Stage Lines Still in the West.
It has been many years since stage lines were the chief mode of transportation across Kansas, and had regular time-tables and rate schedules, as the railroads have at the present time. But there are still several stage lines in Kansas, and the railroads are publishing the schedules for these lines in their regular list of connections, as they do in the more Western States, where stage transportation is still common.
Along the Union Pacific and the Rock Island lines in northern Kansas, the Missouri Pacific through the center of the State and the Santa Fe in southern Kansas, there are still connecting stage lines which operate as regularly as the railroad trains. The building of the railroad from Garden City north to Scott City on the Missouri Pacific and then to Winona on the Union Pacific has caused several stage lines to go out of business. The building of the Colmor cut-off in southwest Kansas has caused the abandonment of several stage lines that reached the towns in the railroadless counties of the State.
There are two regular mail stage lines operated in Shawnee County, one connecting Dover with the Rock Island and another connecting Auburn with the Santa Fe. Both are only eight or nine miles long, but they carry mail and passengers to the railroads.
The Santa Fe “connecting-line” table shows stage lines connecting with its trains at Syracuse, Lakin, and Coolidge to points in the extreme southwest corner of the State not reached by rail. The Union Pacific has half a dozen stage lines listed in its tables in Kansas. These lines connect with the Missouri Pacific on the south or the Rock Island, or another branch of the Union Pacific on the north, touching several inland towns and saving traveling men long detours if they attempted to make the trip by rail. From Grainfield to Gove City there is a regular stage line, as Grain field is on the railroad while Gove City, the county seat, is twelve miles away.
The stages have comparatively low fares and haul almost as much baggage free as does the railroad. The stage trips in Kansas are no longer the picturesque outings of former days, as there are none of the old stagecoaches left with a six- or eight-mule team and a driver with a long whip and a fine command of “mule-killing” language. All the stage lines in Kansas are motors now, one or two in the southwest part of the State having real motor trucks for baggage, express, and freight, and the trip is made almost as rapidly as the trains, unless a tire blows up.