At Ellisville, now rapidly becoming an important cattle market, the hotel accommodations were more pretentious than comfortable, and many a cowman who had sat at the board of the Halfway House going up the trail, would mount his horse and ride back daily twenty-five miles for dinner.

Such are the attractions of corn bread and chicken when prepared by the hands of a real genius gone astray on this much-miscooked world.
Many other guests were among those "locators," who came out to Ellisville and drove to the south in search of "claims." These usually travelled over the route of Sam, the stage-driver, who carried the mail to Plum Centre during its life, and who never failed to sound the praises of the Halfway House.

Thus the little Southern family quickly found itself possessed of a definite, profitable, and growing business.
Buford was soon able to employ aid in making his improvements.

He constructed a large dugout, after the fashion of the dwelling most common in the country at that time, This manner of dwelling, practically a roofed-over cellar, its side-walls showing but a few feet above the level of the earth, had been discovered to be a very practical and comfortable form of living place by those settlers who found a region practically barren of timber, and as yet unsupplied with brick or boards.

In addition to the main dugout there was a rude barn built of sods, and towering high above the squat buildings rose the frame of the first windmill on the cattle trail, a landmark for many miles.