——t—~<_ >

16 ELLSWORTH.

The post was abandoned last year, and the beautiful
tract of land embraced in the military reserve will
doubtless ere long be thrown open for settlers.

We next stop at Ellsworth, which is now what
Abilene was in the past, the largest cattle market west
of the Missouri river. It is the county seat of Ells-
worth County, and situated on the north bend of the
Smoky Hill river, and is about the southernmost point
of the line of the Kansas Pacific Railway.

The splendid cattle-yards belonging to the Kansas
Pacific Railway Company have facilities for loading
and forwarding over one hundred car loads of cattle
per diem, and during this year (1874) there were
shipped from this point and vicinity 48,320 head.

We now emerge from the high rocky bluffs of Ells-
worth County into the gently undulating prairie of
Russell County, and stop at Wilson. Here a very
pretty view is had of the “boundless prairie.” To the
south are seen the blue bluffs on the Smoky Hill river,
dotted with the dark green of the red cedar, while the
intervening prairie is one vast green meadow carpeted
with the velvety verdure of the succulent buffalo grass.
Three years ago countless herds of buffalo roamed over
these pastures. A gentleman on the train informed me
that one moonlight night in-1871, he drove to within
three hundred yards of a herd which must have con-
tained many thousands, and which was feeding in the
Smoky Hill valley about 34 miles south-west of the
station buildings in Wilson.

Now, most of the surrounding country has been

 

So