The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1850-04-29
Evansville and Princeton Railroad.


weeks back, and Immediately commenced his
preliminary arrangements. Since his arrival,
a number of laborers have reached this point
and proceeded along the route OF the road
They have been busily engaged during the
past week in erecting their cabins, and making
other arrangements necessary before actually
commencing work on the railroad. This
week. the shovel and pickaxe will be briskly
employed, nor will they cease till the Rail-
road is graded from this place to Princeton,
over twenty-six miles-and before this work
is concluded, the point to which it is to be
continued. will doubtless be determined upon.
Thus far Vincennes appears to be the promI-
nent point in the opinions Of the pubic-the
chosen point to be reached by the next stretch
of the Railroad. The citizens of that place
have fully discussed the matter, and seem
very well disposed to have railroad connec-
ton with the Ohio at this point. They real
ize in anticipation the immense advantages
of such connection. The last Gazette says:
"Whenever the amendment to the charter,
passed at the last session Of the Legislature,
bringing the road to Vincennes, is received
/ by tile Board of Directors and they cause
books to be opened in this place for stock, we
can assure you the amount necessary to
make the road to White river, will at once be
taken. There is no mistake about the mat
ter"
Whatever be the action Of Vincennes, the
Road will be continued from Princeton to
some point beyond. Some of the citizens of
the latter place entertain the idea, that when
the Road is continued from their town. it will
be, if not a death blow to Princeton, at least
of no great benefit as public improvement
to that town. The only way to reason about
this mat ter, is by the experience of the past
in the influence Of other Railroads on towns
situated on the line Of their route-and reas-
oning thus, those entertaining the above
opinion, are entirely mistaken. Being most
familiar by actual observation with the Little
Miami Railroad of Ohio, we take it as an in
stance. 1t passes through or at the outskirts
of number of towns, which when the road
was built, were oldyet petty and insignificant
villages, scarcely one of which had witnessed
the building of a half dozen new houses for
as many years, and which without some i'm
prCvement of this nature, would have remain
ed for years to come in this state of inactivity
if not of actual decay. With the start Of
the work on this Railroad, even before it
had reached the towns on the route, the
work of Improvement commenced in these
villages. When the railroad did reach them,
warehouses were at once erected for the sto-
ring of produce, &C., for the city markets. and
hotels for the accommodation of travellers
coming in from the neighborhood to await the
cars and take passage them Those
towns then became at once COMMERCIAL depots
the repository of all the produce in the
country around seeking the railroad and of
all the goods, &C., destined to points in that
same region-and of all the Railroad travel
of the neighborhood. They became scenes of
life and action. for here was literally naYi-
gable river, subject to no droughts in summer
nor icy impediments in winter-but con-
slant flowing stream, with its iron wheeled
boats running at the rate of twenty miles an
hour-panted right at the side of those towns
by the hand of man.
But this was not all. New towns were
started and rapidly rose into Importance
We recolect when the first ware house was
built at Morrow, where there was then no
town at all. This was probably eight years
ago. Now there is town of probably sew
eral hundred houses, and it is rapidly grow
ing. Nor is this all. Farms for miles from
the route of the Road, rapidly increased in
value, and it became an object to secure farms
, near these iron rivers, which brought them in
direct communication with the markets.
And we recollect well how the citizens IN
many of these towns, on the proposed route
of the road, set up a great cry, because they
thought that as the road passed right by them,
it would only build up towns near the termi-
! nj, and crush them; and many farmers along
the route refused to take stock, because they
saw in their own minds much evil and little
good offered them by the Road. Why the
4 rascalIy thing actually cut their splendid
t farms right into two parts. But in few
a years they found each half worth as much as
the whole had been before the building OF
the Road.
: We might mention more and enter fully
, into narration of the objections offered to
: the road by the eitizens-but such objections
: are in part never made now, and never SC
), strongly as then, for the eyes of the people
are opening to the benefit of these improve
ments. Yet we may allude to Xenia which
occupied much the same position to thai
i Road which Princeton does to our Road
It For sometime it was the actual Northern
Il terminus of the Road. The improvement