Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1870-09-01
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The Mississippi Legislature has granted
q liberal charter to a railroad company or l
ganized TO build a road from tEis city 20
Yieksbufg. The purpose Of enormous
land granss proposed TO be conferred on
this by Eeyee Commissioners,
and by Congressional enaetments Ia bill
for this purpose having really passed the
committees and one reading in each
House just before the adjournment OF
COngressL is not only to give a rich U
try speedy and cheap communication
with two cities, but practically, by a per-
feet maintenance of the levees, TO add an
other cotton State to. the Union, and
sold in Memphis.
Arkansas Railways.
So much has been aid Of the Memphis
and Little Rock road, and the public is so
familiar with facts affecting its fortunes,
thai we need only say tnat its completion
by the LIST of January is assured. The
Little Rock and Fort Smith railroad is
finished eighty miles out from Little
Rock, and rails will be down TO Lewis
burg in a few days. On the Little Rock,
Pine Bluff and New Orleans railroad
thirty-fve miles are graded and ready for
ties, and it is supposed trains will run
through to Pine Bluff by January LIST.
The Mississippi, Ouachita and Red river
road has over 500 laborers employed, and
about twenty miles of road bed has been
prepared for the rails, which are now on
the ground.
The Memphis and Kansas City Railroad
is a counterpart and extension of the
Memphis and Selma road. Fort Scott,
becoming an important railroad center, is
as far northwest, as Selma is southeast of
Memphis. A road connecting the two
points passes Jaeksonport, Arkansas, in
- n,fIa% Of tho rsahr uaI.au 81 WyhfFa
river, and near Springfield, in a msgnifi-
cent country in Southwestern Missouri.
From Fort Scott the road is finished to
Kansas City, on the great completed high
way between the two oceans. Wheat and
tobacco, heavy freights, constitute the
staple products of a great portion of the
country along this road. Such commOdi-
ties will seek the shortest route to the
river and the sea. Jackson county Ar
kansas, and each county penetrated in
Missouri, have subscribed to the capital
stock of the company, and 1t is not
doubted, with the aid granted by Con-
gress. that the road will be speedily built.
White river is perennially navigaole, and
when the Dad reacchs ~Jacksonport,
from Kansas City, Memphis will be forced
TO drag its slow length alOng'' to the
Mississippi, in order to prevent he'd direct
transfer of freights and travel by water to
New Orleans.
The Memphis and ST. Louis Road
is now under contract, and will be finished
within the mex year. We are advised
that five thousand men, if the weather
prove favorable, will be employed on this
work through the fall months.
Present events in Europe have rendered
financial negotiations difficult, and sus-
pended the execution of many railroad
contracts. Whether the builders of the
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road will be retarded in their operations
by these events we are not advised.
There neve was a road planned that will
promote more effectively the fortunes Of
Memphis. Like the contemplated Nicks-
burg and Memphis road, it redeems from
overflow a district of country that may
produce a quantity of cotton equal
TO one-third of the present crop of the
United States. The area of country de-
fined by the st. Francis and Mississippi
rivers, no portion of it more than seventy
miles from Memphis, would make cotton
enough, when relieved of OvertlOWs by
this road, to build certainly two such
cities as this. There is not elsewhere in
the world a climate more faultless or soil
more exuberant, and whatever the aspect
! Of the city's fortunes as affected railways
on the eastern side of the Mississippi,
there is no conceivable agency of trade
which may deprive Memphis of The
boundless undeveloped wealth to be Gre
ated and drawn into the Golfers of this
city by three railways building in Arkan-
sas and cOnverging at HOpefeld. The
one Is the first link in a direct road, vet
to be constructed, to the Pacific ocean
the second connect US with a Pacific road
already finished; the third not only gives
US direct access to st. Louis, a great city
of the continent, but lifts up a bOundless
garden from beneath the floods richer
than ever blOomed and blushed and diff
fused perfumes of roses at Pestrim or
Pr9neste.
The Future of Our Railways.
At an early period Memphis roads will
be owned by a few individuals. The ne
eessity is inevitable. Stockholders are
fewer in number each day, and when the
m%OnOpOlists have achieved their ends
they may combine to accomplish great
tasks and control trade from remote dis
tricts. The roads east should complete
others west of the Mississippi river. Until
the of Arkansas are developed
the Memphis and Charleston road may
pay six, but then, perhaps, twenty per
cent, even as the construction of the st,
Louis and Kansas City roads will still
more rapidly promote the value of prop
erty in roads east of the Mississippi
Share holders in Memphis Eastern roads
should be patient, and toll for the speedy
completion of those planned n in course
of construction west of the Mississippi.
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