Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1886-04-24
HOW SHE SPREADS
Wichita the Wonderful and the
Metropolis
To Wax, to Get Ahead, to Spread and
to Increase, Her Destiny.

The above text We have preached from
before, but It keeps ever recurring and is
inexhausible. How she spreads, Wichita,
We mean. The town is like no other in the
state in its character, style OF make up.
There is that about its perspective which
strikes every new conner with the notion Of
'bignese." Like o great lubberly. over
grown awkward boy, there is nothing nm
ished about it, and, like such an immature
creature, the elements of more room" and
''hunger" are her uppermost wantAnd per-
manent need. Kansas has her nice county
towns, her pretty little inland and river cit
ies, places over which hover m air Of COM
pleteness, and where just so many blocks are
dedicated to businesr. with the very next
street or blocks given up to quiet homes,
but Kansas has only one wichita, over
which hangs an entirely different air, An air
of spread, an air of breadth, an air of incipi-
ent greatness, an air of unlimited dimensions
and awkward vigor that at once suggests
q far-off but powerful maturity. She
spreads. There has always been . seeming
of unmeasured and Unreasonable possible
tiles about the very looks Of the town. Her
spirit has ever been that of spread rather
than of concentration. When q business
man or professional man goes out half q
mile from either of the so-called ambitious
centers and opens up chop or an office, no.
body comments or lets on but that it is just
the thing to do, to all appearances oil SEEM
ingiy taking it for granted that it will ali be
business in the end anyhow. When a man
hires surveyor and jumps into wagon
and drives out five miles and lays out an
other addition to Wichita, nobody seems
surprised to see everybody loading up and
going out next day to buy up the lots Of
such new addition. When the
EAGLE, but q few months since, ap-
peared as nine-column daily, ad-
vocating the possibility Of smashing
the Missouri river railway pool and tolling
the trunk lines all down to Wichita and thus
making this the distributing point Of the
great southwest instead Of Kansas City, in
the state of Missouri, it was outside peoples,
statesmen snd papers that set up laugh,
not Wichita. Wichita took the whole
scheme in the most natural fashion. only
saying "of course" What seemed impu-
dence to some, that a town q dozen years
old should get Z. S. district court and
then send down to Washington and secure
an appropriation for a national building
before we had even built town calaboose,
surprised everybody but Wichita herself
Nothing in the wsy of an undertaking OF
augmentation ever embarrassed or surprised
Wichita. To wax, 10 get ahead, to sprou,
and to increase seems to nave been the caul
OF the birth of the metropolis of the Nile
of America. No stranger, especially nc
observant visitor, ever came to Wichita who
did not 60 away impressed with the con-
vic,ion that here had been, somehow or other
laid the foundations ola great and prosperous
city. How she spreads. Hundreds Of resi-
dence and scores of business houses are un'
der contract to be built during the present
year OF grace 1886, and hundreds of thous'
ands of capital to be invested in her expand
ing jobbing trade. How she spreads. Thret
extensions of the street railway arc going
down. New England capitalists and middle
state manufacturers are here daily looking
for chances to invest and for plants for ma
chinery and Industrious. How she spreads
Railway magnaies are seeking opportunities
to enter our city with their lines, asking the
condemnation of streets all the while vainly
trying to disguise the fact that the sooner
they get here the better it will be for theil
interests. How she spreads and how She
will for all time spread,