The Andrew County Republican. [volume] (Savannah, Mo.) 1871-1876, 1872-04-26
TIE PLATTE PURCHASE.

Our able and efficient Representative
in the National Congress, ina speech deliv-
cred on Friday the 9th inst. advocating the
erection of Government buildings at st.
Joseph, INDUCED in the following remarks
descriptive and eulogistic of st. Joseph
and Northwest Missouri:
But YOU ask why should an %appropri.
alton of this kind be made to st. Joseph?
Listen and | will tell you. Scarcely
more than thirty years ago there might
have been seen passing up the Missouri
river from St. Louis, then but a village
comparatively. a gentleman of keen per-
c~eption, of great foresight, and OF gcner-
one impulses; n man who desired to Ia
Dor for mankind rather than himself /;
one of those bright ornaments of our race
whose whole heart and soul was engaged
in the grand object Of benefting his fell
lows. He had Travelled much. lie was
familiar with the whole western country.
He had seen the Missouri far up to the
mountains, even to its very soucre He
had followed the banks of the mighty
Mississippi from its delta to where it ter
minated in an insignificant lake. He
had been all over what is now the great
| States Of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Mich
igan, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska and
Missouri. He had seen the flags of
France and Spain disappear from that
portion of our continent which was des-
tined to be ours, and he rejoiced at it.
The promptings of his great heart i'm
PEELED him to the idea that it was his du-
ty to assist in the development of the
great West. So, after trading with the
Indians for some years, he, like the pa
triarchs of old, determined, TO build a
city, and thus rear an enduring monu-
ment to his memory. He visited many
places to select a suitable site. Among
others the place where the city of Chica-
go now stands, and never was his keen per
ception satisfied until his practical eye
rested on the fertile soil, the beautiful
prairies, the fine timber lands, and the
magnificent w~ater-courses of north-wes.
tern Missouri. There he beheld a coun
try now called 1.-THE Platte purchase
which thirty five years ago was the home
fthe Indian and buffalo, but which is
now covered with beautiful farms, pros
porous towns, thriving villages, and great
and growing cities, and the richness OF
the soil of which excels the far-famed
valley of the Nile. Here he at Once saw
that God and nature marked out o place
for a great city. Here he built a city
Need | tell any western man that | al
lude to that hardy pioneer and grand old
patriarch Of the West, Joseph Roubi.
deaux? Need | say to any man who has
ever been in the great State of Missouri
that the city whose foundations were laid
by him in the one bearing his name, the
queen city of the Missouri valley-St.
Joseph? The old man has been gather
ed to his fathers, but he has left a mon
ument as enduring as time and eternal as
the everlasting hills-a monument in the
shape of the bright, beautiful, prosper
Gus and energetic city Of st. Joseph, with
her twenty-five thousand people, who for
energy, enterprise, intelligence, and de-
termination to win in the mighty struggle
Oflife, cannot be cxcelled anywhere on
this continent-citizens who have ever
been ready to put their shoulders to the
wheel of fortune and push it forward.
This city, from the time its first foun-
dation-stonc was laid by the hardy old
frontiersman to the present hour. has
constantly gone onward and upward.
She was struck by the thundcrboit of
war, but the zeal and energy of her cit
liens were unflagging. While her young
men went forth to battle in defense Of
our nation, her old men were laying plans
for q grand strike forward in the race for
supremacy in the central Missouri valley.
To-day We behold her the second city in
point of wealth and enterprise in the