Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-07-15
FOUR YEARS.
The Progress of st. Paul During that Pc
riOd-NOtes of Visitor Abroad Upon
His Return.

riod-Notes of Visitor Abroad Upon
| His Return.
Mr.. W. B. Wilcockson, former member of
the GLOBE editorial staff, has just returned from
a four years absence. At the urgent request of
the GLOBE he has kindly favored us with the
following very entertaining sketch of the ap-
pearance of St. Paul to-day as compared with
four years sgo.-ED. GLOBE.
Four years! only four little short years
mere jot, little, mollicule of second
In the life history of a city, but how grand,
how stupendous the strides made in that
| atom of time by st. Paul. It will be four
years the coming fall when the writer left
this city for England, thinking then that
he was leaving for all time the splendid
Northwest and her young and f1ourishing
queen. While being in happy content
ment among his friends and relations, he
heard from time to time of the veal and
woe of the city which had almost become
to him, from six years residence,
dearer than his own native
shore. Sometimes the news would
be of calamity and misfortune and still
oftener it would tell of prosperity and
rapid growth. The flames had devoured
the colossal dry goods repository of Auer-
bach, Finch and Culbertson, the papers
said, but the papers added that the in
domitable firm had hastily thrown together
a still more colossal ''wigwam." The same
great insatiate destroyer licked up the but
recently enlarged and improved capitol
only stimulated the people to build
larger and handsomer one. This retail
firm had developed into wholesale and
that wholesale house had grown so as to
make new and enlarged premises neces-
sary. Blocks were being built here and
whole tracts of vacant lots were being COW
cred there with habitations. And at
length after the lapse of four years, four
short years of contented home-dwelling,
the writer became impatient to realize the
great changes and rapid strides
that st. Paul was reported to
have made and accordingly this
spring he again babe good bye to
home and home associates to visit again
the great northwest. Asked to give the
people an idea of how st. Paul struck him
after four years absence, through the med
ium of the GLOBE he resolves to do so.
Readers of the GLOBE of four years stand
ing may remember the writer as a plain
spoken man, not given to exaggeration nor
to strong and extravaganza language. His
diction is, as the reader knows, simple, and
devoid of all adjectival verbiage not neces-
sary to convey complete picture of that
which it is intended to portray. 1t is ne
cessary to interpolate this remark in case
that the exigencies of the present task
render it necessary to use such expressions
as may seem, perhaps, somewhat border
ing upon the extravaganza. The first thing,
of course, which struck the writer, as it
must strike all visitors, was the handsome,
commodious and extremely convenient
depot. There are larger ones, of course,
both in other cities of the States and in Can
ada, but it is doubtful if there be one, even
in the States, which has a finer effect
from the entrance than this union depot
of St.Paul-itis quite certain there is none
in Canada to be compared to it, at least
IN the opinion Of the writer, who has Just
visited across the border. To point out
| the excellencies of the building would in
volve the consumption of too much space,
! but anyone doubling this assertion should
stand for moment at the entrance on
Sibley street, glance to the right and left,
and directly in front of him, taking in the
| splendid symmetry of the arches and the
rich coloring, and then let him do the
sama thing at all depots he may visit, and
the reputation Of the writer for veracity
upon it, he will give the palm to the union
depot of st. Paul.
But-another paragraph is begun be-
cause the writer has to take breath, the
task before him is so great-but in getting
outside the depot and fairly into Sibley
street, the four years-absent visitor was
completely bewildered, and it takes con-
! siderable to bewilder GLOBE man, or an
/ ex-GLOBE man. It could not possibly be
| st. Paul. There must be some mistake; he
had taken the wrong car,or he had neglect
ed to change at some point en- route. But
then, if it we're not st. Paul, where
was it? Not Minneapolis. No.!
grown as she might have been
she could present no such scene as this.
He could not have been taken back to Mil
waukee or Chicago for neither of these
two cities, and for the matter of that no
other city on the continent introduces its
visitors Immediately from the cars to such
a grand array of business palaces, every
one of which, from the gigantic edifce in
which the P H. Kelly Mercantile company
are established, through the long extent of
Sibley to Fourth and Fifth streets, has
sprung into existance within four years.
Reaching Third the visitor glanced up and
down and stood for time and recalled
the lower Third street of four years ago.
But what change! The transforma ton
in fairy spectacular drama is not more
surprising to the childish mind than was
this to the old time st. Paulite fresh from
| the country of slow progress, but solid
| stability. Many of the names noted were
fresh, but many of them were firms which
four years ago existed, but were content
with less pretentious bnild-
! ings-frms which then were
housed in two and three story
stores, business cottages as it were, were
now cramped in magnificent palaces of
five and six stories displaying architec-
tural beauty of no mean order. What
prophet would have had the temerity to
have predicted that the firm of Lindeke &
Co., which four years ago was located in a
small considered large at that time) store
| n1L.-