Near midnight on October 12, 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon Pike and his exploring party, headed to the Rockies, reached the Arkansas River just south of here. They camped by the river for two weeks to rest their animals and lay in a supply of meat. Pike's published expedition reports strongly influenced public opinion about this region, portraying the Great Plains as incapable of cultivation and best left to the wandering and uncivilized aborigines of the country. Later explorers echoed his claims, and in the mid-1800s the Plains became known as the Great American Desert. Although Pike's descriptions discouraged settlement here for more than fifty years, his explorations also helped spur the opening of the Santa Fe Trail in 1821, which brought thousands of settlers through this area during the mid-1800s. By 1870, settlers had discovered that crops could prosper here, and in 1872 rail service reached this county, prompting settlers to flood in and begin new lives. Early Barton County settlers recalled raising onions, tomatoes, and potatoes near the ranch in 1867, the first vegetables ever raised in Barton County by white men, and remembered that in the spring of 1872 prairie schooners carrying settlers came in very fast as land was broken and planted, and the desert began to bud into a full blown rose.