, 1889-08-13
A GOOD SEND-0FF.
Wyoming as Seen by a Lady Cor
respondent.
She is Very Complimentary to the
Great Territory.
Speaks of Its Resources, Prospects
and Aspirations.
Portland o~regonIan.l

see, lying almost in the center OF the Pa
ciic Northwest, a great square, and seem
ingly, almost level, subdivision of the
territories, which contains GO, 900, 600
acres, divided diagonally by the Rocky
mountains, which trend from its north
west to its southwest corner, cutting it al
most directly into two great triangles.
This is the Territory of Wyoming. one of
the self proposed incoming states, and
latest organized of the territories, dating
its birth Just about far enough back of
the present writing to be 81 years old, or
lust old enough to vote.
Until a comparatively recent period
this territory was given up almost wholly
to stock raising, the broad uplands which
comprise by far the greater part of its
area having been admirably adapted to
grazing purposes until the business
being overdone the bunch grass
grew short, and a few hard winters, for
which the stockmen were u~nprepared,
made serious havoc with the horses and
cattle which had previously luxur;ated in
summer upon its green, nutritious abund-
ance, and managed to subsist in winter
upon its dry seed stalks. These stalks,
until eaten down by over-pasturing. pro-
truded through the snow and furnished
ready-made hay, for which tie animals
''rustled," unless overtaken by the biz
yards that sometimes, even in the palmy
days Of ranging. destroyed vast herds.
But as one such blizzard in half a dozen
years was considered above the average,
the intervening mild winters afforded OPP
portunity for the stock to grow again,
and the remarkable rapidity with which
| the herds of the plains increased under
such conditions caused the stockmen to
postpone their good intentions regarding
the future, until a succession of severe
winters destroyed the outfits, and, i'll
western parlance, busted" the bust
ness.
As stock ranging afforded comparatively
little business for railroads, the settlement
of Wyoming was for a long time retarded
by the difficulties of transportation. The
| CtllGunGu COulu ullNG IuG plOuuCb VI tnt
plains to the distant railway stations,
| where the stock was shipped to eastern
markets, and the ranger could take back
in his settler wagon to his lodge in the
wilderness" such supplies as he would
need for another year with much more
ease to himself than he could enjoy if OBJ
liged to fence the land and raise his
grain, fruit, and vegetables. This sort
of easy going life, with its a~lluring I'M
certainties and, on the whole, enormou
profits, offered as little inducement to
modern enterprise as to old fashioned in
dustry. Consequently the one railroad in
the territory which long had everything
its own way was not over anxious FOR
further innovations in its line,
But a recent change has come over the
spirit of Wyoming's railroad dreams. The
competing companies that walked the
echoes in the mountains OF Montana and
Idaho and found the great plains of the
two Dakotas favorably disposed to an
swell their efforts with compensation, are
naturally looking for other lands to con
quer; and so many are the natural ad-
vantages of Wyoming in an agricultural
and mineral sense, that the new railway
developments not yet completed, and
some OF them hardly begun, have so
stimulated immigration that over ,, $780,
600 acres of public land have been taken
up within the borders OF the territory
within the past two years.
The lands of Wyoming, though not so
generally afflicted with sagebrush as
those OF Utah, Idaho and many parts of
Montana, are nevertheless a part of the
great arid regions over which congress is
to be required to wrestle before complet-
ing the grand irrigating scheme now agi
tating Arizona and revolutionizing Cali
fornia. The natural resources of WYo-
ming, though so largely pastoral as to
have hindered their early development,
are as yet almost unknown outside of her
own borders. A gentleman, a resident OF
the northern part, with whom | recently
conversed as we CHANGED to meet in trav-
cling, assured me that, so far as pros
pected, Wyoming seemed a vast bitunin-
Gus coal bed, with its strata so uniformly
distributed during some past era that no
part of its great area has been left uniav'
ored by the bounteous hand of nature.
The coal lies generally about a dozen feet
below the surface, and is of good quality
and proves easily quarried. Its presence
in such vast quantities would naturally
suggest vast subterranean reservoirs oil
petroleum.
The citizens of Laramie county are
Justly proud OF their native marble, speci,
mems of which may be seen in the win,
dows OF assay and real estate offices, and
are often used to adorn inches in the