Early History of Caney

Caney, located in Montgomery County, Kansas, was established in late 1869 by early settlers, including Jasper N. West, the town’s first postmaster. Built on a sandy knoll, it overlooks rich valleys and streams, attracting diverse communities, including Cherokee and Osage Indians. By May 1870, Caney was surveyed and platted, leading to rapid growth and the establishment of businesses. The arrival of railroads in the late 1880s marked significant development, while the discovery of natural gas and oil in the early 1900s further enhanced its prosperity. At the turn of the 20th Century, Caney boasted a vibrant community, public services, and a hopeful future.

By J. R. Charlton

Caney, the Queen City of Montgomery county, is situated in the southwest corner of the county, about one mile from the Indian Territory line, and about the same distance from the east line of Chautauqua county. It is built upon a sandy knoll, skirted on the north by the beautiful stream, Cheyenne creek, with its beautiful farms, on the west by the broad and rich valley of the Caney river, and on the south by the classic and limpid stream known as “Mud creek,” while upon the east lies the broad, rolling and productive prairie lands. No prettier site can be found in all the county for a city, overlooking, as it does, for miles, the surrounding country.

Looking to the south and the south-east one beholds the beautiful mounds, and undulating prairies, and the fringes of timber along the streams, where are to be found the farms and the happy homes of the Cherokee and the Delaware Indians, who have accepted the fruits of the onward march of civilization, and, with their schools and churches, living in their neat little residences upon their well kept farms, are a happy and contented people. Looking off to the south-west, as far as the eye can reach, are to be seen the hills and rolling lands, where roam vast herds of cattle of the Osage Indian Reservation. The Osage, unlike his Cherokee and Delaware brethren, has persistently refused to become civilized to any great extent. He disdains “store clothes,” and clings to the blanket and breech clout of his fathers. Perhaps he can be said to be civilized, only in one particular, and that is, that he gets drunk just like a civilized white man.

Late in the fall of 1869, the first white settlers settled upon what is now the townsite of Caney. Among them were Jasper N. West and family, J. H. Smith and family, Berryman Smith, a single man, and “Uncle John” Hodges and family. Of those earliest settlers “Uncle John” Hodges, alone, is with us. He has been a continuous resident of Caney from that time to the present. Jasper N. West was Caney’s first postmaster. During the winter of 1869 Dr. J. W. Bell and family came to Caney and he was the first tradesman, conducting a small store in which was kept for sale, (in a small box house made of native lumber, which was probably hauled here from some point east,) a little sugar, coffee, meat, flour, and, as we were informed by one who was there, a goodly supply of clothes pins. This structure was erected near what is now the crossing of State street and Fourth avenue, at the public well, from which particular point nearly all the earlier transfers of title to real property had their starting.

In the early part of the summer of 1870, O. M. Smith engaged in the mercantile business. “O. M.,” as he was familiarly called, was then a single man. He had a small stock of general merchandise, and he cooked, ate and slept in the store building. Jasper N. West built the first log house and it was located on what is now Block 61, and was the first and only place for the weary to take rest, and have their hunger satisfied and thirst quenched. Old “Uncle Robert” Hammill, in the early spring of 1870, came in with his two sons, with four yoke of Texas cattle, and located on the farm now owned by Thomas Steel, and about the same time “Uncle John” Badgley located the place now owned by J. A. Fleener. Jasper N. Smith commenced, and probably completed, in the early part of 1870, a frame building for a hotel, on the site now occupied by the Reed residence, in Block 54, moving from his log house to the same.

Bill Copen was Caney’s first blacksmith. Dr. A. M. Taylor, who came in November 1870, was Caney’s first physician, and the doctor is still with us. James G. Woodruff came in during the early summer of 1870. Jasper N. West, J. H. Smith, Berryman Smith and James G. Woodruff took the four claims cornering at a point where the public well, spoken of above, was located and conceived the idea of locating and platting a town. On May 11th, 1870, Capt. J. E. Stone dropped in among them, and the four claim holders, above named, with Stone and O. M. Smith, caused to be surveyed and platted what is a portion of the present city of Caney. “Uncle John” Hodges took the claim and made some improvements thereon, now owned by S. K. Jack. Levi Glatfelder located and improved the farm, together with other lands, upon which Mrs. Glatfelder now resides, two miles east of Caney. After the survey and platting of Caney quite a number of houses were erected and a mail route was established from what was then the village of Parker to Caney and then to St. Paul on the west side of Caney river. From that time on there was a steady stream of immigrants into Caney and the township. The latter was rapidly settled up by a thrifty, hard-working, and industrious class of people, and business men of all classes began to locate in the village.

From that time on Caney became known as a first class trading point. Being a border town, its business men did a good business with the Indians and the whites residing in the Territory.

In July 1885, Cleveland J. Reynolds started the first paper in Caney, the Caney Chronicle, which has been issued continuously since, and entered upon its eighteenth year. It has been published for the past seven years by H. E. Brighton, is a bright, newsy paper, and has ever stood up loyally for Caney and her best interests.

In 1886 a proposition was submitted to the citizens of Caney township to vote bonds in the sum of $22,000.00 to aid in the construction of the D. M. & A. R. R. The bonds were voted, the road was built, and thus Caney was placed in closer touch with the outside world. The “freighter” who, with his mule teams, hauled goods from Independence and Coffeyville, went away back and engaged in some other business, while the articles of merchandise and the products of the farm, from that time on, were carried by his fleeter-footed competitor, the steam engine and its train of cars. The building of a railroad into Caney really marked the beginning of its business career.

The town continued to grow until on the 5th day of July 1887, it was incorporated as a city of the third class. Its first city election was held, under its charter, on the 18th day of July 1887, in what is now the old school building. The judges of the election were: Dr. A. M. Taylor, John Todd and P. C. Dosh; Clerks, J. J. Stone and J. P. Stradley.

The first officers of Caney, elected on the above date were: Mayor, P. S. Hollingsworth; Councilmen, Wm. Rogers, Harry Wiltse, J. J. Hemphill, J. A. Summer and W. B. McWilliams; Police Judge, F. H. Hooker. F. H. Dye was appointed and served as the first city clerk.

In the year 1891, Cleveland J. Reynolds, who was then the owner and publisher of the Caney Times, a weekly newspaper which he had founded some time before, conceived and put into execution a plan for connecting all the towns of Montgomery county by telephone. Being a man of indomitable will and untiring energy, he at once organized The Caney Telephone Company, and, within a few months thereafter, the “hello” girl was at her post of duty in every town in the county. The completion of this telephone line marked a new era in the history of Caney, as well as that of the entire county, as it was the first telephone line ever built in the county.

In 1892, Col. S. M. Porter, of Caney, J. A. Bartles, of Bartlesville, I. T., and others, organized and chartered the Kansas, Oklahoma Central & Southwestern Railway Company for the purpose of building a line of road from Caney, south, through Oklahoma and on southwest into Texas; and a franchise for the building of said road was granted by Congress on December 21st, 1893. The construction of said road was begun in 1898 and in the spring of 1899 the old company sold out to the A. T. & S. F. Ry. Co., and the road was completed from Caney to Owassa, I. T., a distance of about sixty miles, thus giving Caney two separate and competing lines of road. To Col. Porter is due, in a large measure, the credit for the building of the Santa Fe, for he worked without faltering for about eight years on the project before it finally succeeded, making one trip to Europe, and countless trips to Washington, New York and Chicago.

But Caney, like other cities in Montgomery county, owes its greatest prosperity and growth to the finding of natural gas in the earth beneath it. In the year 1900 the Caney Gas Company, composed entirely of Caney men, was organized and began prospecting for gas and oil. After putting down several dry holes, they succeeded, in the fall of 1901, in striking a very strong flow of gas about two miles northeast of town, and in a short time thereafter they secured another well which has proved to be the strongest well in the Kansas field, having a rock pressure of 660 pounds and producing 10,000,000 cubic feet of gas every twenty-four hours. They also have a very good oil well in the same field. There are now six different gas and oil companies operating in the Caney field, and the prospects are very flattering.

In 1902 the members of the Caney Gas Company organized the Caney Brick Company and put in one of the largest and best vitrified brick plants in the country, with a capacity of 100,000 brick per day. They are turning out a first-class brick and have shipped as high as sixty cars of brick in one month, besides supplying the home demand. They carry a pay roll of sixty-five men.

The Cherryvale, Oklahoma & Texas Railway Company was chartered on July 22nd, 1902, with Col. S. M. Porter, of Caney, as president, for the purpose of constructing a line of railroad from Cherryvale, in Montgomery county, through Caney, to El Paso, Texas, a distance of 900 miles. We are assured that this road will be built in the near future and will be of great benefit to Caney and Montgomery county, as it will give us another system and competing line, probably the “Katy” or “Frisco.”

Our high pressure and unfailing supply of gas is attracting the attention of various manufacturing enterprises.

Caney is a good place to live. Those who are religiously inclined will find four churches, all having good buildings, and resident pastors. They are the Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists and Christians.

Our public schools are first-class. At present we have two school buildings, and employ nine teachers, but the growing population will soon require larger and better buildings and more teachers.

Caney has six physicians actively engaged in the practice, and many of them rank among the best physicians in the county. It also has a Sanitarium, run by Dr. T. A. Stevens, to which patients come for treatment from the Territory and all the surrounding counties.

We also have six lawyers who, by hard work, are able to look after the interests of their clients and keep the community quiet a good part of the time.

Capt. J. E. Stone, one of the first settlers, and who assisted in laying out the original town site, was elected sheriff of Montgomery county in 1872, and served his county in that capacity faithfully and with credit to himself, and is now Caney’s efficient postmaster, having been appointed by President McKinley.

E. B. Skinner, one of Caney’s enterprising business men, is just serving the last year of two terms as county treasurer, and Dr. J. A. Rader, one of our leading physicians, is serving his third term as coroner.

J. R. Charlton, one of our attorneys, was elected county attorney of Montgomery county in 1890 and served one term, refusing a renomination.

J. H. Dana, who resided in Caney until the year 1900 was, in that year, elected county attorney, and moved to Independence.

Others of our prominent citizens have been exposed to the dread disease called “office” but have never caught it.

Caney has grown from the little hamlet of a few years ago to become one of the best towns in Southern Kansas, having a population of but a little less than 2,000, and we confidently expect to see double that number of people here in the next two years. It will make a good town, first: because of its natural advantages in location; second, because it has citizens who are public spirited, enterprising and pushing, who do not only have money, but have faith in the future of the city, and therefore do not hesitate to invest their money in public enterprises.

In concluding this brief sketch let me say that as a resident of Kansas for more than twenty-five years, I believe it to be the best state in the Union; that Montgomery county is the coming banner county of the state, and that Caney — well, language fails me, and I can only add that “the half has never been told.”