George M. Munger Catalpa Knob Farm
George M. Munger was born on January 17, 1839 at Bergen, New York into a family of seven other children. When the Civil War broke out Mr. Munger was in Cincinnati, Ohio and enlisted in the Guthrie Grays for three months. He then organized the 85th New York State Volunteers in which he was a First Lieutenant, acting Captain for three years. In May 1865, he married Susan B. Owens and to this union were born seven children. In 1868, Munger started the Munger Laundry system in Chicago, Ill. with his two brothers and stayed in active business until he retired in 1866. Munger is still a heavy stockholder in the laundries they have in Chicago, Kansas City, New York state, St. Louis, Mo. and other cities.
In 1885, Munger purchased 1,920 acres of pasture six miles north of Eureka. He had a house constructed at the cost of $12,000. In addition to the house, he had a 1,600-barrel cistern dug for water usage in the home. After the house construction was finished, he sent for his wife and children to come to Kansas where they lived for twenty years. In part of his mansion, he built a special barracks, kitchen and dining room to accommodate the hired men he needed, usually from five to ten, sometimes ten to twenty.
Other improvement soon followed. Three horse barns were erected that had a capacity for 126 horses. There was a 1,000-barrel cistern dug for use at the barns. Several cattle shed were also constructed, one being 400 feet long and 16 feet wide and another fully enclosed shed 185 feet long.
In the first fall of 1885, Munger began a gigantic project of changing the prairie land to a vast orchard-forest. That fall, he planted a walnut grove of 3,400 trees and set ten elm trees in the house yard.
In the spring of 1886 he planted 3,000, one year old seedlings, mainly Catalpas, set out an apple orchard of 1,343 Ben Davis trees, 100 peach trees, 6 Quinces, 13 Crab Apple trees, 7 cherry trees and some other small fruit, ornamental trees and shrubs.
Because of a break in his journal keeping, we have no record of the plantings of the fall of 1886. In the spring of 1887, Munger recorded he estimated that he had planted a total of 136,501 Catalpas and cherry seeds that spring. In the fall of 1887, he finished planting another 177,000 Catalpas. The Official Atlas of Kansas listed George Munger owning Sections 23, 26 and the north half of section 35 in T24-R10.
In the spring of 1888, he set some large elm trees in the lawn and a second Ben David Apple orchard with 3,170 trees. The 2 apple orchards comprised 100 acres. That summer and fall he cultivated and cared for the plantings in various ways, but seemed to plant no additional trees. At about that time, he started his intense interest in cattle, buying feeder cattle and grazing them on his own pasture land and nearby pastures of his neighbors. Munger had a surplus of about 50,000 Catalpa seedlings for sale.
In the spring of 1889, Munger sold some of his seedling Catalpas and bought cedar trees for a windbreak. In the fall of 1889, he reaped the apple harvest from the 81 Missouri Pippin trees of one and a half bushels. These trees must have been planted in his lapse of journal keeping.
In the spring of 1890 he mentioned the spectacle of the peaches, pears and apples in bloom. But he was much occupied that summer by the problems of watering the hundreds of cattle he was grazing. Mr. and Mrs. Munger celebrated their 25th anniversary with a large gathering at the ranch. 1890 was an exceedingly dry year, and one by one, the pastures ran out of water. (Things haven’t changed much). He began shipping the cattle to market in July and drove some of the last ones to water at the Big Springs in Chase County. By November 5, he had sent all but his domestic stock to market, and from that point on he did not seem to be tempted to speculate on cattle.
In the spring of 1891, he set out some rose bushes and a 20 acre Jonathan Apple orchard. In July he picked pears for the first time. In the spring of 1892, he worked up the prairie in the northeast quarter of section 35 for another orchard where he planted about 3,000 Jonathan Apple trees and a Catalpa wind break for the new orchard. His wife purchased a half section of land near his for an orchard. He continued filling vacancies in the Ben Davis orchards and planted 1,360 Lawrence and 1,360 Kieffer Pear trees. That fall he picked a bushel of Bartlett pears and some Seckel pears. He also battled the rabbits who were eating the bark off his trees.
1893 saw no new planting of orchards, but he became interested in a vast irrigation project and worked on the dam for Lake George (the natives called it the Munger Lake). That lake would furnish most of the water for the irrigation for his trees and some cattle.
In the spring of 1894, Munger transplanted 80 Catalpas from the forest to line a driveway with these trees averaging 17 feet in height. He planted Seckel Pears, peach and strawberries and mulberry seeds. Munger began working intensively on the irrigation project, hiring extra men, building an extra barracks to house them, developing a compete brick plant to make the tile for the project and setting up a steam plant. In the fall, he harvested 97 bushels of apples. Trails at irrigation resulted in more leaking tile. In 1894, Munger was a candidate for the Representative to the Kansas Legislature from his district on the Populist ticket. He had been a member of the populist part since 1890. He did considerable campaigning but lost in the November election.
The irrigation work went on in the spring of 1895, but he couldn’t solve the problem of leaky tile. He began cutting fence posts from the Catalpas he had planted nine years earlier. He didn’t cut a tree that didn’t yield two posts. The blooming fruit and Catalpas trees made a real spectacle and people came from far and near to enjoy them.
