In the spring of 1871 the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad was building a railroad across the state of Kansas to rival the Kansas Pacific.

Although only survey stakes marked the route, businessmen were looking at a particular location where the new railroad would eventually intersect the Chisholm Trail. The settlement began to take shape in May, boasting 100 people by June 1. Named for Newton, Mass., all eyes were suddenly on the new town of Newton, Kan. The rush was on.

“The sound of the saw and hammer could be heard at all hours of the day and night, including Sundays.”

The wife of an early attorney observed that “Newton sprung up like magic, from the prairie sod to a village of 1,000 or more inhabitants.”

Unfortunately, Kansas State law did not permit incorporation of a new city after the first two months of the year. Newton would have to wait until January, 1872, for the state to recognize the settlement as an official city, therefore city government could not be legally established.

With no municipal oversight all sense of social order evaporated. Texans fresh off the trail reveled from saloon to dance house to gambling hall. One Texan cowboy was shot and killed in the street June 16, 1871.

Despite Newton’s unofficial recognition by the State of Kansas, Newton’s founder, Judge R. W. P. Muse, presided over a meeting Aug. 25, 1871. Nominations were presented for mayor, councilmen, and police judge. Tom Carson and Carlos King were accepted as policemen. King was a veteran of the Sixteenth Michigan Infantry. Carson had been Hickok’s deputy in Abilene.

Bear in mind that the city government formed by the citizens of Newton received no recognition from the State of Kansas. It simply existed through the influence of its citizens.

The new police force, with the support of Newton’s “law abiding citizens,” proved to be surprisingly successful. Drovers still carried on until all hours of the night. Occasional disagreements boiled to the surface but a relative peace held for the next month as Newton’s lawmen enforced the town’s “No Gun Law.” Open carrying of firearms was prohibited, even though a gun could be obtained at a moment’s notice.

In early November a rainstorm had set in, followed by a cold wind which froze the water. A group of Texans gathered in front of the American House hotel filled with too much Newton whis key. Announcing their supremacy over all creation, six-shooters were fired in all directions.

When an unnamed policeman attempted to disarm the Texans the officer was shot “through the hips,” and shot again by another desperado as he fell to the ground.

“That night a mob of an estimated 30 thieves and roughs of Newton’ armed themselves and paraded the streets in defiance of civil authorities.”

The killers were tracked to Kansas City and arrested, but no one was willing to testify against such desperate men.

1871 had been a hard year to sell cattle. Unable to sell out their herds cattlemen held large numbers of cattle on the open range hoping to sell early in the spring. Out on the range the cold wind turned into a furious gale. Blowing for three days and nights, to three inches deep. Men, horses, and cattle froze to death.

Mrs. Amanda Burks was with her drover husband when just before the first storm they moved the cattle to new grazing grounds on the Smoky Hill River. She wrote, “Nine horses were lost in this snowstorm. Many of the young cattle lost their horns from the cold. Blocks of ice had to be chopped out of the streams in order that the cattle could drink. The first taste of early winter in Kansas decided Mr. Burks to sell his cattle and leave for Sunny Texas as soon as possible, and he met with no discouragement of his plans from me, for never had I endured such cold.”

The decision to sell proved fortunate, for winter set in with a fury all across the great plains. Newton’s days as a cattle town were numbered.

The deadly winter storms were not the only death knell for Newton. In December, 1871, the Santa Fe Railroad offered the lands south and west of Newton for sale. Those lands had earlier been reserved to allow cattlemen unobstructed access to Newton’s stock yards. Tracks would be built to Wichita and a new set of stockyards that would soon be crammed with cattle.

Unlike the Burks, a good many cattlemen resolved to “winter over” their herds with intentions of selling early on the spring market. The unforeseen brutality of winter devastated those plans.

Starving cattle laid waste farmer’s meager hay stacks. The stacks, stockpiled for domestic stock proved a failure as wild Texas cows devoured anything they could wade into. The meager hay supplies only delayed the inevitable. Several hundred cow ponies and an estimated quarter of a million head of cattle died before spring, marking the end of cattlemen’s dreams, and the end of the cattle business at the new town of Newton 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 RD Geneseo, KS. Phone 785-531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.