Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1866-10-19
aMistella,,,t.
From the Chicago Evening Journal
FROM LAKE MICHIGAN TO THE MIS-
SOURI,.
The Story OF a Wilderness and Birth OF
aState-i0wa-its March Of Empire
Its PrOducts-Men Its Great
Stapie--ltS War Recora-its
Churches, Schools and
Colleges.

-.. L..... IOWA. Scptcmbef, lhO6.
A broad date, but you cannot better
it, for, taking its story and promise, q
man ought to be proud to live anywhere
in Iowa.
A little while ago-hardly longer
than an aloe is getting ready to bios
som-there was splendid wilderness
Of more than fifty thousand square
miles lying between the two great riv-
ers of the continent. 1t had magnifl-
cent woods that stood up grandly before
the Lord. 1t had glorious rivers tha;
flowed on idly to the sea. 1t had prai-
ries that undulated away. dotted with
great island groves, and spanglcd with
jessamines, roses and violets. 1t had
valleys fair as the valley of Sharon. 1t
was part of Louisiana, within the do
mains of New France, and was laid
down very dimly upon any map. 1t
was not State. Ii was not a Terrific
ry, but just part of Gods uninhnbit-
ed globe waiting for the coming men.
Ninety years ago there was no; Il white
man in all its empire. In l54l, DcSuto
discovered it. In 1873, q man who
could not speak the English tongue
padded along river now called Des
Moines-I crossed it an hour ago and
saw footsteps in the sand upon the
shore, and Il slender trail drawn across
the wilderness, as if to score it out from
the open book of civilization. He fol-
lowed it aud found red mans village.
And so this empire was re-disCoVered.
That man was Marquette.
About the last year of the seventeenth
century, Hcnnepin discovered it again,
and so it was born n third time upon
human vision, and has never gone out
of sight. Seventy eight years ago, the
most gracious Castilian granted to Ju,
lian Dubuque 'the mines of Spain, u
and, strangely enough, they lay in the
wilderness clasped by the two great
rivers, and few pioneers burrOwed
like gophers in tho mines Of Spain.
And they handed this domain about
the mighty sisterhood, much as an ad-
mirable infant about household. Lou
isiana passed it to Michigan Territory,
and she took care of it three years. She
reared it into two counties, each with
one township in it. That was thirty
two years ago. 1t was too poor to be
named, and Wisconsin took the moth
erless child and gave it few laws of
her own to use, for lack of better. 1t
was the Black Hawk purchase. In 1888
1t was born territory, and twenty
eight years ago last Fourth of July it
was formally christened IowA-Iowa
the Drowsy, some say, but not so. A
band of Indians seeking a home be-
beid il and loved il, and cried out,
F." Iowa Iowa !n-this Is the place -
And what splendid region All the
planet between the Mississippi and the
Missouri, north to the British Posses
sions-le5, 900 miles square. And there
1T was, fresh from the moccasined foot
of the Sacs and Foxes. At length about
the last days of December, '4G, an audi
Die knock from hereaway was heard at
the Federal door. Iowa stood upon the
was admitted, and became q
sovereign State.
Il took upa Gazetteer the other day,
true few summers ago as the books of
Moses, to find whittier | was going and
/ read in types very small and very
! Iowa: Bounded on the North by the British
Territory OF the Hudson Bay Company. The
Indian title Is not eNtinguished.
i learned, too, that Iowa had eight
cen counties; that three hundred and
ffty-five souls were engaged i'm com
merce throughout this empire; that
l54, 900 bushels OF wheat had been grow
ing at one time within its borders, and
twenty thousand cows came home to
the milking! i looked for Clinton Co.
and i found it, but no accidental dot
upon the map betrayed the existence of
one Of the towns and cities now strung
like jewels along the Iowa Division
of the Chicago & Northwestern Rail
road, and flung like necklace across
the State.
| am crossing this empire to-day;
have looked upon few faces of its TO-
600 souls; have heard the rustic Of its
million of acres of growing corn have
seen its pastures flecked with million
and half of sheep; | number its two
and half MILLIONS of swine. and its
million Of cattle, whose delegations
have gone squealing and lowing across
the continent to the Atlantic seaboard
at the rate of twenty miles an hour; /
think of its two hundred thousand
acres of meadow ripping in the sun
its five millions OF broad acres under
the plow; its twelve and half million
bushels of wheat its fifty million BUSH
els Of corn its herd Of three hundred
and ten thousand cows coming home
to the milking; its daughters, who
made, last year, almost fifteen million
pounds of butter-enough to Iubricate
the axles of time-and million pounds
of cheese. / count its seven hundred
and fifty churches; its forty colleges,
crowning its heights like fair young
queens upon their thrones; its seven
thousand schools, and their three hun
dred and twenty-five thousand young
candidates for Heaven. I treasure its
hundred and twenty thousand homes,
and glory in this wilderness of Louis
lana, this Black Hawk purchase, this
sovereign State, white and a-hutter,
like a snowy day, with a newspaper
circulation of ten millions Of Copies
And SO Iowa keeps magnificent step to
the march of empire. And SO / began
with, "a man ought to be proud to live
anywhere in Iowa"
But she has done more, and more
grandly, for she has changed that step,
and there in the front rank has kept
time to the music of the Union. Out of