Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1884-01-24

That Mysterious Railroad Again.
Progress OF the New Ronte Along the Wisconsin
Shore or the Mississippi.
Musings.

rrostess vi the new honte Along the WISCONSIN
| Shore OF the Mississippi. Pheasant
Musings.
EDITOR HERALD.-The great enter
prise that is now being pushed forward
as rapidly as men, money and brain
can do it, is, and has been for several
months, ito the Jews stumbling block
and to the Gentiles foolishness.n But
Jew and Gentle now admit it is going
to be built
So suddenly has the fact forced
itself upon the public mind that
this great and important thoroughfare
was not only contemplated but actually
commenced in process of construction,
that IT not only surprised but dazed
everybody at the suddenness and au-
dacity of the thing. 1t came like a
western cyclone ON clear day, and
in the rapidity with which the prelimin-
airy work is being executed, the one
forms as great an enigma as the other
as to its origin, cause and propelling
force. For two months or nearly so,
regardless of intense cold and the inter-
vention of holidays an able corps of sur
veyors and engineers at an expense of
fifty dollars per day and over, have
been constantly engaged locating the
route and establishing the grade on that
part of the line in Grant county, start
ing at the bridge in Dunlieth, about the
1st of December, they are now nearing
Cassrille, distance of over twenty
four miles, accomplishing something
over mile of lineal work i'll two days
time. Their instructions are to estab-
fish line void of curves and grade as
near level as the convex surface of the
earth will admit, running tangents from
point to point of projecting bluffs, re-
CARELESS of the cost of cutting and
filling, showing that the company
mean to have q ''star route" that can
be run with certainty, celebrity and
salty. "What company is itp" again
you enquire for the 49th time, '.that is
so flush of money and able to do these
things?" Never mind that. 1t is go
ing to be built-it is building even now
and before the comet gets around the
sun, ten thousand men with pick and
shovel, will be at work between the
Illinois state line and st. Paul, heaving
up the embellishments and cutting down
the ridges, and in less time than six
months the loud whistle of the con-
struction trains will make glad the be
nighted towns along the east bank of
| the Mississippi. Then, will Potosi,
Cassville, Glen Haven. Wyalusing and
the little burgs beyond the ''Wiscons"
| change their vernacular and lift up
their heads among the proudest, and
invite their friends and kindred from
the interior to come and see them, and
come often. When this takes place,
the pretty little villages of Lancaster,
Platteville, Boscobel, Bloomington
yclept cities will afford pleasant sum-
mer resorts where the business men of
| Potosi, Cassville and Glen Haven can
occasionally go and relax themselves
after the heat and burthens of the busy
season is over and where families can
spend few weeks away from the tur-
MOL and hustle of the river cities very
pleasantly. Isaac Hodges, Major Roun-
tree and Hammer Robins will still re-
main in Platteville and give it cast of
veneration and responsibility while the
State Normal School sustained and
nourished by the State University funda
will continue to flourish and give the
inhabitants sort of quasi living in
boarding the students. Lancaster will
live mainly in its Court House and In
sane Asylum with an annual increase
poor houses which will afford shelter to
the families of those who have invested
too larSely in its future option;" yet
while Judge Mills, McGonigsl, Dr.
Eaton and few other of its old promi-
nent citizens continue to live it will
still retain its gloss of responsibility and
character. But the glory of Hyde's Hall
and its new hotels, its mag9ified visions
of future wealth and greatness, will all
pass under an impenetrable shadow,
and be but pleasant memory of ''what
might have been," had not the Great
Mississippi Valley East Side River Road
been opened from Manitoba to New Or
leans, from the Pacific slopes and the
golden wheat fields and luxuriant cattle
pastures of the North and West to the
all-consaming markets of the East and
South. This is the boom that struck
our river towns and elated our hearts,
last fall, and is still on the swell, and
keeps our feelings buoyant, and the
sooner our inland neighbors accept the
inevitable and trim their sails to receive
the benefits of this boom the wiser and
better it will be for them. January
1886, not placing it sooner, will see this
East Side River Road completed from
its northern to its southern terminus.
and rapid and regular daily trains pass
ing over its entire length, and before the
autumn leaves fall again Potosi (you
} have heard of Potosi) will be in posses
sion of railroad communication with
the world at large, and no inferior rival
will she be then in the cattle and HOG
market, and benighted Cassville ere an.
other year will have gas lamps along
, her streets and electric lights shining,
J with bands of music in her beer Gar.
dens on her hill-tops. The little gulcI
that opens out on the banks of the river
at point called Glen Haven and the
, plateau farther up, celebrated for Jared
/ Warmers Elephant Mound, called Wv.
abusing, it does not yet appear in horo
scope what they will be. Yet, while Lu
. Their Bashford remains in the one anC
Robert Glenn and n. w. Kendall in the
: other, it is reasonable to suppose the,
will not retrograde. and if they do moi
, attain the distinction of their brothe,
5 cities below they will rise to some emf
nence and largely increase their impor
| -.