The Wichita (Kansas) World of February 9, 1889, contains the following reference: 

“In 1871 and 1872 the buffalo ranged within 10 miles of Wichita, and could be counted by the thousands.  The town, then in its infancy, was the headquarters for a vast number of buffalo-hunters, who plied their occupation vigorously during the winter.  The buffalo were killed principally for their hides, and daily wagon trains arrived in town loaded with them.  Meat was very cheap in those days; fine, tender buffalo steak selling from 1 to 2 cents per pound. * * * The business was quite profitable for a time, but a sudden drop in the price of hides brought them down as low as 25 and 50 cents each. * * * It was a very common thing in those days for people living in Wichita to start out in the morning and return by evening with a wagon load of buffalo meat.”

Unquestionably a great many thousand buffaloes were killed annually by the settlers of Kansas, Nebraska, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado, and the mountain Indians living west of the great range.  The number so slain can only be guessed at, for there is absolutely no data on which to found an estimate.  Judging merely from the number of people within reach of the range, it may safely be estimated that the total number of buffaloes slaughtered annually to satisfy the wants of this heterogeneous element could not have been less than fifty thousand, and probably was a much higher number.  This, for the three years, would make one hundred and fifty thousand, and the grand total would therefore be about as follows: 

+------------------------------------------------------

+
|        The slaughter of the southern herd.         |
+------------------------------------------------------+
|Killed by “professional” white hunters in |           |
|  1872, 1873, and 1874                    | 3,158,730 |
|Killed by Indians, same period            |   390,000 |
|Killed by settlers and mountain Indians   |   150,000 |
|                                          | --------- |
|     Total slaughter in three years       | 3,098,730 |
+------------------------------------------------------+
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These figures seem incredible, but unfortunately there
is not the slightest reason for believing they are
too high.  There are many men now living who declare
that during the great slaughter they each killed from
twenty-five hundred to three thousand buffaloes every
year.  With thousands of hunters on the range,
and such possibilities of slaughter before each, it
is, after all, no wonder that an average of nearly
a million and a quarter of buffaloes fell each year
during that bloody period.