Haviland History

CANNONBALL  ROAD ORIGINALLY WENT FROM KINGMAN, KANSAS TO GARDEN CITY, KANSAS AND  THEN ON THROUGH THE STATE OF COLORADO TO SANTE FE, NEW MEXICO.  MANY OF  THE EARLY SETTLERS TO KIOWA COUNTY TRAVELED THIS ROAD AND THE CANNONBALL  STAGE LINE.  WELLSFORD, HAVILAND, GREENSBURG, AND MULLINVILLE WERE  ALL BUILT ALONG THIS ROAD.  TODAY, HIGHWAY 54 PARALLELS THE OLD  CANNONBALL ROAD.
 

        Out of the cloud of dust came two teams hitched tandem, running  hard, while behind them bounced a big yellow stagecoach.  With a  flourishing wave of his broad Stetson hat "Cannonball" Green shout  "Whoa!"  The horses stopped, suddenly, and the passengers lurched  together, in spite of a firm grip on the seats.  Then they began  crawling out for a minute of stretching.  The tall, rugged driver,  bronzed by years of sun and wind, swung down from the high seat,  throwing the lines to the waiting men.  They began unhitching rapidly.   Four other men, each grasping the bits of a rearing, snorting horse,  stood ready to hitch them into the places of the sweating broncos before  being released.  The harness snapped on as on fire horses and the  postmaster rushed forward with the mail pouch.  The passengers scrambled  in, filling the coach.  With a lusty "Hoo-ay", "Cannonball" Green swung  his 20' whip and they were off.  The two fresh teams stretched out in a  dead run, while the passengers clung fearfully to their seats.  At each  stop the new teams seemed wilder and faster.
        This scene was  repeated about every ten miles all day long.  Colonel D. R. "Cannonball"  Green had a mail route contract to carry mail eight miles an hour and  100 miles a day, and he seldom failed to meet its terms.  Much of his  success was due to the lightning-like changes at each stop.  On several  occasions he bet the men that he could change teams and be gone before  they could get their cigars lighted.  Sometimes he varied it by betting  that he could change teams without stopping.  He usually won the bets.
        The route of the stage determined much of western history.  It  helped make or break many a young boom town, and those with county seat  aspirations would bid high for Green's stage line and his influence.
        Colonel Green was a hustler, lured west by the big opportunities  there.  He arrived with his family in Kingman, Kansas, in 1876, from  Clinton County, Kentucky.  He was 44 years old, and stood more than six  feet "in his socks," was big-boned and active.  He had a commanding  appearance.  Colonel Green was a true Kentuckian in his love for fine  horses, and brought out some handsome purebreds.  Years after, in the  old Kingman livery barn, their names could be seen painted above the  then empty stalls:  Lela G., Tom Vance, and others.
        Settlers, coming to the end of the Wichita & Western  railroad at Kingman, would hire Colonel Green to take them on in search  of claims.  Colonel Green, with his good horses, soon found himself with  more than he could do, while other drivers were left sitting at home.   He then went into the stage business and named his stage the  "Cannonball".  This won for its owner the nickname, which suited him, as well.  "Cannonball"  Green bought Concord stagecoaches at $1,200 each, hired drivers, added  more horses, and laid out stage routes all over western Kansas, into  Colorado and on to Santa Fe.  His outfits were among the most expensive  and elaborate ever seen in the West.
        He demanded good horses.  Finding that broncos had great  endurance, he selected them for beauty as well as speed.  To the  greenhorn, it was very informative to watch Colonel Green choose his  horses.  The cowboys often brought in herds of wild horses, penning them  in a solid board-walled corral about nine feet high.  The frightened  herd circled and dashed about, vainly seeking an opening.  The  "hoss-buyers" climbed ladders on the outside, and from above inspected  the snorting, squealing horses.  After the buyer had chosen his animals  it was up to the cowboys to rope them, then to ride or drive them "to a  finish".  Colonel Green preferred bays, dark sorrels and strawberry  roans.  He always wanted matched teams and few could outbid him.
        The Colonel's friendliness and hospitality were exceptional even  in a free-handed country.  He loved being in the limelight.  Everything  he did was spectacular.  Garden City an Leoti wanted him to run a stage  connecting the two towns and asked for his proposition.  "I'll come for  six town lots in each town and $1,000 bonus," he replied, and they  accepted.  Determined to show Garden City the greatest speed ever  attained there, he came dashing through wearing his big hat, frock coat,  plenty of diamonds and swirling his long whip.  In the center os town  his coach wheel struck the cart of a German truck gardener.  Vegetables  scattered everywhere.  The angry gardener demanded damages.  Waiting  until a large crowd had gathered, Green asked the amount.  "You owe me  $25," shouted the cart owner.  Green pulled from his pocket a roll with a  $500 wrapper, peeled of a $100 bill and flung it to the gardener.  The  crowd cheered and was with him from then on.
        One of his favorite advertising methods was to furnish elegantly  printed passes at half rates to the editors in towns through which his  route passed.  "I was liberal with men whom I thought could be of  benefit to me," he said later.  "I attribute much of my money-making to  the country newspaper editors who rode in my stagecoaches and were given  tornado-like trips across the country."
        Perhaps his biggest job was during the opening of the "Oklahoma  Strip."  The Rock Island Railroad ran only to Pond Creek, 16 miles from  the northern border of the "Strip."  The road made a contract with  "Cannonball" Green to transport the passengers on into the "Strip" for  $6 each.  The first day of the excursion the railroad wired Green  that 600 passengers would be there.  Green scouted the country, hired  every farmer who had a wagon or vehicle of any kind, and with his stages  all going at breakneck speed the contract was carried out.
        As the Santa Fe pushed westward Colonel Green was a guest of its  officials on one of the first trips.  He was invited to eat a fine noon  meal in "the eating car," and was thrilled.  Later, Colonel Green was  taking one of the railroad official over his route.  It was a blistering  hot, dusty day.  At noon Green halted on the prairie and with a  flourish produced from beneath the seat an exact duplicate of the former  meal, even to the iced beverages.
        As his business increased Colonel's time was all taken in  supervising his routes.  He covered them every thirty days in his "Pay  Wagon," a covered spring-wagon.  On its side was a picture of Old Father  Time encumbered with a valise and vainly pursuing a vanishing  Cannonball Stage.
        It has been said that three-fourths of the populations of some  of the southwest Kansas counties first went into their chosen county in  one of "Cannonball" Green's stagecoaches.  Town rivalry during the  1880's helped Green's business.  Pratt and Iuka were contenders for the  stage line.  Pratt gave Green a good lot on Main Street and built and  donated him a stage barn nine miles east of that city.  Wellsford  donated twenty acres adjoining town.  Coldwater gave him eight or ten  lots.  Coronado, nw extinct, gave his eight good lots and $500.  When  Colonel Green acquired a large holding near the now extinct town of  Reeder in Kiowa County he moved his family onto it.  He built what was  then considered a prairie mansion, a one story house with a  part-basement, and with three large rooms opening into one another.  A  negro couple, Aunt Caroline and Uncle Dick, were brought out as  servants.  The stories of "Fairlawn" with its hospitality and gaiety are  many.
        Colonel Green's dream of having a town named for him was finally  realized in 1885.  He was instrumental in organizing the Greensburg  Town Company, which platted a site about two miles from the little town  of Janesville, and he owned a large part of the new town.  But  Greensburg needed a postoffice!  One dark night an ox team and wagon  quietly slipped into Janesville and loaded up the little 9' x 12'  postoffice.  The next morning Greensburg residents were surprised to  find a well settled postoffice open for business.
        In 1889 Colonel Green was elected to represent Kiowa County in  the state legislature.  In his eloquent acceptance speech he declared  that "he considered this election as a stepping stone to the  Presidency."
        Had it not been for the coming of the railroad "Cannonball"  Green might have become a millionaire, but their gradual encroachments  finally ruined his stage business.  He moved with his family to Grant  County, Oklahoma, where he soon became county treasurer, and later was  prominent in the new Caddo County development.  The last few years of  his life were spent in California.  His fame as a town builder followed  him and he was chosen a member of the Long Beach city council.  He was  known as a wide-awake booster and an effective public speaker.  At a  festival in San Francisco Colonel Green won the stage driver's contest  by cutting a figure eight with an eight-horse team on the smallest space  of ground.
        Colonel Green died in 1922.  He was then 85 years old.  The West  still remembers him for the part he had in its settlement.