Weekly Chillicothe crisis. (Chillicothe, Livingston Co., Mo.) 1878-19??, 1882-02-16
Railroads. Past and Present.

was thirty years ago, we can imagine
what it would still have been but for
HE railroads which have been built
across it in all directions. Thirty
years ago the population of the North
west was clustered around the lake
ports and on the margins OF the rivers.
The scattering settlers in the interior
lived IN the poorest primitive manner.
II they raised a little surplus in the
way OF crops, the cost of getting it to
market exceeded its total value. A
iarmer living in Jefferson or Dane
county would take from two to four
days to get wagon load of wheat, of
~ bushels, or 1900 pounds, to Mil.
Waukee, and half that length of time
% return to his home, and his ex-
penscs on the road both ways, and
while transacting the little business
involved in its sale, left him but little
II nothing out Of the price for which
he sold his wheat. The lakes, which
were the only outlet for the produce
vi the west, were closed live months
IN a year, and during that time there
was literally no market at all for
wheat Every pursuit of industry and
trade sympathised with the depression
in agriculture. The merchant and the
mechanic were no better off than the
farmer, for, rs the people had but lit
Tie to buy with, the manufacturers and
dealers could sell but little, and there
was no growth or prosperity in ANY
department of labor or commerce.
This was not the case in Wisconsin
alone. 1t was so everywhere. A
farmer who lived five miles from
sea.pOrt at the east, was no better off
han one in the middle Of Wisconsin
or Iowa, for his produce had to be-
hauled by wagon roads to market,
ard the cost Of trans sp0rtation Cquallei
the price for which it could be sold.
Throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indi-
ana and Illinois, farming on Il laIgA
and profitable scale was impossible,
because 4 farmer could raise nothing
hat he coH!d sell at price exceeding
the cost of getting it to market.
Travel from place to place was a
wreched experience, 1t took md
iOrty Of conlressmen from three days
To two weeks to reach Washington
from their homes. Members of the
legislature We're from two days to a
week in reaching Madison. 1t is but
Il few years ago since a member of the
Assembly, Mr.. Whittlesey, of Bay
field, tramped on snow shoes, two
hundred miles to reach the Capital of
Wisconsin, and his picture as he ap-
peared in his travelling outfit ia now
in the State Historical rooms at Madi-
son. SIX cents mile was the lowest
rate at which passengers were con-
yeyed hy stage.cOach, and rates by the
natural water routes were in proper
ton. lla business man was called to
New York once II year. it took him a
month or more to 60 and come, and
give few days to business. Rela.
tiyes and friends in parts of the cOun-
try distant from each other We're as
absolutely separated as people now are
on opposite sides Of the world. A
man living in San Francisco, can visit
New York rs easily as one could liv-
ing in pIttsburg thirty years ago; and
every species of personal and CONNER
cial communication was then proper.
tiouately inconvenicnt, slow, tOilsome
and expensive.
No Upse Of years. no process of
time or change, no influences of growth
or culture, would have changed this
condition Of things, without means
for rapid transportation from one part
of the country to another. The coun'
try would have become very thickly
settled near the lakes and rivers and
by the artificial water.cour5es; but the
vast interiors, the rich forests, the
broad prairies, the magnificent inter
wales would have had but a slightly
increased population during this era,
and it would always have been rude
population badly Loused, poorly
schoogd, roughly clad, with few Of the
comforts of life aside from the food
produced on the soil, like the frontiers
men and bOrdeers whom We know in
tradition and romance. The land
twenty miles away from the steam
boat landings would never have been
worth much more than the original
government price, certainly not to eX-
ceed s. to 40 an acre. There would
have been but little or no wealth in
houses, barns and farms, and in stock
and grain; no or but few school hous-
es and churches; but few and scatter
ing remote villages, and the nation
would have been poor, provincial, in
itspnpilage and adolescence.
The railroads have wrought the revo-
iution which has been accomplished
before our eyes. Half the cost in mon
ey in travel, and seven-eighths of the
time are saved, in effect lengthening
many.fold the duration and increasing
the capacities of life. The products
of the farm are now worth as much
at the farmers door as they previously
were after being hauled long distance
by his teams. Land in Dodge county
is worth from forty to seventy.live dol
lars an acre, which, without railroads,
never would have been worth TO exceed
ten dollars an acre. A thrifty farmer
can become rich in a few years by the
sale of the surplus of his farm, which,
but for railroads, he could not sell at
al. The handsome farms, the fine
school,houses, the elaborate churches,
the comfortable dwellings, the thickly
planted villages of Wisconsin and the
whole Northwest, are the direct result
of the railroads, which have made ev-
cry country accessible and convenient
fJr settlement. There are 32,00O,0OO
acres of land in Wisconsin, which,
taken IS a whole, without railroads,
would be scarcely worth more than
the government price per acre, or, say
40,0O0,000. This land is assessed fOr
taxatien at $500,000,000, which is less
,han half its actual value, and it might
almost be said that every dollar of ad'
d,ticnal value above the government
/, price has been placed upon it by the
railroads which carry its products Of
grain, stock, lumber and manufacture
to distant markets which they nevel
would have reached but for the iIor
o highway.