George M. Munger Catalpa Knob Farm
He planted more Jonathan Apple trees. By April, his workers had finished work on the dam for the season; it would allow for a 60 acre lake with a 17 foot maximum depth. That summer he experimented with irrigating cabbages on a plot not far from the lake. He brought in a gasoline engine and apparently the system worked, although he admitted that the project was a dismal failure; it had cost him $1,600 and had yielded a crop valued at $200.
For the first time, he sent pears from his farm into Eureka to be sold. Even though he was not a candidate for office, he was actively engaged in Populist politics. The Populist state convention in 1896 gave Munger a handsome complimentary vote for gubernatorial candidate. The Wichita Eagle said about Munger: “The populist boom for Munger for Governor is growing. Munger represents the new populism, wherein a man is able to be rich and still howl.” A Populist, John W. Leedy, was elected to governor and served from 1897 to 1899.
In the fall he picked more pears and some apples to sell in town. Munger continued work on the dam and built a boat house on the lake. He kept a boat there which he referred to as Noah’s Argue. He stored many apples for winter use.
In the spring of 1896, Munger continued to work on the dam. He hired as many as thirty teams to work on building his dam. The dam was 1,300 feet long and had a height of 28.5 feet. In July and August, he tried to make his irrigation system work, but bursting pipes caused failure again. In the spring of 1897, Munger and his son George Jr. trapped hundreds of rabbits in the orchards and shipped them to Chicago. His men spent considerable time making Catalpa posts for sale. That year, for the first time, he began sowing alfalfa. He built an incubator cellar and, with his son, went into the chicken production business. In the fall, he picked grapes and made some wine along with a few Ben Davis Apples to make cider. He cut 1,000 Poplar slips for the next spring’s plantings. Munger went into hog production more than usual, perhaps because of the new alfalfa fields. Munger was appointed to the National Irrigation Congress in Lincoln, Neb. and was on the Board of Regents for Kansas State Agriculture College.
In the spring of 1898, the pig project occupied most of his time. In May, his daughter Martha Munger Purdy and his son George Jr. went to the Klondike, paving the way for George Munger’s later investments there. Martha was the first white woman to cross the Chilkoot Pass, near Skagway, Ala. and have a child in the Yukon Territory. Later, she become the second women in the Canadian Parliament and was a member of the House of Commons. (Martha’s story is also fascinating and may warrant another chapter).
Munger planted soybeans for the first time. That winter, as they had done every winter since 1886, the hired hands cut ice from Bachelor Creek and stored it in a sawdust packed house for summer use.
In the spring of 1899, Munger set the poplar slips and cut a lot of posts from the catalpa, making firewood out of the leftover wood. He planted a Russian Mulberry windbreak at the Jonathan orchard. That summer he went to Dawson City to seek out his children and returned in the fall with his daughter Martha and a child (Lyman) who was born there. The Mungers had kept one child of Martha’s and the Purdy family kept another child of hers while she was in the Yukon.
In the fall, the hired men spent a lot of time pulling and burning cockleburs (who would have thought they would have been a problem back then) and cutting Catalpa posts. That summer and fall there was a big apple harvest and much fruit was marketed in Eureka.
In the spring of 1900 he became interested in bee culture and that project occupied most of his and his workmens’ time. His daughter Martha went back to Dawson City leaving her two youngest children with the Mungers. In the fall, he went into turkey production and built a storage house for apples. He contracted apples for .50 a bushel that he picked and packed into barrels and put on train cars. He sold the carload in October. Later, he sold another car load of Missouri Pippin Apples.
In the spring of 1901, he planted a Mulberry Hedge on Susie’s farm. Bee culture absorbed much of his time. Munger took an inventory of his Ben Davis Apple trees and found a total of 7,700 trees from the 9,416 he had planted. That summer, Mr. and Mrs. Munger and Martha’s two children went to Dawson City. While there, he apparently invested some money in a business for Martha to manage. That summer was a dry one, so they started up a water work for stock water, not for irrigation. They harvested apples and pears for sale in considerable quantities. One competent judge had estimated that year’s apple crop at 30,000 bushels.
In the spring of 1902, Munger went back to Dawson City to look after his interests there. That fall he had another bountiful harvest of pears and apples, many of which he shipped by the barrel on the railroad.
In 1903 he worked with his pigs, cattle and bees. Eddie Riggle married Munger’s daughter Belle and became the Superintendent at Catalpa Knob. In December, Munger leased his farm to Riggle, sold him his stock and farm equipment, and left for an extended trip to Cuba, the Caribbean and Central America. His wife Susie was so inflicted with rheumatism, or arthritis, that she no longer tried to accompany him in his wanderings.
In 1908, George and his wife moved to Los Angeles. By that time, George Munger had planted 160 acres with 377,000 Catalpa trees, 400 acres of apple orchards, including a 30 acres tract of Ben Davis and Missouri Pippin trees, 200 acres of six year old Jonathan Apple trees, 40 acres of Mammoth Black Walnuts and 20 acres of pear trees.
George Munger died suddenly in 1919, after years of experimenting with orchard culture in California and traveling widely especially in Panama, where the Panama Canal was being constructed.
His daughter Belle and her husband Riggle stayed on the ranch until 1909 when much of the land was sold. Ownership of the famed ranch passed from the Munger estate to Samuel R. Edwards. The following year he transferred the ranch to John A. Edwards.
