Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1873-03-13
DENISON, TEXAS.

An enthusiastic correspondent, writing
January 81, from this wonderful and
growing town, only few months old,
gives the following sketch of its rise and
prospects:
Cheyenne has been almost equaled, and
Duluth entirely outstripped in rapid
growth by this wonderful Texas town
and in solid worth and permanent pros
perity, those cities of magical existence
are not to be compared to the prospective
metropolis of this fertile country.
On the 23d day of September last, Col.
L. w. Shepherd and Charles W. Nelson,
Esq, agents of the Denison Town Com
pany, first exposed to sale town lots in the
infant city. At that early day there was
not railroad within forty miles of the
with timber, was covered with grass knee
high; and the number OF purchasers did
not exceed one hundred. About the first
day of October, the first house was start
ed on Main street, and to day that prairie
has upon it city of seven hundred
houses, and three thousand inhabitants
not a transient and fiuctuating population,
but steady, industrious, solid men, who
came here to fix their permanent homes.
The rapid growth and wonderful pros
perity of Denison can be readily account
ed for, and its future grandness can be
safely predicted. Take the map and look
ever the vast area of country lying be-
tween Kansas City and Galveston; you
cannot find thereon city Of much great
er magnitude or importance; then ex-
anime the character of that great country
and its abundant and varied crops; con-
slider the large tide of immigration pour
ing into it; trace up the courses of the
great arteries of trade, the railway lines
of that vast territory, and, finding them
centering at Denison, the heart of that
country, you have the solution.
Tor two hundred miles north, south,
east and west, or in round numbers,
5000 square miles Of country, OF which
Denison is the center, there is soil as
fertile as any in America, and capable of
growing any kind of products known to
the temperate and semi tropical climates.
1t yields bale of cotton, forty bushels Of
corn, or thirty bushels of wheat to the
acre; all other cereals thrive, and fruits
and vegetables of every variety which
America produces, grow to the greatest
perfection. In addition to these resources,
within the same scope, are found iron,
copper, coal, silver and many other valu
able metals; and these fertile prairies,
with their rich, nutritious grasses,
are the finest in the world 70.
stock of every kind. Of course
there were towns, county sites and other,
within the limits above described, before
the advent of the railways; but none of
any great enterprise; no onetown leading
all the rest; not one of them commanding
the trade of the others.
All interested in any way in the pros
poets of the country, have been regarding
intently the movements of the Railroads,
well knowing that their concentration at
any one point would make that point a
city. Having in view the building of
such city, the Missouri, Kansas and
Texas, and the Houston and Texas Cen
trail Railway Companies purchased the
tract of land, whereon the town of Deni-
son now stands, and laid it off and sold it
with the results already given. Denison
is the terminus of the main lines of both
Railways, and the diverging point of
three branches of the former road, one of
which goes southeast by Tyler to the
Sabine Pass, another southwest by Aus
tin and San Antonio to Camargo and,
ultimately, it is said, to the City of Mexi-
CO, and the third goes up the rich coun-
ties bordering on Red River to Wichita,
which will make five lines of Railway to
this point. There is prospect, too, OF