Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/128

117 TWO CENTS AN ACEEn 117 Q'be only way to comprehend the meaning of 129^ yeara is to draw upon history for events, and what is found to have taken place in the last 129 years right in the territory that is being described, makes interesting reading for the student of history. It belonged to Spain 129 years ago, then France got it; the next thing that happened, Napoleon sold it to the United States for the paltry sum of fifteen million dollars; but mind you, Louisiana comprised what would be equal to nearly eighteen states the size of Kansas, and in fact, it cost oiir astute and dear old Uncle Sam about two cents per acre! Who would not buy land at that price? It was just 100 years on September 25, 1906, since Lieutenant Pike visited the. Pawnee Indians about fifty miles up the Solomon, river in Kansas, and it is only about sixty years ago that the Federal Government induced many tribes to come to Kansas. Since that time most of them have again been removed to the Indian Territory, and fifty years ago there were but a few hundred, or at the most, a few thousand people living in the State. Fifty years ago the old martyr, John Brown, was flourish- ing at Osawatomie; and last, but not least, it was only forty-seven years since Quivira became a State. It showed remarkable foresight on the part of Coronado when he, 367 years ago, wrote to Mendoza and the King of Spain in this strain: "That the soil was black and fat; that the grass made fine- pasture; that most of the products of Spain would grow here; that, it would make a fine agricultural country," etc. This Spaniard was a prophet, but one without honor in his own day, and that was owing to his being