In any one of these towns
the main industry was that of selling lands or "real estate."
During the Kansas boom of 1886 the land-boomers had their desks
in the lobbies of banks, the windows of hardware stores--any
place and every place offering room for a desk and chair.
Now also flourished apace the industry of mortgage loans. Eastern
money began to flood the western Plains, attracted by the high
rates of interest. In 1886 the customary banking interest in
western Kansas was two per cent a month. It is easy to see that
very soon such a state of affairs as this must collapse. The
industry of selling town lots far out in the cornfields, and of
buying unimproved subdivision property with borrowed money at
usurious rates of interest, was one riding for its own fall.
None the less the Little Fellow kept on going out into the West.
We did not change our land laws for his sake, and for a time he
needed no sympathy. The homestead law in combination with the
preemption act and the tree claim act would enable a family to
get hold of a very sizable tract of land. The foundations of many
comfortable fortunes were laid in precisely this way by thrifty
men who were willing to work and willing to wait.
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