The Dickinson press., 1885-01-10
BEYOND THE MISSOURI.
A Visit to the New Settlements in
Western Dakota.

A Visit to the New Settlements in
Western Dakota.
GLADSTONE, DAKOTA, Nov. IA, 1884.
This settlement, like that at New
Salem, of which 1 wrote in the last
issue of The Northwest, owes it's ORR
gin in the colonizing movement start.
ed at Ripon, Wisconsin, three years
ago by j. S. Let's, A. E. Bovay, ]. j.
Luck and others. Gladstone was
first called 1.-the Christian Colony"
and an effort made to give it a spec.
ial moral and religious cast, but in
time no distinction was made be-
tween believers and non.believers in
accepting members, and the popula.
tion was made up of the diverse ele.
ments that usually constitute new
| Western communities. An attempt
to prevent the selling of Intoxicating
drinks within the town limits was
soon abandoned, and single saloon
now furnishes beer in a quiet way to
such of the citizens as thirst after
some beverage stronger than coffee.
The past efforts to put the colony on
a high moral level were not fruitless,
however, for an excellent, orderly,
intelligent class of citizens have been
attracted to it.
The town is prettily situated on a
plateau just above the Valley of the
Heart, one hundred miles west of the
Missouri. 1t dates from the spring
of 1883. like all the small towns in
this region, except Sims, where there
was a coal-mining village at an earli
er day, and Dickinson, where a mere
beginning was made in 1882, by the
establishm ent of railroad shops and
the opening of single farm. The
first members of the colony associa
tion paid twenty dollars each, and in
case they settled in the town or sur
rounding country, received deeds tc
two town lots If they did not emf
CRATE they got one lot apiece. Hall
the lots in the town are owned by the
railroad company. The colonists
mainly came from northern Illinois
southern Minnesota and Iowa. In ali
there are now about one hundred and
fifty families in the village and the
tributary country, representing about
four hundred souls. The village ha.
general merchandise store, a hard
ware and drug store, grocery, {
hotel, clothing store and tailor shop
school house, two church societies
Congregationalist and Methodist, nei
ther of which has yet erected a
church edifice. A grist mill is soor
to be erected. the foundation bein;
already laid. There is a brickyar,
, which makes all colors of bricks
from white to cherry red. One o
the colonists is a lawyer, but h
spends his time in farming, the set
tiers being too busy to quarrel will
, each other. No doctor has come yet
$ Everybody enjoys excellent health
: Under the village is four.foot STRAIT;
' of coal. The citizens help them
l selves, or, if too busy to do their owl
2 mining, pay one dollar and a half
+ ton for the coal delivered at thei
i, houses. A seam lately opened abou
a mile from the place, shows streak
| of resin, and burns with such n great
heat that it promises to be specially
t valuable for locomotive fuel. Il
these Ignite coal measures the form
p of limbs of trees is often plainl
I seen, and the grain of the wood fror
}. which they were made is everywher
visible.
: 1t is singular region, this O
i Western Dakota. Once it was co,
J. cred with great forsest which wa
charred and steamed and pressed ur
der earth and rock to make the lie
mite coal. Some of the trees seem t
have escaped this process and to hav
$ been later engulfed in a sea of alkali
0 borax and other minerals which pet
rified them. 1 saw huge petrite
stumps standing in the current of til
, Heart river, and on all the slopes O
the bluffs l could pick up small petr
!, factions and abundance of sea shell:
In the river bed and where the cart
of the banks had been washed, ! gail
cred sticks of antimolW ore two incl
: es thick and from six to eightee
=. inches long. Iron ore exists, but tn
beds have not been explored. Th
. tops of the hills are capped with
porous yellow sandstone lying
II large detached blocks. In place
there is Il good deal of metamorphi
rock Oh the surface of the loan ca
n rying fossils. The settlement
e more than two degrees west of tn;
t. old bugbear of the Tooth meridia
e beyond which the army officers use
o to say agriculture was not practicab
" without irrigation, yet all the crol
st that grow in northern Illinois tiouris
u here. From the statements of man
10 of the farmers whom l have met
l. the village and in drive through tt
F.