Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-09-28

provided that unless work was COM
menoed by certain stipulated date, and
i completed within a certain stipulated
time, the privilege granted should be
forfeited. And to prevent any POSSIBLE
Ity of excessive exactions, it was pro-
vided that only such tolls should be
charged as might be prescribed by regu-
latiOns to be made by the secretary
of the treasury the tolls standing in
place of municipal port charges exacted
in all seaport cities. Tie bill also re-
served to the government the right at
any time to pay the company the value
of its jetties and other works and assume
ownership and control of them, all
right TO the franchises and works on
the part of the company to cease.
Under this authority the company has
undertaken, rs q business venture, to
provide such depth of water and all port
facilities as will meet every requirement
of the most extensive ocean commerce.
They did not even ask that the govern
ment agree 20 reimburse them for money
expended when q harbor should have
been provided As soon as
charter and government fran
chises were secured actual work was COM
menced, and has been energetically
the present time Five hundred men are
now at work on the jetties and other
works. The monthly pay roll runs from
seYenty-five thousand to one hundred
thousand dollars. On the first
of the present month the jet
ties had been constructed to
point about three thousand feet from
the beginning. When the work com
menced the average depth of water at
the bar was nine feet At the same point
they now have twenty feet. By January
l the company expects to have q channel
of twenty feet depth from deep water in
the Gulf to the mouth of the river, and
it will commence the erection of docks
and wharves for the accommodation of
shipping.
1t is an interesting fact in this connec-
ton that Columbia, the first capital of
the republic of Texas, is on the BraZos
river, about thirty-five miles from its
mouth. The old capitol building is still
standing. Velasco, at the mouth of the
river. was the earliest seaport of Texas,
and f1ourished over sixty years ago. AS
late as 1910 ali of West Texas was tribu-
tary to Columbia, and the business of the
interior with the outside world was
carried on by means Of vessels
that discharged and received caTgOes at
Columbia. It is a significant clrcum-
stance that it is the mouth of the BraZos
that the old Texas Fathers selected
as the best harbOr on the coast. The
building of railroads through the in
terror opened up other routes of
travel and traffic. and diverted business,
and development from the coas 80 TITS
is a case not unlike that of Cumberland
Gap, told in last week IS issee of
the Manufacturers Record, and there
are other instances of how, in the5eaFlyS
days of the railroad era, trade was al
verted from established seats and high
ways which now are emerging from
their long obscurity, and by means Of
railroad connections are rising to assume
again the prominent places they form
erly filled, and to which they are by
natural laws entitled.
The example of the Brazos company is
commended to the advocates of other To-
calities. 1t seems probable that Brazos
will be the port that has been so long
sought for, and that abeHt il will gather
such an aggregation of the varied forms
of industry and trade that will make it
Chicago of the Southwest, from which
shall spread circling waves of I'M
dreamed of development and prosperity
Still the success of BraZos need
not deter the other aspirants from
continued effort. Rather should the en-
terprise and energy and nerve and public