Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1878-08-07
NOTES oFsrRAveL.
KANSAS Cry, Aug. l, 1878

KANSAS CITY, Aug. l, 1878.
ED. COURIER 1T is NEARLY eleven
years since we last registered at this
place, and while we are here on q
flying visit!wc take the opportunity
to send you few notes of travel.
Our route here has been over the
popular e., B. & Q. road vii. Creston,
Hopkins and st. Joseph, the popular
ity of which is proved by the number
and elegance of the coaches and their
being filled with emigrant tourists
and commercial men. Close connec-
ton is made with trains on other
roads leading west into Kansas, and
no valuable time is wasted in going
from point to point. This together
with the cleanliness and convenience
of the coaches, and the courtesy ex-
tended by the officers to the travel
ling public, makes it the most prefer
able route of the great Rail Roads to-
wards the mountains and the Pacific
Coast and for safety, convenience and
pleasure.
The scenery along this route is not
surpassed by any in the rolling prai-
ries of the west. and for agricultural
richness the land has no superior.
The Creston branch traverses the
One Hundred and Two valley where
there is no danger of q famine for
either man or beast.
rrbsa n,o<snv 90 &ho oonck~,r !, - oA
realized the effects Of the panic of
1873 as some other places, having had
uniform good crops. The people are
generally in fair circumstances and
making money, though there is no
extraordinary enterprise manifested.
Neither the tramp, greenback or COM
munistic nuisance prevails to any
alarming extent; the people general
ly trying to live without begging
charity OF the government, or by rob-
bing the industrious classes to dis
tribute among the indolent and dis
honest who think the world owes
them living.
Amazonla is the junction of the
Hopkins and Council Bluff branches
Of the X. c., st. Joe and e. B. &. a.,
and here we get first view Of the
muddy Missouri, and from this point
down to Kansas City at great many
places the river and the R. r. Co.
have been carrying on contest for
the occupation of the territory where
the road is built, and when the river
is on its annual juno "bust" it is quite
dangerous travelling along the line.
About three miles south of Amazonia
is q place where there was magnifi-
cent farm q few years ago, but the
river gradually washed the farm al
most entirely away, depositing 1t at
some point between that and the
Gulf of Mexico, or perhaps it is part
of that farm that Capt. Eads has ex-
pended SO much time and money in
his effort to remove and open up q
ship channel for commerce. Very
few steamboats, now ply the river as
compared with few years since and
previous to the construction of this
Railroad, and suppose the change
able nature of the channel has con-
tributed to this condition of things,
to q great extent, besides the fact that
in this fast age we must all travel at
railroad speed.
St. Joseph, a city of q, 900 Gas claim
ed) is quite business point, and q
very pleasant place socially. But for
some time Kansas City has played
the role of metropolis of the Missouri
Valley. A vast change has taken
place in its dimensions aud business
since my visit here IL years ago, and
she now controls magnificent trade
with Missouri and Kansas towns, as
we'll as those further west. She
claims $4,000 inhabitants, and / have
even heard the figures placed az high
a. $4,000, but this l deem extravagant.
She has no particular beauty of loca-
ton, but every thing about her indi
Gates enterprise, push and progress.
Her growth is similar to that of
Chicago, and she may have as
brilliant future. l under
stand since cereals have been
harvested in Kansas, her daily trad e
in wheat amounts to 100 car loads.
This is a good showing for the city
as well as the resources of the new
country further west where so many
people have gone in the past year or
two. from Iowa, to escape our eternal
wet weather. The society of north
western Missouri is greatly improved
upon its condition previous, and i'm
mediately subsequent to the war, by
the influx Of New Englanders, with
Yankee ingenuity, enterprise and CIV
ilization and with the death of the
James and Younger Brothers, it is to
be hoped the last vestige Of border
rufiianism will fade out of existence.