At the town site of Hays City he made a speech, telling the people who he was and what he proposed to do.

He said the railroad would build its repair-shops at the new town, and there would be employment for many men, and that Hays City was destined soon to be the most important place on the Plains.

He had already put surveyors to work on the site.

Lots, he said, were then on the market, and could be had far more reasonably than the lots in Rome.
My fellow-citizens straightway began to pick out their lots in the new town.

Webb loaned them the six-mule Government wagons to bring over their goods and chattels, together with the timbers of their houses.
When I galloped into Rome that day there was hardly a house left standing save my little home, our general store, and a few sod-houses and dugouts.
Mrs.Cody and the baby were sitting on a drygoods box when I rode up to the store.