The Way West

In November 1871, a severe rainstorm swept across Kansas followed by a cold wind. The grass became covered with a sheet of ice two or three inches thick. A furious gale blew for three days and nights. Many men and horses were frozen to death and thousands of cattle perished. But the November storm was only the beginning.

Storms continued to crawl across Kansas one after the other as though they were one continuous storm.

Texas longhorns were held over winter for the 1872 spring market. Thousands of cattle were scattered over the ice- and snow-covered open range. Starving range cattle soon “harvested” corn fields, as well as every leaf and stalk of unharvested fields, leaving the ground entirely exposed to the winds of winter.

Stacks of hay intended to feed farm stock — “fenced and unfenced alike” — were overwhelmed and completely devoured by starving, drifting herds. The prairie grass, where not covered by sleet and snow, was grazed so closely that not one blade of grass could be found to sustain life in the face of relentless storms.

The storms finally paused long enough for stockmen to gather the herds. The cattle had suffered severely and were in a critically weakened condition, but their suffering still wasn’t over.

On Dec. 22, 1871, another storm cruelly covered the ground with several inches of sleet and snow. Cattle once again drifted with the bitter wind. In utter misery, herds drifted into ravines where they piled one upon another until death mercifully rescued them from their punishing, heartless torment.

One herd of buffalo had the good fortune to happen upon a Kansas Pacific train stalled in the snow. The buffalo soon discovered that the train offered protection from the wind and congregated on the south side, making quite a curious spectacle for everyone aboard the train.

The winter tempest was dubbed “the Great Storm of 1871.” From the Gulf of Mexico across the Great Plains to the Canadian Provinces and east “far into the Atlantic Ocean,” the Great Storm mercilessly swept across the continent.

Cold rain deluged southern regions, turning to sleet and snow in the north and east. High winds damaged buildings in St. Louis, Chicago, Memphis, and, Indianapolis. A tornado destroyed a railroad trestle at New Albany, Ind.

The editor of the Ellsworth Reporter turned his attention in a remarkable way to the unfortunate souls within his community struggling to survive with little shelter or food.

“The recent severe cold weather should admonish those who are comfortably situated in life that there are those in our town who are in sickness, poverty and want, and that there is a duty for all to perform in relieving them. God gives no three days of grace to those whom he blesses with an abundance of this world’s goods, and who wrap themselves complacently in their vestures of self-righteousness, and allow the poor to suffer. The poor are God’s people, and he commands us to care for them. The rich can take care of themselves, until they try that camel-feat of getting through the eye of the needle. God help them all.”

Each community had its own sense of the unusual winter storm. Ellsworth was a stock town that paid explicit attention to the business of cattle. The previous summer had brought the liveliest of times to Ellsworth as the Texas cattle trade shifted away from Abilene. Great Bend had seen a share of the same shift in the cattle trade, but since the storms set in, farmers everywhere were being overrun by hordes of starving cattle.

One Great Bend area farmer, represented by attorney George N. Godfrey, sued a cattle owner for the damages his cattle had done to crops. Godfrey was known to take a drink or two before appearing before the judge. His drinking habits were legendary and on Dec. 23, 1871, after representing his client in court, Godfrey withdrew to the Rome Saloon. The drinks flowed, as outside the storm raged. Retiring for the night, Godfrey braved the storm to find his way home. No one gave a thought to his safety.

The next day he was found where he had fallen, badly frozen but alive. Dr. Bain did his best to save the unfortunate attorney. Godfrey’s agony could only have been excruciating. Dr. Bain found it necessary to amputate both feet, his right arm, and part of his left hand. Surprisingly Godfrey survived two weeks. He died Jan. 7, 1872. His friends thought it proper to escort his body to the burying ground with a celebratory, drunken funeral procession that could only have happened on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road, Geneseo, Kan. Phone: (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.