The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1871-10-21
THE VITAL WANT OF SUPERIOR.

THE VITAL WANT OF SUPERIOR
A town as small as Superior is, and as
far removed from the older civilization OF
the country, is entirely worthless without
q railroad. The people who have waited
here fifteen years for the development of
the place might wait as much longer, and
see no expansion, no advance, no progress
if they did not first see a railroad terminal
ing at this point. In the present state of
the civilization, and the broad business sys-
TEN of our nation, one part of the land is so
connected by the rapid transit and trade of
the railway with another part, that all share
alike in the national prosperity. When
wheat advances in New York or San Fran
cisco, the farming communities of Wlscon-
sin, and Minnesota are Immediately and ia
vorably affected by it.
But without railways they would have
little or no benefit from the advance. They
might as well be in the interior of Mexico.
Their wheat would be drug in the home
market. SO with any products or manufac-
lures in isolated districts. Without cheap,
speedy and reliable means Of transporta-
ton to the centres of demand, they are not
worth the interest Of the money invested.
They are dead weight and a dead loss.
In old times when the whole country was
thus affected, it was not SO bad as it would
be now in the case Of out of the way places
The world must live, and it would team
wheat hundreds of miles rather than to be
without it. 1t would await the slow NOV
ing barges and scows poled against the
stream. But freight costs great deal in
such primitive modes of forwarding, and
the men of the last generation could tell us
farmer and his market, and concerning the
slow growth of fortunes and towns, that
show how lifetime may be wasted in
gathering together few thousands of men
or means, by reason of the lack of proper
transportation and easy communication be-
tween different sections A town expected
to be thirty years in gaining five thousand
inhabitants when the West was first settled,
and often man was thirty years in accu-
muating five thousand dollars. But in this
age one-tenth of the time will often suffice
for either, because the American railway
system enables the American citizen to do
his work, and carry out his plans tenfold
faster than formerly. He can now do in
five years what was wont to require long
working lifetime.
A man or town working without the help
of railways is full fifty years behind the age.
Superior has tried living without a railroad
for about one-third of fifty years, and the
results of the experiment do not Justify a
further delay in securing a connection with
the business world and business life of the
present day The place in all its interests
would advance more in one year, single
twelve month, after the commencement of
railroad construction within It's limits, than
it has advanced in all the seventeen or
eighteen years since it was first plotted and
settled. There is not man in the place
who would not improve his prospects ten
fold by the simple advantage Of having the
iron route of commerce brought to his door.
Those that can now do nothing and gain
nothing, would then have work and cash.
Those who have done well and gained a few
thousand, under all our disadvantages could
then by the same relative ability in so fine
locality as this will prove when opened
to commeIce, build up a large capital in a
very few years. Our people, one and all,
feel the full influence of these undeniable
facts, and will record themselves in due
time with scarce a single exception IN faoor
of railroad aid