In any one of these towns the main industry was that of selling lands or "real estate." During the Kansas boom of 1886 the land-boomers had their desks in the lobbies of banks, the windows of hardware stores--any place and every place offering room for a desk and chair.
Now also flourished apace the industry of mortgage loans.

Eastern money began to flood the western Plains, attracted by the high rates of interest.

In 1886 the customary banking interest in western Kansas was two per cent a month.

It is easy to see that very soon such a state of affairs as this must collapse.

The industry of selling town lots far out in the cornfields, and of buying unimproved subdivision property with borrowed money at usurious rates of interest, was one riding for its own fall.
None the less the Little Fellow kept on going out into the West.