The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1867-09-16

The Pacific RatIway---Kansas Farms,
Towns and PeopIe---' Frontier
View of the Indian Troubles.

To the general public the phrase PA
cific Railroad" conveys the idea of one
long line of rails reaching, or in time to
reach, from the Mississippi to the Pa
citic coast; but any one who takes the
trouble to investigate the matter in even
the most superficial way, discovers that
the Pacific Railroad is series of rami-
fications, all involving important in
terests, and all destined to AID to an
almost inCalCulgble extent the develop
ment of the country.
There are three Pacific Railways, the
most northerly, or the st. Paurs and
Pacific, being yet in the distant future.
The Pacific Railroad by way of Omaha
and Julesburg has advanced the
farthest, and is constantly attracting a
great deal of attention. Its rates offare
are high, the tariff being ten cents "A
mile.
some two hundred miles to the south
of this, passing through the State of
Kansas, is the Union Pacific Railway,
Eastern Division. This is a clumsy
nomenclature, and through 1t the road
Is easily confounded with the Pa
cific Railroad, or the Omaha
route. Indeed, it was originally in
tended that this Kansas road should
unite with the more northern route, but
later explorations have suggested its
| diversion in a southerly direction, and
its continuance through some of the
fairest districts and most temperate
| ciimes in our vast country, until II
reaches California, and opens perma-
/ nent way of communication, out OF the
reach of those wintry seventies which
must Inevitably seriously affect the
| travel on the more northern routes.
| There is something grand and even
/ presumptuouSi in the idea OF building a
/ railway through vast district inhabit.
| ed by Indians, buffAloes, Hntelopes and
/ TTffhnrfn railroads ha
| resulted from the needs of populous
communities, and have either traversed
/ we'll peopled countries, or connected
large towns and cities. The Pacific
railroads reverse the usual order of
| things. Instead of passing amid scenes
| of human life and industry, they push
out into what ut first appears to be a
trackless desert, and towns spring up
magically along the route. West OF
| the Missouri there are no great rivers
| to bear commerce or provide highway
for the people. Had the locomotive
never been invented, our country this
| side of Kansas would probably have
been nearly as we'll populated as under
present circumstances; but there Is no
| doubt that the vast fertile plains of the
| far West would remain deserts for CEN
turtles TO come but for the railroad sys-
tenn.
To the mere tourist these western
| districts are monotonous and unattrac.
| tive. A ride of a hundred miles or
more displays only a tedious repetition
of rolling prairie, less grand TO the eye
than the perfectly fiat prairie district oi
| Illinois, and UNMARRIED by trees, except
| ing along the banks of the muddy
| Kansas river. Indeed, this district is
/ not much unlike Central Russia in its
general appearance, and the rivers,
slow and sOiled in their waters and
I passing between their preCipitous walls
OF muddy clay, strikingly resemble the
| Russian streams. But this dull, unin-
| teresting country is capable of vast
changes. The Russian soil Is sterile.
! The Kansas soil is fertile. Trees will
/ grow on these prairiesi If planted, while
| for agriculture and tillage they are alt
that can be desired. Comparing the
| Kansas farms and their rich virgin soil
| iIh the stony, stunpy acres through
which the New England farmer has TO
toll for years and years, ii seems Won
| derful that New England is not wholly
I deserted for the West. Already, indeed
I the comparison is having its natural eff
feet, and the best young blood of our
| oldest States is the vitaliZing force OF
our newest territories.
These Kansas farms can, moreover,
! be had for the asking. The government
/ will give farm 10 any man who Will
/ settle upon IL, the legal fOrmalities for
/ receiving the lana COSTING hDOuI ulIeeu
! dollars. Other lands can be purchased
I for five or six dollars an acre, though
| on the line of the railway il costs more.
| Lots in the towns which have SO plenti-
| fully sprung up along this railroad
/ cost In proportion to the size OF the
town, or the advantages of their loca-
tion.
III.
| These new towns are among the real
/ wonders OF the world. Ellsworth, for
| instance, some two hundred odd miles
| from the Missouri river, has in two
months been built on a hitherto unin-
habited plain, has reached a popula-
ton of one thousand five hundred
souls; has been depopulated by cholera,
has again been filled up, and can boast
OF its murders, its gamblers and its
drunkards as much as any old settled
town of the East. The necessities of
| the men working on the railroad suffice
in themselves TO build up dourishing
village or ''city," as 1t Is called out
here; and though, as the railroad pro-
crosses at the rate of a mile a day,
these towns gradually, 1t were, drift
backward too far to answer their origi-
nal purpose, they do not die away al
together, AFTER a short period of reac.
ton begin a career of steady and
healthy growth and improvement
They are, OF course, but, ,cheaply built
u tnVns. or rather the materials of which