THE IEKIQATION AGE. 



205 



Underflow Problem Solved in the Arkansas Valley 



CIMARRON, KANSAS 



Cimarron, Kansas, thirty miles from Garden City, 

 is about to attract the attention of irrigationists and 

 settlers all over America. 



Since the government pumping stations were erected 

 at Garden City, that place has been known as practically 

 the only irrigation district in Kansas. Across the Col- 

 orado line in the Arkansas Valley, irrigation towns are 

 the rule rather than the exception. Since the time of 

 the construction of the Fort Lyon Canal, twenty years 

 ago, many other ventures have followed and one by one 

 the attention of the country has been turned to Canon 



Arkansas and get irrigation. After the completion of the 

 ditch, however, owing to faulty construction of head- 

 gates and other details not well understood at that time, 

 the proposition was dropped and the long ditch has for 

 years been known as "Soule's Folly." Cimarron went 

 ahead, however, making a fortune out of dry farming, 

 and despite the lack of irrigation, has grown in wealth 

 from year to year. The accompanying photograph shows 

 Cimarron on a Saturday afternoon. The easterner will 

 be surprised at the number of automobiles, etc., in a 

 town of this size, but the westerner realizes the immense 



Cimarron, Kansas, on a Saturday Afternoon. 



City, Florence, Rocky Ford, La Junta, Las Animas, La- 

 mar, Holly, etc. Then came Garden City and now we 

 have Cimarron, all located in the thriving and well irri- 

 gated Arkansas Valley. 



But Cimarron was for years a prosperous town with- 

 out irrigation. Nearly a quarter of a century ago, A. T. 

 Soule, a New York millionaire, came into Kansas at the 

 solicitation of the Gilbert brothers and started a ditch 

 ninety-six miles long, proposing to tap the waters of the 



amount of success that has attended the Kansas farmer 

 in recent years. 



And now comes the project which is destined to 

 make Cimarron as well known as some of the old irriga- 

 tion districts and the construction is of particular interest 

 to the irrigationist. The question of solving the methods 

 of securing the underflow has been and is now one of 

 the most important questions before western homebuilders. 



Gilbert brothers, who in the early eighties had inter- 



