Published in the Garden City Telegram, Saturday April 3, 1999. Garden City, Kansas Submitted here by permission from: John Lechliter, Garden City Telegram, Garden City, Kansas A Tall Texan Thrives in ‘Desert’ Nearly 60 years before the Civil War; Zebulon Pike marched his troops up the Arkansas River across western Kansas and later dubbed the region the "Great American Desert," suitable only for buffalo, cactus and prairie grass. But by 1872,11 years after Kansas became a state, the land and the times sparked the wonder of a few pioneers in the wake of the Civil War One of them was Welborn "Doc" Barton. The Texan - and a cowboy by any definition - was the first white man to settle in Finney County finding the prairie grass tasty and good for his Longhorn herd that grew as large as 12,000 head. He prospered on the plains by bringing the herd closer to the Santa Fe Railroad that made it to Dodge City in 1872. But a raging blizzard of 1886 wiped Barton out of the cattle business. Barton became a farmer and later a lawman, serving from 1890 to 1894 as the first Gray County sheriff. When he died in 1947, Barton was the last of the 89 ranchers listed in the Brand Book from 1884. Those were the men who first saw gold on these vast prairies. Quiet and polite, Doc Barton never lost touch with his roots on the range. He slept outside until winter "snowed him out." Barton knew men of fame like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, Dodge City characters glamorized by motion pictures and the television series, Gunsmoke," which made Garden City's cowtown neighbor known around the world. It was rumored famed outlaw Billy the Kid worked on his southwest Kansas ranch. Someone named "Slaughter Kid" worked for him three years, and Ben Hodges, reputed desperado and horse thief, was employed there several years. Barton described both as "good cow hands." "If you worked for my grand-dad, you were straight-laced," said Naoma Batman, his granddaughter who lives in Garden City Maybe the first 30 people buried in Boot Hill died with their boots on, Barton told the Kansas Historical Quarterly in 1937, but they were "mostly gamblers, toughs and desperadoes, only one cowboy among the number. Cowboys were not as bad as they were painted." Masterson, a famed lawman, was 18 when Dodge City was founded in 1872, Barton told the Quarterly He disputed the claim Masterson killed 32 men. "He certainly killed one man -possibly three," Barton said in the story "He may have had 32 gun battles, and if others were shot, they were only wounded, not killed." Barton wasn't one to bask in the limelight, but it took all kinds to give birth to this region. He happened to arrive before the Santa Fe Railroad made Dodge City a cowtown. Born Dec.22, 1852, near Austin, Texas, Barton was part of a cattle family that migrated a decade earlier from South Carolina. Doc and his brothers were reared in the cattle business, raising their herds in Texas and driving them northward to market. Seeking his own identity in the business, Doc Barton, and his brothers, Al and Henry decided the real profit for the industry lay north in Kansas, closer to the market. An article from the 1937 Kansas State Historical Quarterly reads: "Up on the Arkansas (River), in south-west Kansas, was tall grass in the bottoms, rich short grass on the uplands, plenty of water. It would be weeks closer to a shipping point -and the Santa Fe Railroad was building in that direction." Barton was 19, barely a man, but full of energy and ripe to conquer this mini-frontier He had the common-sense tools acquired in the sad-die and some business savvy courtesy of his father Decatur Barton. In his later years, Doc told the Dodge City Globe in 1939 that his father was wounded seven times from marauding Indians. "They were quick with their arrows," the story reads, "drawing them from over their shoulder out of their quivers and shooting faster than we could with cap and bail." Doc's uncles, Poinsett and David, served in the Confederate army His father was not associated with the Civil War but he had some troubles with government as a large cattle producer in Texas. Mexicans once drove off 8,000 head. Later the Confederate government appropriated 800 head, according to the book, "Kansas and Kansans." That put Decatur Barton out of business, and he lived out his career as a farmer in Burnett County Mother Nature, not the government, planned the same demise for Doc, but he was likely oblivious of weather's fury in the High Plains during the late 1860s, when the master plan was conceived for a northward migration. "It was an opportunity for a young man," said Mary Regan, local historian and director of the Finney County Historical Society Museum. "I'm sure he heard from other people in Texas of the advantages of taking your cattle to Kansas. They were already doing it." But it wasn't being done between Dodge City-the 100th meridian -and the Colorado border. Cattle sold in Texas brought $5 a head. Those same critters were worth $30 in Kansas, where they were loaded onto trains and shipped to butchers in big cities like Chicago and St. Louis. Rather than drive them to Kansas, why not raise them here? Settlers were already moving into south-central Kansas, which eliminated using the Chisholm Trail to Wichita, he told the Globe. Prairie grass in southwest Kansas had a higher salt content. The cattle gained faster. It just made sense, - -Regan said. "You could run cattle as far as you could see. Barton was one of the first men to recognize this," she said. "The range herd laws didn't come into effect until 1888." According to the book, "Across the Cimarron," Doc and his brother Al, worked their way into the cattle business beginning in 1888 while living~ in eastern Tennessee. The book didn't mention why Doc Barton was in Tennessee. They persuaded friends Ben Eubank and Tom Connell to join in a venture to "corral some wild cattle and start a ranch" in southern Texas. Pooling a few hundred dollars of their savings, they purchased an old prairie schooner; repaired it and stocked it with supplies, including salt to lure the wild cattle. They bought five horses and four mules, partially on credit. "Most of their folks had been killed in the war" the book read, "so their good-byes were few" Once in Texas, south of Austin, they camped one night by a small stream. "It was a country full of cattle and good grass. Next morning, they heard a funny noise near the camp and investigated," as written in "Across the Cimarron," "They found an old Texas steer down in a bog hole, nothing showing but his head and horns. They pulled him free and tied him to a tree." Doc said: "Here is where we stop and begin gathering cattle for our herd." The steer was branded with an "OS-Bar" on the right side. He was marked with a crop out of the right ear. The story didn't mention what the OS meant. Barton's granddaughter; Naoma Batman, said she didn't remember the brand's meaning. It has remained in the family 132 years. They found more cattle in the brush. The steer they rescued never left camp. They put out salt to attract others, "so ail they had to do was throw and brand them." But there was a glut of cattle in south Texas where herds were abandoned before the war The animals were not worth much. "We're not making our wages here," Doc said in the book. "I'm going on a trip up in Kansas, as I hear the Santa Fe is building west. If I can find a good location, we'll be near a market..." He returned in three months with a Mexican man, named Felipe. Barton had saved him from hanging for stealing $10. He also had found a place to take the herd, which had by that time grown to more than 3,000 head. With a trail crew of a dozen men, mostly Mexican, the four young men headed north sometime between the spring and summer of 1872. They left the home ranch 80 miles north of San Antonio and 20 miles west of Austin. Continued on next page Continued from previous page It was three months before they reached Finney County with 3,000 head. Nearing Indian territory in northern Texas and Oklahoma, the cattle drive was turned west along the Pesos Trail into New Mexico. Barton and his crew learned Indians were on the warpath and there were outlaws in the area. A number of massacres had been reported along the Old Santa Fe Trail. It was west of Indian settlements, he told the Dodge City Globe, and rivers would be easier to cross. From the Pesos River they drove the herd north on the Goodnight-Loving Trail through Tinker Pass to Pueblo, Coo., and then down the Arkansas River valley -- Santa Fe Trail -- into Kansas. The trek wasn't without incident. Across the Cimarron chronicled one: "One morning when they broke camp, Eubank discovered a dead Mex near where the herd was bedded that night. Doc called in all the Mexicans to learn why a dead Mex was near the herd. Felipe said: 'He came to me in the night and wanted us to help steal the cattle and murder you white folks. I refused, and he got mad. I just had to kill him."' "Well, let's plant him," Doc ordered. "We've got to get going." Heading west along the Pesos, Doc Barton ordered a two-day layover to rest the crew and herd. Felipe left to visit family that lived nearby He returned with a wife, Carlotta. They'd been married by a priest in the nearby village. The couple and other Hispanic people worked for Barton. Little was written about them, but the ranch hands also deserve credit as being first in Finney County Once into eastern New Mexico, Barton and company turned the herd north along the Goodnight-Loving Trail, referred by some Texas Rangers "the west end of no man's land." Days later after negotiating Trinchera Pass in southeast Colorado, they reached the Arkansas River near Pueblo. They crossed to the north bank and continued east, eventually reaching the present Finney County They first camped south of where Garden City's Main Street bridge spans the Arkansas River; at a popular trail stop called "Lone Tree.". Later; the ranch headquarters was in Pierceville. Other settlers got the glory of building Garden City; but as his tombstone reads in Ingalls, Doc Barton the cattle king was "First to Come and Last to Go." "You can't help but be taken up by his character;" said Regan, who researched Barton for an exhibit on the county's major industry--beef. He died in 1946, living most of his adult life in southwest Kansas. Writings from the early part of the century and from living historians, agree, the pioneer was a gentleman and proud of his place in regional history. One living person in Garden City can boast of knowing Doc Barton well is Batman. "He was a plain ol' Texas cowboy; rough and strong-headed," said Mrs. Batman, youngest of Doc's first-born son, Wilson Barton. "He was just one heck of a guy Mrs. Batman served as Barton's driver late in his life. She was a teenager reared in Finney and Gray counties during the 1920s and 1930s. Mrs. Batman once drove her grandfather in a parade down Main Street, Garden City But most of her experiences included driving Barton to a store or a restaurant in Dodge City Garden City; Cimarron. There, Doc Barton whiled away his elder days, reminiscing the very early years of southwest Kansas development. She said he was known for his calm approach to life, including conflict. Doc Barton had little trouble with Indians, although there were a number of tribes. Cheyenne Indians were camped in large bands on the Pawnee River banks in northeast Finney County. Kiowas, Comanches and Cherokees roamed to the south. Freighters and immigrants were occasionally attacked, and there were some murders, according to "Kansas and Kansans," but Barton didn't recall having a great deal of trouble with Native American tribes. "He got along with the Indians, and some were hostile," Regan said. "Doc Barton held no prejudice and he was a forgiving man. If an Indian stole a cow from his herd, he saw it more as a man trying to feed his family" Barton Brothers cattle began with headquarters near Pierceville It was the first ranch west of Fort Dodge, which is just east of Dodge City Their first cattle were driven to Great Bend in 1872 because the stockyards in Dodge City were not yet complete. "When we were driving those first steers to the Bend, a bunch of starved, bedraggled Pawnees came upon us and shot 18 of our beeves, without asking," he told the Globe "They had been mauled by Cheyennes. Barton was quoted in the Kansas Historical Quarterly; 1937, that the "Pawnees were hungry and only killed what they wanted to eat. It didn't amount to anything." The ranchers grazed their cattle on land as far as 300 miles south of Pierceville and west to the Colorado line. In a story from the May 1,1941 issue of the Garden City News, Barton told a reporter he purchased a .45 caliber Frontier Model Colt six-shooter in 1873 from John O'Loughlin's trading post in Lakin, marked before by an old telegraph station. He must've been among O'Loughlin's first customers. O'Loughlin opened the trading post in April of that year and according to the 1937 Kansas Historical Quarterly was the first white settler west of Pierceville. Barton returned to Mason County Texas, in 1877 and married Belle Vandeveer; a rancher's daughter; who brought to the marriage a dowry of 500 cattle. Her first visit to Kansas was by horseback. Her granddaughter; Batman, said it was unheard of in those days for a woman to make such a trek in a saddle. A good deed On the next trip from Texas to Finney County; the Bartons had a baby; Wilson Barton, (Naomas father). She drove a chuckwagon north, or rode horseback, while a cook manned the wagon and tended the child. The drive was just north of Laverne, Okla. when Belle got the Cchuckwagon stuck in a mud hole. Doc was on horseback, possibly scouting ahead. Before Belle and the cook could free the wagon, they were surrounded by Indians. The young mother had a barrel full of cookies she'd baked for the trip, and she gave them to the Native Americans. They responded by lifting the wagon out of the hole, and then rode away. When Doc learned of the good deed, he gave the Indians several cattle to butcher. Western Kansas was mostly uninhabited by settlers in the 1870s. Finney County; wasn't chartered until 1878. Barton told Dodge City reporter C.C. Isely in 1939 the High Plains were a "wild animal paradise." Hunters had not yet migrated south from the Union Pacific railroad and buffalo "blackened the prairies." The pioneer told of seeing packs of gray wolves a mile long, "hanging on the flank of the bison army and there were herds of wild horses. Wild fowl abounded in the Arkansas River Continued on next page Continued from previous page "Doc shot so many swans that I made a dozen swansdown bolsters," Belle was quoted in the Isely story. She told him the story before her death In 1929. Barton promoted southwest Kansas as a cattle center; and the ranchers came. A cattleman's association was formed in 1883. The group ruled a domain that Included unorganized areas of five states. The Globe wrote that "these were law abiding men. They taxed themselves to provide for their self-goverument and even discouraged carrying firearms." The Barton Brothers herd had grown and changed. About 800 of Doc's cows were registered Herefords, a different breed from those Longhorns he first drove north. To protect the stock, a fence was built from Cimarron 12 miles south, then west into Haskell County and north to Piercevifie. ‘A broken empire’ But the cattle king was dethroned In January 1886, when a tremendous blizzard swept through, killing about 11,000 of his cattle. The estimated $250,000 loss was too much to overcome. It was written in "The History of Ingalls, KS" that the two-week blizzard, with only a few breaks, produced such a blanket of snow that a man could walk along the railroad fence from Dodge City to the Colorado line "without touching foot to the ground." Temperatures were said to have dipped to 40 degrees below zero. In a June 1981 issue of "New West TV News," it was recalled that snow smothered some animals and others drowned or froze to death. "Barton searched for the remnants of his vast herd, finding carcasses ... bunched up in draws and canyons, even along the fences," the story read. His surviving cattle were "worthless, thin and stunted because of the cold. The blizzard broke the cattlemen..." Barton told his granddaughter In later years: "There were dead cattle everywhere. They were almost cast In ice." Ironically; Barton was in Dodge City before the blizzard, arranging the shipment and sale of a train load of cattle. As writer Isely wrote In 1939, Dodge City became "the capital of a broken empire." That spring, homesteaders swept In and filed on nearly all of the open range cattlemen had enjoyed. Much of the sod was broken out into farmland. Building a life Barton's brothers returned to Texas, but Doc, age 33, stayed and turned to farming on land he purchased through the years. He ran a little stock, but it was nothing like his glory years. Doc Barton built a home near the southeast corner of Ingalls and lived out his years there. Other natural perils lay ahead. There was a "great drought" in 1894 and more would follow; along with the high winds well-known in Kansas. The Ingalls History reported an earthquake Jan. 7,1906, that could be felt throughout the state. In April 1939, Barton was an honored guest at the Warner Brothers premiere in Dodge City of the film "Dodge City" starring Errol Flynn. He received a trophy for being last of the old cow kings. Writer C.C Isely described him this way: Doc Barton is tall and spare, weathered as an ancient cedar on the topmost canon crag. There is a twinkle in his old blue eyes as he sees the display of cowboy gear; for he was the first to bring Texas cattle to the new rail head at Dodge City; and now among the 89 cattlemen enrolled In the Brand Book of 1884, he is the only one living." Through it all, granddaughter Naoma Batman said, Doc Barton remained a gentleman, never gloating in his regional celebrity "He was so mannerly Never did I see him with his gloves off and he always had on a suit jacket," said Mrs. Batman, 83. But her granddad remained glued to the land, reminiscing his glory days on the range. "He was a tough hombre," she said. Many settlers followed Barton --some were just as successful, while others faced challenges that tested their staying power This chapter was written by Tim Unruh Early picture of Barton: “Welborn “Doc” Barton, pictured here around 1875, was the first pioneer to settle in Finney County.” Article contains a picture of Barton taken around 1943. “He died in 1947.” Picture of gravestone: “This is “Doc” Barton’s gravestone, which is located in Ingalls Cemetery in Gray County. Barton, A Finney County pioneer, was born in 1852, and he died in 1947.” [Information on tombstone show wife as Belle 1855-1929.]