Omaha daily bee., 1889-04-01
AN oNfARAN ABROAD,
He Writes TO Friends an Interesting
Account of His Travels.

full particulars individually ana have at last
concluded TO send you O detailed statement OF
my trip collectively.
We went direct from Omaha to Denver
and staid there for three days. Denver Is
undergoing quite q boom. Property near
the business center sold as high as $4,000
front foot. Outside property, eight miles
from the business center, was selling for
$500 and s400 u lot, twenty-five feet front.
met Governor Cooper, of Colorado, and
had quite chat with him. He said that
while he would concede to Kansas City the
attributes of a city, he would not rank
Omaha as being better than town. He
stated that the boasted packing interests of
Omaha were nothing compared to the daily
shipments of ores from Denver. He showed
me the statistics of one days shipment, but
| on further investigation l found that ship
| ments are made every four days, and when |
called his attention to this fact he laughed
| and admitted that he was stretching things
| little. Armour & Co. are selling meats in
| Denver
We next went to Pueblo, Colo. This place
| is spread all over the sand hills, and is under
| going boom similar to Denver. We passed
| from here direct to Salt Lake City, over the
| Denver & Rio Grande railroad.
AT q town called Peterson, about-ifty
| miles beyond Pueblo, oil has recently been
| discovered, and the entire valley was one
mass of scaffolding and drilling parapher-
MALTA and OIL tanks, and of course the entire
| country is very much excited
Arrived at Salt Lake City we met an
| acquaintance of ours who had plated an ad-
dition to the city, and of course we OBJ
tanned very easily a free ride all over. He
showed us property about SIX miles from the
business center which he was trying TO dis
| pose of at $50 per front foot. Business
property in Salt Lake City is valued at s., 800
per front foot, although Salt Lake has only
| lot nf nbpttt iph mt IN
Mormons seem to be concentrating their ef-
forts towards holding absolute control of
Salt Lake City. They released their grip on
Ogden in the recent election, but maintained
the control of municipal affairs at Salt Lake
City. They own all street franchises and
privileges, and hold all the important offices
at this point. The city has scarcely
any public improvements Of any kind-not
even sidewalks. We went through the Nor
mon temple, witch is certainly monument
| of folly in every sense of the word. 1t is a
massive structure, built of solid granite,
walls in some places thirteen feet thick.
| They have spent up to the present time about
Sl30O0O00 in its erection and the roof has not
, yet been placed on the building. We visited
| the Tabernacle, which is large egg-shaped
building, capable of seating 10000 people.
Its acoustic properties are wonderful A
person seated at one end of the building can
| easily hear pin drop al the other end.
We went to Ogden and found business
property there valued as high as 81, 800 per
|
business center at 1000 per acre. All the
available property in that locality has been
bought up by syndicate, at the head OF
which Is Aleck Swan, the defunct cattle
| king.
We saw queer character at this poiut--an
old mormon who for twenty years has worn
no other garment than loose coffee sack
He wears ashes on his head, and is un
cloth and ashes. He goes down to the river
every morning-summer and winter-to take
bath. He takes an AK along to break the
ice when occasion requires it,
Reached San Francisco few days after
and took the next train for San Jose. Spent
several days with my relatives and returned
to San Francisco accompanied by my father
in-law.
Messrs Albright, my pater familias-ln-le>
and myself then proceeded direct to Los
Angeles. Here we found every evidence Of
shattered boom. Nothing is doing there o
any consequence; money openly loaned or
third the valuation. The city is plated in
every direction for great many miles. We
met Will Reddick, Charley Reddick, MIR
| John l, Reddick and Mrs. Will ReddIck; also
| quite a number of other Omaha people. Red
dick & Reddick is the name of the law firm
| in the handsome new Reddick block which
has Just been erected.
We found here, as at every point great
| tendency to gouge eastern suckers. We
hired an open Surrey; acted as driver and
| we rode all over the city for about an houi
and half, and found our bill 50. We bought
| dozen oranges and paid 81 for them; go,
| shaved ana paid 25 cents apiece. Presume
our looks gave us away, as natives get much
| reduced rates on these items.
Went direct from this point to San Diego
and stopped at the Coronado hotel, which is
very beautiful spot and the beach is very
| pretty still no bathing to any extent /!
= INDUCED in here. They have species o
ray fish called the sting ray, which burrows
81 Rtna II
| size from an ordinary watch crystal to
wash tub, and has a tail about one ant
a half times as long as the width of hi:
, body. This tail is armed with barb, ant
the body of this fish will receive yer.
severe wound from the barbed tail. which /
, swings with as much dexterity as an ee
phant would his trunk. The wound is yer.
| dangerous and can easily prove fatal, so yol
may imagine that bathing at this point is no
often lndulged in, save in deep water.
We took sail fifteen miles out ON tn
ocean, fished all the way back but caugh
i, boat full of fish, and a Spaniard similarl
supplied, who followed US for some distance
trying to persuade us TO buy their fish in or
der to show our friends how lucky we ha
been. We saw for the first time on this trip
bell buoy and a whistling buoy, also innu
merable porposes
8 We took q trip to Tia Juana, a Mexica
frontier town, to see the excitement inciden
We found the entire country filled with bur
ros, wagons, mining equipments and miners
all preparing to go to the gold fields, an
having their passports examined by Mexican
5 officials. l met several Omaha peopl
thus equipped and they begged IN
not to give them away to parties back eas
so / will not name them. Since left thi
point have learned that the excitement ha
all died out and that the gold discoveries ar
proving valueless.
: We went direct from here to Riverside
0 spent several hours with friends and the
k came to San Francisco, where we now are
. We shall spend few days here and then &
to Monterey, Santa Cruz, San Jose, an
again to San Francisco then by ocean I
Seattle and Vancouver Island then ST. Pau
Chicago and Omaha.
VIII write you again at Seattle. One thin
r | would like to say, and that is that Oman
. is well worth holding on to. San Diego ha
v been plated for eighteen miles in ever
a direction, and values there are four and fiv
times anything Omaha ever saw The sam
is true of Los Angeles, Denver, Ogden an
Salt Lake City; in fact, believe that Omah
never did have boom and that values ther
are really Of a very substantial character
. The only point have seen since left Oman
!, where / thought real estate values were @
q substantial character, has been in Sa
| Francisco. Yours truly.