The difference in altitude between Kansas City and the western boundary of Kansas is some twenty-seven hundred feet and is thus distributed--six hundred feet the first two hundred miles, seven hundred and sixty-nine feet in the next hundred miles, and thirteen hundred and twenty thence to the Kansas line. The original intention had been to follow the Republican River, but this was changed and the "Smoky Hill Route" from Junction City, Kan., west adopted. When the road reached Monument, three hundred and eighty-six miles from Kansas City, dissensions arose among the stockholders. One faction was for building to San Diego on the Pacific Coast via New Mexico and Arizona, another was for building to Pueblo and up the Arkansas River, while the third and successful one was for pushing straight ahead to Denver and from there to a connection with the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad,--the idea being to secure for St. Louis a portion of the trans-continental business and the line the carrying thereof. The line was built under contract by the following firms: Hallett and Fremont--Wyandotte to Lawrence, Kan., thirty-nine miles. Ira M. Schoemaker and Company--Lawrence to Mile Post one hundred and forty--a distance of one hundred miles. Schoemaker and Miller--Mile Post one hundred and forty to Mile Post four hundred and five--two hundred and sixty miles. West of Mile Post four hundred and five or "Phil Sheridan" as it was then called, the Denver extension was built by the Company itself, General W. J. Palmer being in charge. During the construction of the line, the contract to feed the forces at the front was let to Goddard Brothers who utilized to a very great extent buffalo meat for this purpose. To procure these they employed W. F. Cody at five hundred dollars per month. During this engagement Cody claims to have killed four thousand two hundred and eighty buffaloes, earning for himself the appellation "Buffalo Bill" by which name he has ever since been known. The best heads were by special arrangement shipped to the headquarters of the Company at Kansas City, where they were nicely mounted and used as an advertisement of the road. The line reached Ellsworth, Kan., the spring of 1867 and made for some time its terminus there. In all the history of "Boom Towns" or "railroad towns" there were none that surpassed this place. For ninety-three consecutive days there was one or more homicide in the town or its immediate vicinity--one hundred in all.