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.