A Kansas Notable BookNearing 60, William D. Street (1851-1911) sat down to write his memoir of frontier life. Street's early years on the plains of western Kansas were both ordinary and extraordinary; ordinary in what they reveal about the everyday life of so many who went out to the western frontier, extraordinary in their breadth and depth of historical event and impact. His tales of life as a teamster, cavalryman, town developer, trapper, buffalo hunter, military scout, and cowboy put us squarely in the middle of such storied events as Sheridan's 1868-1869 winter campaign on the southern Plains and the Cheyenne Exodus of 1878. They take us trapping beaver and hunting buffalo for hides and meat, and driving cattle on the Great Western Cattle Trail. They give us insight into his evolving understanding of his multi-decade relationship with the Lakota. And they give us a front-row seat at the founding and development of Jewell and Gaylord, Kansas, and a firsthand look at the formation of Jewell's "Buffalo Militia." In later life Street rose to prominence as a newspaper publisher, state legislator, and regent of the Kansas State Agricultural College. At the time of his death-noted in the New York Times-he was still at work on his memoir. Handed down through his family over the past century and faithfully transcribed here, Street's story of frontier life is as rich in history as it is in character, giving us a sense of what it was to be not just a witness to, but a player in, the drama of the plains as it unfolded in the late nineteenth century. Edited by Street's great-grandson, with an introduction by Richard Etulain, a leading scholar of the West, this memoir is history as it was lived, recalled in sharp detail and recounted in engaging prose, for the ages.
Warren R. Street is professor emeritus of psychology at Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington.
Introduction, Richard W. Etulain Editor's Foreword, Warren R. Street I. Early Years in Kansas: 1861-1867 1. Boyhood Becomes Early Manhood: 1861-1867 2. Frontier Teamster: Summer 1867 II. Nineteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry: 1868-1869 Winter Campaign 3. On the March to Camp Supply: October-November 1868 4. The Balance of Forces on the Plains: 1868 5. Custer at the Washita: November 1868 6. Winter March from Camp Supply to Fort Cobb: December 1868 7. Arrival at Fort Cobb: December-January 1868-1869 8. Winter Camp at Fort Cobb: January 1869 9. Winter March to the New Fort Sill: January 1869 10. Fort Sill. Exploring the Wichita Mountains: January-February 1869 11. Fort Sill. Indian Legends: January-February 1869 12. Fort Sill. A Soldier's Discontents: January-February 1869 13. March from Fort Sill to Fort Hays: February-March 1869 14. Fort Sill to Fort Hays. Joining Custer's Command: February-March 1869 15. Fort Sill to Fort Hays. Custer Pursues Medicine Arrow: February-March 1869 16. Fort Sill to Fort Hays. Custer Declines to Attack: February-March 1869 17. Fort Sill to Fort Hays. White Captives Released. Troops Eat Their Mules: March-April 1868 18. Mustered Out. Following the Family Westward: March-April 1868 19. Homesteading in Jewell County: May 1869 III. Frontier Patrols With the Kansas State Militia: 1869-1870 20. Company D Patrols North Central Kansas: May-October 1869 21. Contacts with Settlers and Kansas Geological Survey: May-October 1869 22. My First buffalo Kill: Fall 1869 23. Discharged from the Militia and Trapping Beaver: November 1869 24. Hunting and Trapping Forays: Winter 1869-1870 IV. Jewell City Beginnings: 1870 25. The Buffalo Militia and Fort Jewell: Spring 1870 26. Jewell City Celebrates the Fourth of July: May-1870 27. Organizing Jewell County: July-September 1870 V. Settling Smith County: 1870-1872 28. Locating Townsites for Gaylord and Cedarville: September 1870 29. The First building in Gaylord: 1871 30. Organizing Smith County: Fall-Spring 1871-1872 VI. Following the Frontier West to Decatur County: 1872-1873 31. Exploring Decatur County: Fall-Winter 1872-1873 32. Homesteading in Decatur County: Winter-Fall 1873 VII. Hunting and Trapping Adventures on the Great Plains: 1873-1874 33. An Omaha Indian Buffalo Hunt in Northwestern Kansas: October 1873 34. On the Range for Buffalo, Beaver, Otter, and Wolves; October -November 1873 35. More Hunting Adventures: November-December 1873 36 Buffalo Camp on the Republican River: December 1873 37. Beaver Trapping Tactics: January-March 1874 38. Hunting and Trapping on Big Timber Creek: March#8211;April 1874 39. Hunting Buffalo on the State Line Trail: April 1874 40. A Prairie Storm Scatters the Horses: April 1874 41. Two Lance's Lakotas Visit the Camp: May 18774 42. Buffalo Hunting on the Republican and Big Timber: June-August 1874 43. A Friendly Parting of the Ways: August-October 1874 44. A Moonlight Hunt on the Republican: October 1874 45. Buffalo Camp on the North Fork of the Republican: October 1874 VIII. Life With the Lakota: 1874-1875 46. A Visit from Sitting Bull and Big Horse: November-December 1874 47. Lakota Neighbors on the Republican: December 1874 48. Lessons in Tribal Justice: January 1875 49. Storms in Eastern Colorado: January 1875 50. Taking Hides to Julesburg, Colorado: February 1875 51. Accused of Stealing Indian Ponies: March 1875 52. Hired to Recover Stolen Horses: March-April 1875 53. Cheyenne Massacre on the Middle Fork of the Sappa IX. On the Trail of Horse Thieves: 1875 54. Captured by Horse Thieves: June 1875 55. Hunting Down the Outlaws: Summer 1875 56. The Fate of the Horse Thieves: Fall 1875 X. Two Years as a Cowboy: 1876-1878 57. An Introduction to Cattle Herding: Spring 1876 58. Herding for High and Mayfield and the Adair Brothers:April-July 1876 59. Riding for Quinlan and Montgomery and Elwin Webber: Summer-Fall 1876 60. A Big Roundup on the Smoky Hill River: 1878 61. Driving a Herd on the Great Texas Cattle Trail:July 1878 62. Giving Lessons to Greenhorns: August 1878 63. Headed Home to a Crisis: August-September 1878 XI. Cavalry Messenger and Scout: 1878 64. In Pursuit of Northern Cheyenne Bands: September-November 1878 Notes Bibliography Index
"An exciting narrative of frontier Kansas."-Kansas History "A very interesting, highly readable memoir. Seasoned American historians would find this piece to be quite valuable, and this is a fantastic and engaging read for the general public as well."-The Chronicles of Oklahoma "Rich in everyday Kansas life on the farm, a covered wagon train experience, the military, and the last Indian raid in Kansas."-Valley Falls Vindicator "William D. Street's memoir of life on the central and northern Great Plains as a teamster, soldier, homesteader, trapper, buffalo hunter, scout and cowboy is about as exciting as it gets for a vivid, page-turning reminiscence of the Old West. This is an important and highly recommended memoir."-John Monnett, author of Tell Them We Are Going Home: The Odyssey of the Northern Cheyennes "Twenty-Five Years among the Indians and Buffalo offers an interesting, highly readable, and informative personal narrative covering events and experiences of real significance for early, post-Civil War settlement of Kansas and the Great Plains. The narrator, Bill Street, who goes on to become a Kansan of some notoriety in the latter part of the nineteenth century, recounts in great detail his experiences as a teenage muleskinner in the 1860s, a trooper in the Nineteenth Kansas Volunteer Cavalry involved in the famous Winter Campaign of 1868-69, a homesteader and town builder in Jewell and Decatur counties, a High Plains hunter and trapper, a cowboy, and more. This is a significant contribution to the literature in the tradition of many other 'eyewitness' accounts from the nineteenth century."-Virgil Dean, editor of John Brown to Bob Dole: Movers and Shakers in Kansas History "Twenty-five Years among the Indians and Buffalo, the memoir of William Street's exciting decade on the Central Plains during the 1870s, is a treasure house for those interested in the history both of Kansas and of the American West. During this seminal decade of westward expansion, Street was an Indian fighter, a soldier, a buffalo hunter, a trapper, a homesteader, a town founder, and a cowboy. (Like Jack Crabb in Thomas Berger's great novel, Little Big Man, Street seems to have been an active participant in nearly every occupation of the Old West.) Recorded in the early twentieth century, after Street had become a newspaper editor (which perhaps explains the clarity of his engaging prose), we gain new ground-level insights into activities, since mythologized, that were quotidian events for Street and his contemporaries."-Jim Hoy, author of Flint Hills Cowboys: Tales from the Tallgrass Prairie
