Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1888-07-22
THE CITY OF WICHITA.
THE NATURAL PANORAMA OF A
GREAT FUTURE.
Old Theories Concerning Great Cities
Exploded---New Principles
Established.

| tons upon our future Is that modern cities
are to an unprecedented extent artificial
products, the work of mems genius and
energy. Formerly nature decided where a
great city could grow up. and high civil
| izatiOn was possible only on the sea coast,
| or on the banks of great rivers. Now man
! has subJugated nature to such an extent
| that he Is, comparatively speaking, indie
| pendent of her whlm and caprice. Ii
| natural waterways fail, he may construct
artificial waterways and even without the
aid of navigation at all city may spring
up in the heart OF a continent.
Berlin, nearly the size of New York, is
in the center of great open plain on the
continent of Europe. and may be regarded
as work of art. Only by canals can nav
iron highway, the railroad. still more an
artificial product, is far more important
element in developing Berlin, which has
become an important railroad center. 1t
is the will of man which has made Berlin
more important than the seaportS Bremen
and Hamburg,
The above is magnificent Illustration
of a changed PHI Sc of nature. The
writer of this article, nearly two years
ago, gave utterance to the facts almost if
not quite verbatim as stated in the Sun
through the EAGLE of nearly two years
ago in an article in defense of the claims
that this city could become place of
several hund ed thousand souls regard
less of the absence Of navigable water
ways. l make no complaint OF the
Suns robbing any one Of credit, nor of
others appropriating my proposition
that the cities OF future crea-
ton would be largely located
in the center of food producing region
as cheap house rent, cheap food, ETC.,
would with the cheapening of rapid
transportation, constitute the carrying of
the raw materials of mines, forests,
quarries and kilns of less Importance than
the total food and raiment supplies of
great city. Chicago is living proof of
the correctness of this theory. Besides
if human society had started at the right
end of the line of progress it would have
refrigerated in going to the wrong end.
In this connection there will be some
wonderful developments in the future of
this sparsely settled west. Wichita and
this section is miracle today. So far
as complete settlement is concerned we
are in our infancy; and even that infancy
is not over twelve years duration in
reality. But says my friends on the
anxious bench, in poetic language
What say you now? What comfort have
we now?
By heaven, III have him everlastingly,
That bids me be of comfort any more.
To such impatient utterances, l will
reply with quotation from Mason and
SmOllett:
with what leaden and retarding
weight
Does expectation load the wing of time
But:
Shall not one, while Fate, like winter
frOwns,
Expect revolving bliss?"
We shall, truly; for if we trace the track
of the westward flight of empire with
its expanding millions, we shall see it
dotted with cities, all of which were one
day villages of the frontier with too little
or too much ambition. But nowhere in
all that majestic stretch of natures
greatest miracle will you find a city stu
ated in even tolerable agricult-
ural region which gained a re-
spectacle part Of that prominence and
power now possessed by Wichita, that
ever lost its grippe. And nowhere will
you find one so eligibly situated in every
respect, and so far ahead of every pos
sible competitor within two hundred
miles of magnificent territory in every
direction, but partially developed, that
did not reach metropolitan proportion.
1t has been said that Wichita was
doomed into promin nee by its citizens.
There is not a truthful man in this city
who can say that he has not been sur
prised at every stage of its development
There are those who honestly believed
that this city promised to become the
metropolis of this part of the state. They
were justified in that because in reality
it always was. The Santa Fe railway
erected Newton into rival in 1871. Yet
while the cattle were shipped there the
real business attached to that trade stuck
to Wichita. Park City tried to take !
away the county seat in NewtOn's inter !
est but it failed. 1t is notorious fact |
that every time rise IN real estate took |
place IN Wichita that it was always !
started. and sustained very largely, by |
the money of our citizens. The highest |
prices ever paid was paid by our citizens; |
and at the top of the late general boom |
in which Wichita was necessarily con- |
spicuouS participant, because it came in |
addition to rapid local de- |
velopment. our OWN citizens /
were the heaviest buyers. 1t remains /
for time to decide if they bought wisely. |
If we take the precedence of the past IN |
this and other cities for test, where !
they bought with a strict regard to
their actual ability to pay for their pur-
chase they will be amply sustained. |
Where they invoked the god of chance
in their reckless pursuit OF fortune they
will meet the same fate as if they had
bought any other property on earth I'M
der similar circumstances. IL we were
to accept the proposition that since "A"
bought piece of property and lost on it
because he had not money to meet the
mortgage when due, neither that prop
erty nor any in that city was worth the
price paid, we should estop all progress
in sales of property, since no man can
see exactly what the future will be: be-
sides we should be taking no account OF
increase OF population. 1t may DE re-
membered that lots near the Occidental
hotel sold in the seventies for $4,000 to
5000 each, and afterwards sold /
for several hundred, and again
at several thousand above these prices
very recently. Yet there has seldom
been a year in which those lots fairly
would not have brought far
interest on 5000 investment, and the
nlein OF interest and OF speculative
profits have always been sustained On
those lots, and it is reasonable TO suppose
that the natural increase OF population
Us In the belief that such viii
be the case In the mein OF the future
No loss could, therefore, fal upon any
purchaser of those lots az past prices, II
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