Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1880-04-02
"A Trip to Southern Minnesota.

to Southern Minnesota, but cannot say
that we collected many items 81 interest
to our readers, On Friday, while in
St Paul, we called at Col. DeGraff,sl
Office, and had q talk with that gentle
man about the prospects Of the Little
Falls s. Dakota railroad. Col, Crooks
was still In the East, but had made favor
able report as to the probability of rails
ing the necessary funds. Col. DeGratf
has no doubt whatever that the funds to
build BY the road will be procured without
much trouble. 81 The road, like nearly
every. other railroad that has been built
in the West, will be built principally
with funds procured on the bonds Of the
company secured BY q mortgage Of the
road itself The property in the road as
fast as it is built, and the voting of bonds
by counties and towns along the line
furnish basis for credit, and this credit
is expected to enable the company to sell
their own bonds at par. "
Abont six inches of snow had fallen in
st. Paul the previous Wednesday night,
and had melted and made about two
inches of mud, as thin as corn meal Cruel
all over the streets and crossings, this
mud resting on the hard bottom under
meath. c..'z So = III; Es5vss54 +ss:c5:ge ot:l
In the evening we reached OWatonna,
in Steele county, seventy miles south of
st. Paul, where we took supper and
waited As minutes for the train ON the
Winona & st. Peter road. Here we saw
for the first time a copy of the Daily
Herald, published in that town. 1t was
started about three months ago, and is
the smallest newspaper we ever saw.
The size of the sheet is II by 1511s inches.
There are four pages with three columns
on each page. The length of the col
umns is 915> inches, and the news type
used is bourgeois. All the news pub
lished amounts to only 1900 ems, or
about as much as is found in one column
on the local page of the Transcript.
We arrived In Dodge Center at 9 As
in the evening, and stopped at the popu-
lar Kinney House. A light rain fell all
day Saturday, turning the mucky soil
into the most tenacious mud. Dodge
Centre is village of 1900 inhabitants,
and when the wheat crop is good very
large amount of business is done there.
Six hundred thousand bushels of wheat
were bought there from the farmers out
of the crop of1877, but the last two crops:
have been light. A stock printing COM
pany had been formed there to start and
publish a new paper, the old paper
which had been published there during
the past six years having lost its bust
ness and having recently suspended pub
LEGATION by reason of becoming iden-
tilted with the local fights and contests
that seem to rage in that community the
year around. All the leading business
men and the heaviest stock holders in
the new company wished to pro-
cure our services in taking hold of the
| project, aud at meeting held on Satur-
| day evening vote was taken as to
whether the position should be rendered
to us or to Mr.. A. FL. Lewis, a newspaper
man of Owatonna. The vote resulted in
a majority of four to one in our favor.
On Tuesday another meeting was held
to elect officers, and anumber of "strik-
ers and blowers" who were small stock
holders, not holding more than one
fifth of the stock, created disgraceful
uproar that continued until the meeting
broke up an hour afterwards, no bust
ness whatever having been transacted.
This disorder created by the lower ele-
ments of the town, was evidently intend
ed to cause US to determine to have moth
ing to do with the stock company in any
manner. 1fthis was the intention, it was
a decided success in every particular.
The efforts of the men who represented
the wealth and refinement of the town,
and who held four-fifths of the stock of
the company, to allay the disorder and
secure harmony of action, appeared to
to have no effect, and we informed them
that we would receive no further pro-
posals from the company. We met
many old acquaintance in Dodge Gen.
ter, and enjoyed our sojourn there huge
~. On Tuesday afternoon we took the
train for Owatonna, where we learned
that the daily newspaper mentioned
above had suspended publication, the
project having proved failure We
reached home Tuesday night, without