Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1886-05-25
WHAT IT MEANS.
Wichita, Sedgwick County and
the Bond Propositions.

A Few Uncontrovertable Facts Which
the Property Holders of This
County and City Might do
Well to Consider.
It will hardly he denied that the
construction of three more lines of
railway from the Missouri river to
Wichita, to and through Sedgwick
county, can tail to make Wichita the
most important commercial and man
ufacturing city west of the Missouri,
and Sedgwick county the most popu-
lous and wealthy county in the state
of Kansas. The construction of these
roads by the great interests back Of
them, means Missouri river rates to
Wichita, means wholesaling in every
possible branch at Wichita, means also
that every character of raw material,
including also fuel and machinery,
will be laid down at Wichita at such
rates as will enable manufacturers to
successfully and probably compete
with the manufacturers of eastern To-
calities.
That is one side of the beneficial re-
cults which are just as sure as any
thing that can be encompassed by
human experience and reason, that
these roads will bring.
The completion of these additional
trunk lines into Wichita means Mis-
souri, river, and most probably Mis-
sissippi river market prices at Wich-
ita for every conceivable commodity
produced by the farmers of Sedgwick
county-means the minimum rate en-
q long haul of through trains for every
bushel, every pound, every dozen of
whatever their lands or pens can pro-
duce.
That is another side of the direct
beneficial results which must newt
ably follow the voting of this aid and
the construction of these roads.
A combination of these results, the
cheap rates ia and the low competitive
rates out, means simply distributive
and supply market ct Wichita, neans,
in other words, a rich and powerful
city, with many and varied Interests
and great many people, dependent
upon its maaufactures-whic always
follow in the footsteps Of trade-its
packing -hoUses ana cattle pens, its
mills and elevators, lis banking aud
other monetary institutions and in
terests which are in their turn neces-
eary auxilliaries. a big city, then,
means consumption of products direct
from first hands, in the plain Saxon,
home market.
These are the direct benefits only,
but for we who are here now. for we
who now own the lands and property
of this city and county, they are not
the most important benefits.
= The mere prospect or chance of OBJ
tanning these roads has brought
many hundreds of thousands of dol
lars into this city which have been in
vested or converted into property and
which have gone into the hands of
our people as SO much added to their
working capital and as SO much added
to the taxable valuation of the city
and county, enhancing the value of
every piece of realty within ten miles
of the city, and over doubling the tax
able valuation of The city in single
year. The men who have invested
this money were convinced first, not
only, that the bonds would be voted
but that all the results which we have
enumerated would follow. Those
shrewd capitalists understand that the
building of these roads to Wichita at
once puts her to the front as the sup
ply point for district of country sec
ond to no district for magnitude in the
west or east: that with Missouri river
markets and Missouri river rates at
Wichita that not only will all western
Kansas find il TO their interest
to come here but will become
ut once tributary to her trade,
including the western two-thiris of
the Indian Territory whose trade over
extensinns of the very roads that we
are now voting on, Will become trib-
utary to Wichita in spite of all the
Missouri river towns combined And
these men know that while Wichita
returned less than two and half mill
lions Of taxable valuation last year
that this yesr, under the prospect of
these roads, she will return five mil |
lions, and that if they are built that
next year it will be ten millions, and |
the next twenty, and so on until she |
win practically have TO pay almost the
entire bonded Indebtedness of the
county.
What effect a city of twenty, fifty |
or hundred millions valuations viii |
Il A