Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1886-03-21
MEADE COUNTY MATTERS.

I tSTo ul tutCTcsi. ND
MEADE COUNTY MATTERS.
To the Editor OF the Daily Eagle.
The spring boom has touched
Meade Center. Strangers are coming
in rapidly and homesteaders are re-
turning to their claims.
The mayor advertised to prove up
the TOWNSHIP on April End, and after
that date the title 10 all lots can be
perfected. Meade Center is one of
the most desirable points in which 10
locate in the west. 1t has already n
population ahead of Ashland and
thousands of dollars worth of prop
erty will change hands after April I'd.
AS may be expect d there Is 4 great
deal of railroad talk; but il is hoped
that the Meade, Clark and Neutral
Strip railroad will become realized
fact. 1t is proposed branch from
Dodge City into the counties OF
Meade and Clark, with Meade
Center and Ashland as its
prospective termini for the present;
this road to be continued into No
Mans Land at some future date. The
junction could not be better located
than at Fowler City. This town has
fine population Of ambitious, intelli-
gent citizens, and is situated in the
cream of Meade county's rich agricul-
tural region. 1t has had steady i'm
provement, and its forward progress
has not been with the uncslculating
and disastrous leaps of a young eIe-
plant trying to run before he can
wslk, as exhibited by some other
mushroom towns.
That popular Institution, the Meade
deposit bank, is 30 be reOrganiZed
April lst as a state bank, with the
register of the Garden City land office
as one of the stockholders Another
bank is being started here with Mr..
Wigh;man, of Mulvhne, as It's cashier.
A dance is to be held at the opera
house 10 night in honor of ST. Pat
rIck's day. This may give strangers
the impression tat We have many
sons of Erin in our town. The truth
is the yong people of Meade Center
are so FOND of dancing that they viii
find an excuse ;or ce!ebra,-
ing every day in III, c,lendar. They
are continually searching the almanac
to find anniversaries on which to hold
dance and if IN. If In national
holidays happen On Sunday they are
doubiy ejoiced, for i gives them a
;wo.oid excuse 10 make the thing sure
bv having hons Ca The Saturday eve
preceding and the Monday following
the event they thus desire to honor.
However, 1 am told that some of the
finest dancers in the state live here.
IL cannot be doubted if practice
makes perfect"
as 20 the reported Illegal holding and
entering OF land. One party who
proved up timber claim Oh which
were growing some cookie burs in
stead OF the trees required by law,
NAV find the matter something more
serious than joke; while another in
dividual " no filed on several different
timber claims under assumed names
Will wish he had not, with the Young
man whose $500 worth of improve
ments consisted of a hole in the
ground and three acres of breaking.
An eastern gentleman of enterprise
il here investigating the "grangers'
lime or poor mans plaster" that
abounds in this county, and is consid-
cred little more than nuisance. He
believes it will be sa,eable as an article
of merchandise. 1t is unequalled as a
subititute for mortar, aud makes a
very good cheap paint. Its natural
tinls of greenish drab, palest blue, aud
a dark, aesthetic red, could not be e1-
celled by art. 1t is conjecturcd by
him that great mineral wealth will yet
be discovered. In the southern part
of the county. are found great quanti-
ties of mica. have made on my
claim a gravelcd walk by my sod
house, filled with gravel the size of
kernels of wheat, end edged with rows
of tinted pebbles pounded into the
ground, while my flower-beds (,he
flowers are imaginery as yeti, are bor-
dered with immense pieces of mica, a
foot long, which glitter in the sun like
FURNISHED silver.
The search for coal has not yet been
rewarded, but in bcggy places are
seen buckets full of an orange-colored
substance, accompanied by a greese-
like scum on the water, which the
state geciogist says is ferruginous
deposit The water tastes strongly of
iron and colors the gravel black where
i. flows F.