In the Western States of America, wherever the iron trail extends
its path beyond the borders of civilisation, in quest of new fields
for colonisation and commerce, it is accompanied in its track during
construction by a shifting population of camp-followers—mostly the scum
of society—who in their temporary resting-places often unwittingly sow
the seeds of future thriving towns and cities. This result, however,
is the exception rather than the rule, and only happens in cases where
the natural advantages of the site selected are such as to induce
far-seeing men of the right sort to remain and turn them to account.
In most instances the existence of these wooden hamlets, or ‘cities’
as they are invariably called in the West, is but that of a butterfly,
here to-day and gone to-morrow, lasting just as long as they serve
to form depots for the labourers and employés while at work on that
particular section of the road, and then passing on with them to
the next resting-place. These railway creations are commonly called
‘mushroom cities.’
The little town of Coffeyville in the southern part of Kansas, at the
birth of which I chanced to be present, when it sprang up as if by
magic from the surrounding prairie, may be taken as a fair example
of the _modus operandi_ of ‘locating’ a new ‘city’ on the western
frontier. This place is somewhat unlike the general run of mushroom
cities, because, without any peculiar advantages of situation, it
has survived, almost in spite of itself, up to the present day,
in consequence of its being for a long time the terminus of the
Leavenworth, Lawrence, and Galveston Railroad, before legislation
permitted that line to pass through the Indian territory. Though
unlike in this respect, its birth and early life were similar in every
particular. In all, the same extravagant excitement and speculation
in corner lots temporarily prevail; the same scenes of lawlessness
and bloodshed are enacted, and the usual number of lives sacrificed
by knife or bullet in drunken brawls and gambling disputes. Usually
the career of these temporary cities is nipped in the bud as soon as
the railway has advanced far enough to require a fresh depot. Then
if the present site does not possess sufficient qualifications for
the town’s growth to induce any one to remain, the wooden buildings
are taken down, packed on the construction train, and transported
to the next resting-place, for a repetition of the old scenes of
feverish excitement and dissipation. After their removal, nothing
remains to mark the late scene of busy life and revelry except two
or three worthless old shanties, broken bottles and rubbish of every
description, and torn and discoloured playing-cards and scraps of
paper, which are whisked up and whirled far and wide in the eddies
of the prairie breezes. But I was nearly forgetting to mention the
most important souvenirs invariably left behind by these advancing
heralds of civilisation. These are the mounds which mark the final
resting-places of those who ‘died with their boots on’ (as expressed
on the frontier); who met men quicker than themselves at their own
weapons—the revolver and the bowie-knife—and who were carelessly thrown
into their lonely graves, there to remain as silent witnesses of
lawless savagery.
Sometimes the embryo city, either from the natural advantages of
its position, or from other causes (as in the case of Coffeyville),
outlasts the ordinary life of the mushroom genus, and develops into a
quiet-going market-town, which in time assumes such proportions and
attracts such population as its trade with the surrounding settlers
will support. Wood and water, as well as the course of the railroad,
are the prime considerations which determine the site of a new
township. As soon as that is settled upon, the silence and solitude
of the lonely prairie are rudely invaded by a motley throng of
saloon-keepers, speculators, gamblers, traders, and others, who make
it their first business to establish their claim to a town-lot. This
they do by planting a stake in whatever plot of ground they may select,
and inscribing their name and date of entry upon it; this notice of
occupation being respected quite as much as if the owner were standing
guard over his property with a drawn revolver. In a short time the
materials for building their temporary structures are brought along on
the construction train or in wagons, and work begins in such earnest
that it is a common occurrence to see them all erected and fronting the
grass-covered main street of the place in less than twenty-four hours.
In these buildings are sold such articles of merchandise as are most
needed at this early stage of the city’s existence, prominent amongst
them being whisky, of the most villainous quality, commonly called
‘forty rod whisky,’ on account of its being supposed to render a man
senseless before he can accomplish that distance after drinking it.
Now let me endeavour to describe some of the features peculiar to the
budding life and progress of these pioneer settlements. First of all,
there is the hastily improvised hotel, constructed partly of wood
and partly of canvas. Here bed and board, such as they are, can be
obtained for three or four dollars a day. The arrangements of the hotel
are remarkable for their simplicity, and its accommodations unique
in their discomfort. It is neither wind nor water tight, and one can
only pray the elements to be propitious. Trestle-beds are packed as
closely as possible in the sleeping-room, and when the supply of these
is exhausted, the floor has to do duty for them. You cannot now any
longer hope for the comfort of a bed to yourself, nor indeed at any
place on the frontier. The most disagreeable effect of this want of
separate accommodation is the unpleasant feeling of anxiety occasioned
as to what kind of a man your partner for the night may be; whether he
will come to bed tipsy or sober, and whether the revolver which he puts
under his pillow is at full or half cock.
On rising in the morning you look for a place to perform your
ablutions, and find that the lavatory is nothing more than a deal plank
in rear of the dining-room, in the open air. It is furnished with a
tin basin, securely fastened by a chain to a staple in the side of the
building, a very dirty looking towel on a roller, and a small piece of
yellow soap, which seems likely to do duty during the rise and fall
of many a future mushroom city, for by no amount of ingenuity can any
suds be possibly coaxed out of it. There is also a looking-glass, or
rather a piece of one, which it makes you nervous to look in; and a
veteran comb minus several teeth, which nevertheless is considered one
of the most valuable articles in the place, and to avoid appropriation,
is also fastened to the side of the house by a chain. Having availed
yourself of these luxurious surroundings, you go to breakfast, and find
the ubiquitous hot biscuits, tough thin beef-steaks, and poor coffee
awaiting you. Several outsiders, besides those who are staying at the
house, drop in for this meal, each one putting his pistol on the table
at the side of his plate; and breakfast is rapidly despatched under a
sort of armed neutrality, which makes a timid man, new to the thing,
fearful of breaking it by even asking his next-door neighbour to pass
the salt.
Outside, on chairs tilted back against the side of the house, are two
or three frontier doctors, their ears on the alert to catch the sounds
of strife, which may possibly betoken the need of their healing art.
One or two lawyers and real-estate men are also there, with plans of
the city already mapped out, eager to buy or sell, though at very
different prices. Besides these, there are numerous individuals of the
nondescript class known as ‘bummers,’ whose business at this or any
other place is a mystery, but who seem to rub along somehow or other,
and at this minute are retailing the latest bar-room ‘shooting scrape,’
and discussing the city’s chances as if they had great interests at
stake.
All this time the hubbub and excitement in the main street are ever
increasing. If you walk down it, you will find one or two drug stores,
an ironmongery establishment, a store where anything can be obtained
from a sombrero to a set of harness, and a butcher’s shop. With these
exceptions, every building is a bar-room or gambling-house. In these,
the games of faro, keno, roulette, and poker are in full swing day
and night, the dealers at the first-named game being relieved when
tired, or when the cards seem to be persistently running against them.
The professional gamblers who frequent these scenes can be easily
recognised. They are generally the best-dressed men in the place, by
which I mean that they wear black cloth clothes and a diamond solitaire
in their shirt front, which places them in bold relief against the
surrounding roughly clad assemblage. These professional gamblers are
usually styled ‘sporting men’ or ‘sports.’ They have an expression in
their faces peculiar to the fraternity—a watchful, calculating, cruel
look, and an impassive countenance carefully trained not to betray any
signs of their feelings. When off duty, if we may so express it, some
of them are gentlemanly, pleasant enough companions, who might really
be trusted; but on duty they become again the unscrupulous gambler,
ready to fleece his friend, by fair play or foul, without a particle
of compunction. They are ever on the _qui vive_ with their weapons,
although not quarrelsome; nor do they drink much, are coolly brave
and determined as well as excellent shots, and have not much belief in
anything here or, we fear, hereafter.
In the distance are the gangs of labourers, mostly Irish, hard at
work on the railroad, who are herded together at night in a movable
frame boarding-house, where they are also fed by a contractor with
the railway company. Here and there are travelling carpenters busily
employed in hammering together a few pieces of timber, to be placed on
lots already claimed, but which are required to present some evidence
of the owner’s intention to build, so as to preserve his title, and
prevent the claim from being ‘jumped.’ These rough-and-ready mechanics
are in great request, and make plenty of money while the early
excitement is prevailing; but few of them are able to withstand the
attractions of the gambling resorts, where in the long-run they are
sure to deposit all their earnings. The ubiquitous quack doctor is also
here with his painted chariot and fantastically attired attendant, and
is the centre of an admiring crowd, to whom he sings (or rather shouts)
in comic rhyme the praises of his ‘Universal Heal All’ or ‘Magic Ague
Cure.’ Beware of the rascal, for likely enough one of his pockets is
full of counterfeit change, which he will palm off on the unwary and
innocent-looking customer. Lounging about at the various bar-room
doors are numerous specimens of the western border-men—hunters and
scouts—tall, angular, bony-looking fellows, with bronzed complexions,
hair trailing over their shoulders, and a brace of revolvers strapped
round their waists. They will probably hang about the new town until
they have gambled their money away, when they will return to their
home, the open prairie, where no finer or more trustworthy fellows can
be found.
See yonder primitive ferry-boat crossing the narrow but deep little
river Verdigris. Its owner you may be sure will reap a rich harvest
from his venture, as it is the only practicable crossing-point on the
road which leads to Coffeyville from the more settled districts. This
ferry is one of the fast disappearing remnants of the rude old frontier
contrivances for crossing a creek. It is a kind of flat-bottomed boat,
capable of transporting one wagon at a time, and is hauled to and fro
by a rope fastened round the trunk of a tree on each bank of the river.
Over this ferry, passengers and vehicles are continually crossing,
and as they arrive at their destination, fresh wooden buildings are
run up with inconceivable rapidity. And when the mushroom city’s
future is assured by undoubted local advantages the work of building
correspondingly increases with the most exaggerated ideas of the
future town’s importance, until a natural reaction sets in to restore
the general equilibrium. Upon my departure from Coffeyville, just two
weeks after the first building was erected, it boasted some two hundred
houses, a three-story hotel completed to its second story, a railroad
station, and stores filled with merchandise, farming implements, and
provisions of all kinds.
In the wonderful growth of these mushroom cities, as in all other
matters of business and speculation, are the pushing and go-ahead
traits of the American character (the infection of which appears to be
soon caught by naturalised foreigners) most strikingly exemplified.
Thus are towns and villages daily bursting into life in the track
of every newly constructed railway, and gradually driving the wild
Indian and the buffalo farther and farther towards the setting sun and
extinction.