, was eager for new Karen De Bres holds a Ph.D. in geography from settlers. Attracting them hinged on overcom Columbia University. Her research interests include ing the many reports of adverse conditions the geography of the Central Plains, cultural geography, and the history of science. that filtered out from the state. Promotional materials, which portrayed the Kansas climate, resources, and landscape in optimistic tones, [GPQ 23 (Spring 2003): 111-26] were a common medium used to smooth the
111 112 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2003 rough edges of the physical environment. In temperature. Moisture comes often from the this essay I examine such promotional litera surface winds blowing from the Gulf of Mexico, ture, evaluate the strategies pursued by the and rainfall averages between forty inches per "climatic spin doctors" of the time, and dis annum in the east to about fifteen inches in cuss the continuous refashioning of the Kan the southwest (Fig. 1). The Great Plains is sas climatic image during a complex social and characterized by a wide range of weather con environmental history. Books, pamphlets, and ditions that result from the distance of the folders from 1854 to 1900 were selected for Plains from the moderating effect of any ma examination from the extensive collection of jor body of water and from the presence of the the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka. different air masses that frequently alternate These materials are representative of the Plains in their dominance of the region.3 and particularly of Kansas promotional litera When Kansas became a territory in 1854 it ture as a whole. did so under the requirements of the Kansas The essay is divided into three sections. Nebraska Act. Both territories were to be ad The first describes the Kansas climate, pro mitted to the Union as either free or vides an overview of the more popular of the slave-owning states, depending upon the vote nineteenth-century climate-change theories, of their citizens. Because of this condition, and reviews nineteenth-century Kansas settle various immigration societies were established ment. The second section presents accounts to promote Kansas settlement as a moral im of the Kansas climate from the promotional perative. When Kansas achieved statehood in literature and describes the different ap 1861, thirty-four of the current 105 counties proaches used to make Kansas's climate at were organized, including Riley and Dickinson tractive. The third section analyzes three Counties. Between 1861 and 1874 another general stages in the promotional literature thirty-five counties were added, including Ellis. and explains the ways in which the Kansas The most westward arc of counties was orga climate were discussed in ~ach. The counties nized in the 1880s and 1890s, including Gray of Riley, Dickinson, Ellis, and Gray, and their County. Settlers could obtain land through county seats of Manhattan, Abilene, Hays, and the Preemption Act of 1841, the Homestead Cimarron, were chosen as the focus of this Act of 1862, the Timber Culture Act, and essay because they represent different periods from the Office of Indian Affairs, from indi of initial settlement, different forms of the viduals, and from the railroads, which had been Kansas economy, and different physical envi granted land along their rights-of-way by the ronments. federal government. Between 1854 and 1900 seasonal tempera KANSAS CLIMATE, CLIMATE THEORIES, tures and precipitation totals in Kansas were AND FRONTIER SETTLEMENT quite varied. One of worst droughts in Kansas history began in 1859 and lasted until 1868 in Kansas, in the center of the contiguous the settled parts of the state. "Droughty Kan forty-eight states, is located 37 to 40 degrees sas" became a common expression, and this north of the equator and between 95 and 102 phrase was of such importance that a Kansas degrees west longitude. Throughout its 400 artist, Henry Worrall, drew a charcoal sketch miles of east-west extent, Kansas changes from by that name to refute it, showing plump Kan the moderate elevations and humid conditions sas farmers harvesting gigantic vegetables with of the lower Missouri Basin in the east to the a rainstorm in the background (Fig. 2). High Plains in the west adjacent to the east Worrall's illustration carried a clear ideologi ern slope of the Rockies. 2 Its continental cli cal message and later appeared on the cover of mate means that it is subject to extremes of the Kansas Farmer, a journal financed by the COME TO THE "CHAMPAGNE AIR" 113
FIG. 1. Precipitation patterns in Kansas, 1995. Source: Goodin, Mitchell, Knapp, Bivens (1995).
state legislature. It is but one early example of shortly afterward. Beginning in the late 1880s the combative nature often displayed by Kan and continuing until the 1930s, the state ex sans, exemplifying their desire to defend their perienced milder winters and warmer summers. state and implicitly their own identity as state From the vantage point of the twenty-first residents, against what they viewed as unjust century, the cyclical characteristics of Kansas criticism from outsiders.4 droughts already seem clear, but this was not Another drought began in 1873, and a gen yet accepted in the nineteenth century. eral economic panic also impeded Kansas The second half of the nineteenth century settlement and kept the Kansas Pacific Rail was also the period in which daily weather road from meeting its bonds. In spite of these data were first recorded for Kansas and the conditions, the push to open central and west Plains. Weather data were collected by the ern Kansas continued, with the completion of US Army in Kansas beginning in 1836 and by the two major railroad lines, the Kansas Pa the Smithsonian Meteorological Project start cific (Union Pacific) and the Atchison, To ing in 1858. During the Kansas territorial pe peka and Santa Fe across the state (Fig. 3). r.iod (1855-61), Manhattan, the county seat But Kansas, like Nebraska, received more bad of Riley County, was the most westward of the press the next year because of a particularly Kansas stations for the Smithsonian. The severe grasshopper invasion associated with United States Weather Bureau was established the continuing drought in western Kansas. The in 1870 and by 1874 had ninety-four sites, but boom period for Kansas immigration in the only one was in Kansas, at Leavenworth on late nineteenth century took place between the Missouri border, which was also the state's the 1870s drought and the blizzard that swept largest city in the 1870s. A site at Dodge City through the entire Plains in January of 1886. was later established, serving as the sole site Another drought revisited western Kansas for the US Weather Bureau in western Kansas 114 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2003
FIG. 2. "Drouthy Kansas" by Henry Worrall. Courtesy of Kansas State Historical Society.
at the time. Reliable weather data, then, was The image of the garden was often employed of a sketchy nature in Kansas during the sec by nineteenth-century promoters, and the sec ond half of the nineteenth century. ond half of the century witnessed an enor Public knowledge of Kansas was often based mous propaganda effort to redefine the Kansas on newspaper accounts, particularly in papers climate as a positive resource for prospective and articles published in the eastern United residents. But the success of such boosterism States, which focused on sensational events was directly threatened by reports of drought. such as floods, blizzards, and insect infesta Farmers would not settle where they believed tions.s Emerging from these accounts were sev conventional farming techniques would fail. eral dominant images of the Plains that were To reassure prospective farmers, as well as common throughout the country. At one ex other would-be residents, promoters advanced treme was the negative concept of the Plains several theories of increasing rainfall, and cli as the "Great American Desert." Two related mate-change theories soon appeared in the images labeled the Great Plains as both a "bar promotional immigrant pamphlets. All the rier" that must be penetrated and a "passage" theories suggested that precipitation in the to a new world. These images were used to Plains was rapidly increasing and that there impart the size and the difficulties of crossing were fewer extreme weather events such as the Plains to reach more economically favor floods and tornados (cyclones). 7 Credi t for the able environments.6 However, the image most first theory of "rain follows the plow" belongs useful to nineteenth-century promoters was to Samuel Aughey and his assistant, C . D. that of the Plains as a "garden" for new immi Wilbur, of the University of Nebraska. Ne grants. braskans, also eager for new settlers, devised COME TO THE "CHAMPAGNE AIR" 115
N A FIG. 3. Kansas Historical Railroad Main Routes. Source: USGS 2002. Map by Andrew W. Elmore.
the Timber Culture Act, which was supported company efforts were aided by dwindling by individuals who maintained that tree amounts of inexpensive land back east.9 The growth would cause more rainfall. Breaking number of residents in Riley, Dickinson, and the prairie sod, some thought, would also in Ellis Counties (Gray County was not yet crease rainfall. Building telegraph wires and formed) more than doubled. lo railroads were also proposed as rainmakers Observing the degree of acceptance in the because of "the effect of the electrical cur popular mind of the new image of Kansas, rents running on rails and wires." Horace Greeley said, "[S]ettlers are pouring Settlement on the Plains was closely tied into ... Kansas by carloads, wagon-loads, horse to railroad construction, and those railroads loads daily because of the fertility of her soil, that had received large land grants to aid in the geniality of her climate, her admirable di construction promoted it strongly. In Kansas, versity of prairie and timber, the abundance of while seven railroad companies received land her living streams and the marvelous facility from the federal government, the Atchison, wherewith homesteads may be created."ll Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad and the Kansas Settlement in Kansas continued rapidly until Pacific Railroad received the largest grants. 1874-75, the years of the worst of the grass The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe received hopper infestations in the Central Plains and 2,944,788 acres and the Kansas Pacific the last of the Indian raids. After 1875 the 3,925,791 acres. 8 Both companies set up pro young state prospered. The state census of 1875 motional programs, published pamphlets, and listed 528,437 persons, and the federal census employed agents to encourage settlement from listed 996,096 in 1880, the greatest increase the United States and Europe (Fig. 4). These in any five-year period in the state's history. 116 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2003
FIG. 4. "Kansas!" Image by Henry Worrall . Courtesy of Kansas State Historical Society.
Despite Kansas's reputation for drought in the time of the 1887 general crash, undercapital more western parts of the state, corn and wheat ized farmers had mortgaged 69 percent of all farmers arrived in large numbers. Corn acre Kansas land and the average per capita debt was age nearly doubled between 1875 and 1880, about $347, four times the national averageY and wheat acreage trebled. Farmers were a vi According to the 1889 Annals of Kansas, the tal part of the state's economy, except in the population loss that year was "accounted for by southwest, which was still largely in the hands emigration to Oklahoma and the end of the of the cattlemen. 'boom.'" The next year the state's population The prosperous years continued well into again declined, to 1,423,485. The Annals of the 1880s, as the immigration wave reached Kansas reported that a period of intense heat the lOOth meridian and all the Kansas coun between June and August virtually destroyed ties including Gray were organized. By 1888 the state's yearly corn crop. During the rest of the state's population reached 1,514,000. The the 1890s Kansas's population fluctuated be next year, however, the state's population de tween 1.3 and 1.4 million. The frontier had clined for the first time, to 1,464,914. Some closed, and the Kansas boom was over. 13 counties were harmed by the blizzard of Janu ary 1886, which effectively ended the days of LANDSCAPE AS EXPECTATION the cattle kingdoms on the Plains. Another important factor in the population decline was Various ethnic immigration societies and the large debt held by Kansas farmers. At the federal immigration boards, as well as state COME TO THE "CHAMPAGNE AIR" 117 immigration boards, were intensely interested in persuading people, especially farmers, to Wi move to Kansas. Railroads also wanted to sell I millions of acres of land and establish both I I freight and passenger haulage. Similar groups and individuals were at work throughout the Plains. Today, such circumstances might have resulted in a barrage of advertising in the mass media. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the media was ordinarily represented by pamphlets, books, or folders that might contain a few hundred words of often highly suggestive description (Fig. 5). Examples from the surviving promotional literature can be categorized into three themes and stages. The first was characterized by writ .\GRI CIl LT RAL, '11 VP.RA L A 0 C'OIl'lERfUL RE. OORCE. OP THE ~r .\Tp. . ers who either had not been to Kansas or who were very recent arrivals. These were often individuals who were trying to encourage new Il Rf;.\T 1:\,l)r('f: )l f: NT ~ OFPf; IIf:I' no I'f: n ~O\' Ot:SI RIX
then refer to either maps, tables, or a scien the two extremes .... [Wjestern Kansas is tific authority to contradict the severity of the pre-eminently the paradise of the lungs.2O problem. This might present the reader with a disarmingly "honest" approach to the "known Immigrants to states and territories were facts" about Kansas weather. Another tactic, considered part of a complicated system of which appealed to the scientific or technical commercial exchange, and their arrival was interests of prospective immigrants, was what one of the principal sourc~s of revenue and I would call the "centrist theory of climate," growth. The Kansas Immigration Bureau, or latitudinal determinism. Here again, pam founded in 1867, used the appropriations given phlet writers mentioned several of the poten by the state legislature to print pamphlets and tially dangerous characteristics of the Kansas folders praising the state's agricultural re climate as they relate to agriculture, ostensi sources. The bureau's stance from the begin bly to present an impartial opinion, but these ning was both defensive and ebullient. In 1871, "problems" were quickly resolved by reference more than ten years after the famous drought to either common sense or to scientific knowl but three years before the worst of the grass edge. Wayne Griswold, the author of a 1871 hopper plagues, a pamphlet published by the pamphlet, even alludes to this tactic in the bureau said that "the climate and soil of Kan subtitle of Kansas, her Resources and Develop sas have put to shame all the vile slanders put ments, or the Kansas Pilot Giving a Direct Road upon them in the early days .... [Njot only the to Homes for Everybody, Also the Effects of Lati practical farmers but also the statisticians have tude on Life Locations, with Important Facts for found the rainfall of Kansas is equal to the all European Emigrants. Griswold was one of most favored section of our country."2! The the great Kansas climate spin doctors, for he role of applied science in persuading farmers managed to create an impression that the Kan to move to Kansas was also considered by sas climate contained aspects of good health, members of the state government. After Gov good science, and even of physical excitement! ernor George T. Anthony suggested that the Kansas State Board of Agriculture would be There is a peculiar atmosphere to Kan the most effective agency to disseminate prac sas, whether purer, drier, or containing more tical materials to prospective immigrants, the oxygen I can not say, but it has a most ex board's biennial reports included glowing re hilarating effect on the system. It might be ports of the state's agricultural resources for called champagne air .... The State of the rest of the nineteenth century. Kansas lying between thirty seven and forty Pamphlets were sometimes produced in an degrees north latitude is just in the right effort to stop an economic decline. As a col position to avoid all extremes of heat and lege town as well as county seat, Manhattan's cold; also for a mild climate with no pro economy was somewhat protected from the tracted winter.!9 vagaries of the local and national economy. Abilene was not so fortunate. Joseph McCoy This centrist or latitudinal argument was settled upon Abilene as the site for a train taken up by another pamphleteer in 1878, who depot to ship Texas cattle east and the cattle wrote that Kansas is trade flourished there between 1867 and 1871. The town's fortune went into decline with the south of the cold and bleak influence of passing of its "cow town" days, and local busi northern temperatures, and north of the nessmen and the Chamber of Commerce pro depressing heat and humidity of the lower duced several pamphlets in an attempt to States. Both for location and climate influ encourage growth. The First National Bank of ence it is the happy, equable mean between Abilene printed A Gem: Abilene, the City of COME TO THE "CHAMPAGNE AIR" 121 the Plains, the Centre of the Golden Belt. The Mexico. Keeler maintained that the rain line section on climate from this 1887 publication was moving westward and would continue to attempted to create an attractive image for do so if the population kept moving. For the prospective immigrants: best effect, areas must be thickly settled be cause The climate of Kansas is exceptionally salubrious; winters mild and open; the sum the rain line, or the line running north and mer heat is modified by a perpetual refresh south, east of which sufficient rain falls ing breeze, while the summer nights, are every year for agricultural purposes, has cool, refreshing, even charming. Of late moved west steadily, year by year, at the years Kansas has had less disaster by cy rate of about eighteen miles per annum, clones than many smaller eastern states. keeping just ahead and propelled by the The average elevation above tidewater for advancing population.... It was formerly the entire state is 1,050 feet. The rainfall supposed that the one-hundredth meridian has become quite as regular and abundant would be the fixed rain line, and that all as needful. The average annual rainfall has country west of that would never be de increased very much in the last fifteen years voted to agricultural purposes, but would and the official record for seven years places be kept back by nature for stock raising, for it at nearly thirty-five inches per annumY which it is splendidly adapted. But even this theory is disappearing for the rain line Here too are the same descriptions seen in continues to move west.23 earlier examples of this literature, with a dis cussion of the moderating influences of the The Kansas Immigration Bureau's pamphlet summer heat by perpetual breezes ("Crawford's of 1883, written by commissioner of immigra zephyrs" again), the denial of any snow or low tion G. B. Schmidt, focused, like many others, temperatures in winter, an avowal that rain on the advantages of Kansas's central loca fall had improved recently, and reference to tion, particularly in terms of latitude. Accord official records to substantiate all claims. ing to Schmidt, the "thirty-ninth parallel, Abilene and part of Dickinson County were which has been the thread upon which as on also located along the Kansas Pacific Railroad the necklace of the world has been strung the line. The great success of a farmer along the jewels of wealth, culture, plenty, luxury and line in Dickinson County became an adver refinement, passes directly through the state tisement for Kansas Pacific lands. By 1874 T. of Kansas, through the fertile Arkansas Val C. Henry had planted 10,000 acres of wheat, ley." Schmidt described the climate as "health half along the railroad tracks, and conductors ful beyond comparison."24 The use of colorful began pointing out his fields to their passen images to emphasize the wealth that awaited gers as those of the "Kansas wheat king." (hardworking) farmers in Kansas was a com Since the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe mon tactic used by writers of promotional Railroad was also selling land in states other materials. Here the author uses the image of than Kansas, their promotional books and the thirty-ninth parallel as a visible sign of pamphlets often discussed the benefits of cli prosperity, another example of latitudinal de mate-change theories in a wider regional con terminism. text. In 1880 B. C. Keeler presented another The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe pro version of the "rain follows the plow" theory motional literature began in 1873, shortly af in a book with the appealing title Where to Go ter the railroad line was completed and had to Become Rich, which discussed the agricul received its share of government land. Not tural lands of Kansas, Colorado, and New surprisingly, there was a good deal of rivalry 122 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2003 between that railroad line and the Kansas Pa nation" and attractive metaphors. The rail cific. In 1875 the Santa Fe followed an earlier road companies may appear to be the most example of the Kansas Pacific and organized a brazen, if only because their views of the "best railway excursion for newspaper editors, de lands" are always those for sale by the rail signed to change the adverse reputation of road! The publication of climate-change "drouthy Kansas" and her grasshopper plagues. theory as "fact" is unsettling to modern read In return for the free trip, the railroad hoped ers. Although some "experts" in this period for kind words about the Santa Fe lands from were politicians, others were drawn from a the newspaper editors. Included on the excur wider variety of fields and included newspaper sion were the state's governor, Thomas Osborn, editors and amateur scientists. As in the first Senator John Ingalls, and the secretary of ag stage of promotional literature, there is very riculture, Alfred Gray (these last two gave their little discussion of the negative aspects of the names to Gray County and its one-time county Kansas climate. seat). The pamphlet that resulted from this excursion received the modest title The Best 1887-1900: "WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH Thing in the West, Strong and Impartial Testi KANSAS?" mony to the Wonderful Production of the Cot tonwood and Arkansas Valleys. This excursion The final stage of nineteenth-century pro was designed, according to the authors of this motional immigration materials in Kansas co pamphlet, to "correct the erroneous impres incided with the closing of the American sion that the grasshoppers were making a wide frontier, the end of many of the cattle king spread and general devastation through doms in the American West, and the refuta Kansas." Here again the pseudo-scientific ar tion of the climate-change theories. The lack gument of the advantages of a centrist cli of rain was a crucial characteristic of this mate are invoked, this time by an editor from stage because a significant drought took place Iowa: "[T]he state of Kansas lies between 3 7 from 1888 to 1895. The more muted claims and 40 in latitude, Iowa lies between 41 and by the authors of the immigration pamphlets 44 degrees north latitude. It is evident then, reflected these changing times. Population that Kansas is free from the extreme cold of generally increased during this thirteen-year our winters."25 The Santa Fe literature of the period, which witnessed the settlement of the period also incorporated the notion of the most westward of the Kansas frontier counties westward progression of the rainbelt as well to be organized, including Gray County. Its as the evocatively termed "golden mean." This settlement is used to illustrate some of the rainbelt was created by a localized version of common immigration themes of this period what is now referred to as the hydrologic in Kansas. Riley County's population, which cycle. was 10,408 in 1880, had reached 13,828 by Promotional literature published by the 1900. In Dickinson County the population railroads dominates the second stage, as the also grew, from 15,621 in 1880 to 21,816 by railroads had a good deal of land to sell to 1900. Ellis County saw an increase from 6,183 prospective settlers as well as the budgets to to 8,626. Gray County, the final county under do so. Promotional materials reached their consideration, reached 1,264 by 1900. apotheosis during this stage. Published during Farmers who arrived in southwest Kansas the land-boom period, between the recessions in the 1870s planned to use the farming meth of America's Gilded Age, they are exuberant ods that were customary in eastern Kansas and examples of American enthusiasm, seductive east of the Mississippi. During the early 1870s, ness, and sheer nerve. Immigration societies, rainfall was sufficient for conventional agri individuals, and railroads companies all em culture and occasionally even plentiful. Dodge ployed similar techniques of "scientific expla- City in 1877 reported twenty-eight inches of COME TO THE "CHAMPAGNE AIR" 123 precipitation. Tomayko believes that settlers board returned almost entirely to its original were unprepared for the realities of the west mission of supplying agricultural information ern Kansas climate because most of the infor and left the promotion of Kansas to others. mation about the area was popularized during The Kansas Immigration Bureau had also a period of unusually good farming weather. begun to modify its tactics. By the 1890s the This, he said, was not a case of deliberate mis bureau had experience in emphasizing certain information by promoters "but rather the dis attributes of the Kansas climate while omit semination of information gathered over too ting others. It is during this decade that Kan short a period of time."26 sas first became associated with sunshine and In 1887 Asa T. Soule, a New York pro sunflowers. According to the Bureau in 1890, moter, laid out the town of Ingalls in Gray "Kansas can truthfully claim a greater amount County, named for the long-serving US sena of sunshine than the Eastern states."29 An 1898 tor from Kansas. As the originator of the Eu pamphlet published by the Santa Fe Railroad, reka Irrigation Canal Company, Soule had the entitled What's the Matter with Kansas?, freely Arkansas River dammed at Ingalls and built a acknowledged the negative identity possessed ninety-six-mile canal. The locals referred to by the state during this period. Nevertheless, this project as "Soule's elephant," for it was using a barrage of statistics showing popula supposed to irrigate 40,000 acres of Ford and tions and yields (for example, Gray County Gray Counties from the Arkansas River. More had a population of 1,105 and produced 33,348 than ninety miles of canal were dug between bushels of winter wheat), the pamphlet's au 1884 and 1887, as well as fifty miles oflateral thors still spoke optimistically about the pros extensions from the main channel. The project pects for hardworking farmers. 30 Given the half failed because similar canals upstream in Colo century of recorded history of the environ rado drained most of the water and the area mental problems experienced by Kansas farm was badly affected by the drought of the late ers, as well as the arguments against the 1880s and early 1890s. Soule also attempted theories of increasing rainfall, it is not surpris to make Ingalls the county seat of Gray County, ing that the claims for the desirability of resulting in one of the better-known "county Kansas's climate for farming, especially in seat wars" of western Kansas. One man died western Kansas, were becoming more muted. during an attempt to move the official records By 1902 Charles Harger, an Abilene newspa between Cimarron and Ingalls. The county perman, could say that while in earlier periods seat shifted back and forth between Ingalls Kansans had tended to extremes "from extrava and Cimarron (the largest settlement in the gant eulogy to bitter abuse," the newly named county) until 1891, when Cimarron became sunflower state "is being pictured to the world the permanent county seat. as it is."3! The various images of Kansas show By this time the claims made by writers of a progression from the amusing exaggeration promotional pamphlets became more vague of Worrall's "drouthy Kansas" to the idea of and were less likely to be as bold as those of the "golden mean" to a more realistic but still earlier years. Critics of the "rain follows the attractive identification as the "sunflower plow" and other pseudo-scientific theories of state," which is reminiscent of the wonder increased rainfall were becoming more vocal. fully warm climate first promised to the immi Henry Gannett of the United States Geologi grants by Webb and Robinson back in the cal Survey questioned the theory in an issue of 1850s. Science in 1888.27 He was joined by Cleveland Abbe and William Moore of the U .S. Weather CONCLUSION Bureau.2s Even the Kansas State Board of Ag riculture admitted its dishonesty in describing Writing in 1881, during the peak of the Kansas's agricultural potential. In 1895 the Kansas land boom, the author of a Santa Fe 124 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2003
Railroad pamphlet said that countered by the young William Allen White in an essay about pioneers giving up the The successful development of the re struggle in Gray County, first published in sources of a state or nation, especially if it 1895. White defended the returnees, saying: be an agricultural one, is dependent more on the climate than on any other cause, There came through Emporia yesterday excepting perhaps the enterprise and intel two old fashioned "mover wagons" heading ligence of its people. The climate is the east .... [Tlhese movers came from western first and great consideration of every seeker Kansas, from Gray County, a county which of a new home, and if this is not satisfactory holds the charter from the state to officiate neither soil, nor timber, nor water, nor any as the very worst ... most desolate spot on other advantage can be.32 this sad old earth. They had come from the wilderness only after a ten years' hard, vi Writers of promotional materials for Kan cious fight .... For ten years they have been sas immigration frequently alluded to what fighting the elements. They had seen it stop they described as the "healthy attributes" of raining for months at a time. They had heard the Kansas climate. The higher altitude of the the fury of the winter wind as it came whin western plains was often mentioned, as was ing across the short, burned grass, and their the purity of the air, which one writer called children huddling in the corner. They have "champagne air." Often these characteristics strained their eyes watching through the were contrasted with what were then called long summer days for the rain that never "the miasmas" rising from the lower, wetter came. They have seen that big cloud roll up regions. It is ironic that while lowlands and from the southwest about one o'clock in floodplains were associated with such all-too the afternoon, hover over the land, and real nineteenth-century terrors as typhoid and stumble away with a few thumps of thunder cholera, the dry, pure air of central and west as the sun went down. They have tossed ern Kansas was associated with aridity and through hot nights wild with worry, and drought. While praising the one, such writers have arisen to find only their worst night were, to a careful reader, implying the other. mares grazing in reality on the brown stubble Much of the promotional literature was in front of their sun warped doors. They produced to discredit the series of negative had such high hopes when they went out stereotypes of Kansas that became common there, they are so desolate now-33 place. Kansas first came into the popular mind as "Bloody Kansas" during the territorial pe This is the tragic side of frontier settlement riod, then as "Drouthy Kansas" in the 1860s, of Kansas at the end of the nineteenth cen when the state was well known for its droughts. tury. The immigration boosters and promot Finally, by the end of the nineteenth century, ers appealed to the ready willingness of the the image of Kansas became one of a dry, wind immigrant to believe that the "Great Ameri swept area where a farmer and his family can Desert" had been transformed or that it "busted," and either returned east to the "wife's had never existed. Potential settlers and family" or moved on to what was hoped were Americans in general believed that the Plains literally greener pastures. Immigration societ would and should be settled, so it is not sur ies and the railroads claimed that "stickers" prising that little criticism of these promo had more character, and anyway, they had tional efforts can be found. The promoters were sought not the indigent as farmers and settlers supported by the country at large, which gave but hardworking people of some capital. In an added vitality and credibility to what now other words, it was a classic case of what we appear to be outlandish claims about Kansas's now call "blaming the victim." Such ideas were climate and its other resources. Americans in COME TO THE "CHAMPAGNE AIR" 125
1890 were still taken with the myth of the 6. John L. Allen, "New World Encounters: "happy yeoman" and with the plow as the sym Exploring the Great Plains of North America," Great Plains Quarterly 13, no. 2 (1993): 69-80. bol of individualism, hard work, and prosper 7. See, for example, David M. Emmons, Garden ity. Such mythologies may have worked in the Grasslands: Boomer Literature of the Central successfully in more humid eastern areas, but Great Plains (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, in the western Kansas of a century ago they 1971), for a thorough discussion of this topic, in sometimes had tragic consequences. Today our cluding the role played by Samuel Aughey. 8. Thelma Curl, "Promotional Efforts of the inheritance of inappropriate land uses and Kansas Pacific and the Santa Fe to Settle Kansas" more than 100 counties in a state with a stag (unpublished master's thesis, Department of His nating population are the result of the hyper tory, University of Kansas, 1960). bole and wishful thinking woven by the 9. Ralph Brown, Historical Geography of the promoters and spin doctors of the second half United States (New York: Harcourt, World, and Brace, 1948). of the nineteenth century. 10. M. E. Bird and R. E. Mickle, Historical Plat Book of Riley County, Kansas (Chicago: The Bird NOTES and Mickle Map Company, 1881). 11. Horace Greeley, New York Tribune, 9 Octo I thank David Kromm, professor emeritus of ge ber 1870. ography, Kansas State University, and the editor 12. William F. Zornow, Kansas: A History of the and three anonymous reviewers of the Great Plains Jayhawk State (Norman: University of Oklahoma Quarterly for their useful comments. Press, 1957), pp. 166-67. 13. Jessie Small Owen and Kirke Mechem, The 1. Carl Becker, "Kansas," in Heritage of Kansas: Annals of Kansas 1886-1925 (Topeka: Kansas His Selected Commentaries on Past Times, ed. Everett torical Society, n.d.), pp. 91, 115. Rich (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1960), 14. T. H. Webb, Information for Kansas Immi p.91. grants (A. Mudge and Co., n.d.). 2. Snowden Flora, "The Climate of Kansas," in 15. Sara Robinson, Kansas: Its Interior and Exte Report of the Kansas State Board, Climate of Kansas, rior Life, Including a Full View of its Settlement, Po ed. J. J. Mohler (Topeka: Ferd. Voiland), p. 1. litical History, Social Life, Climate, Soil, Productions, 3. N. Rosenberg, "Climate of the Great Plains Scenery, and Etc. (Boston: Crosby, Nichols and Co., Region of the United States," Great Plains Quar 1857). terly 7, no. 7 (1986): 22-32. 16. Samuel J. Crawford, The State of Kansas, a 4. There is an extensive literature on the topic Home for Immigrants (Topeka: MacDonald and of the Plains image and on history of the image of Barker, 1865), p. 12. Kansas. In addition to Becker (note 1 above), a 17. Albert Griffin, ed., A Sketchbook of Riley more recent example for Kansas is Robert Smith County, Kansas-the Blue Ribbon County (Manhat Bader, Hayseeds, Moralizers, and Methodists: The tan: The Manhattan Nationalist, 1881), p. 9. Twentieth Century Image of Kansas (Lawrence: 18. B. H. Baltensperger, "Newspaper Images of University Press of Kansas, 1988). For other per the Central Great Plains in the Late Nineteenth spectives, see Brian W. Blouet and Merlin P. Century," Journal of the West 19, no. 2 (1980): 64-70. Lawson, eds., Images of the Plains: The Role of Hu 19. Wayne Griswold, "Kansas, Her Resources and man Nature in Settlement (Lincoln: University of Developments, or the Kansas Pilot Giving a Direct Nebraska Press, 1975), and Martyn Bowden, "The Road to Homes for Everybody, Also the Effects of Great American Desert in the American Mind: Latitude on Life Location, with Important Facts for The Historiography of a Geographical Notion," in All European Immigrants (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke Geographies of the Mind, ed. David Lowenthal and and Co, 1871), pp. 49, 54-55. Martyn Bowden (New York: Oxford University 20. Kansas as She Is: The Greatest Fruit, Stock, Press, 1976). Another recent example is P. A. and Grain Country in the World (Lawrence: Kansas Olson, "Cultural Perception and the Great Plains Publishing House, 1878). Grasslands," in The Changing Prairie: North Ameri 21. Kansas Immigration Bureau, What We Do and can Grasslands, ed. A. Joern and K. Keeler (New Why We Do It (Leavenworth: Times Printing Of York: Oxford University Press, 1995). fice, 1871). 5. B. H. Baltensperger, "Newspaper Images of 22. First National Bank of Abilene, A Gem: the Central Great Plains in the Late Nineteenth Abilene, the City of the Plains, the Centre of the Golden Century," Journal of the West 19, no. 2 (1980): 64-70. Belt (Burlington: Burdette Company, 1887), p. 25. 126 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 2003
23. B. C. Keeler, Where to Go to Become Rich 28. Cleveland Abbe, Monthly Weather Review 23 (Chicago: Clark and Co., 1880), p. 19. (September 1895): 337. 24. G. B. Schmidt, Official Facts About Kansas 29. Kansas Bureau of Immigration, Kansas: Its (Topeka, 1883), p. 6. History, Resources and Prospects (Wichita: Eagle 25. Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe, Kansas Publishing House, 1890), p. 5. as It Is: The Best Thing in the West, Strong and Im 30. Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe Railroad partial Testimony of the Wonderful Production of the Company, What's the Matter With Kansas? (Chi Cottonwood and Arkansas Valleys (Topeka, 1875). cago: Rand McNally Co., 1898). 26. James E. Tomayko, "The Ditch Irrigation 31. Bader, Hayseeds (note 4 above), p. 14. Boom in Southwest Kansas: Changing an Environ 32. Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, Intro ment," Journal of the West 22, no. 1 (1983): 20-25. duction to Lands in South and Southwest Kansas 27. Henry Gannett, "Is Rainfall Increasing on (Chicago: Rand McNally Co., 1881). the Plains?" Science 11 (March 1888): 99-100. 33. William Allen White, Editorial, Emporia Gazette, 15 June 1895.