The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1889-04-13
Old Superior Waking Up.

~ Ho4iic Ntth0 SiilCt, ana the
/ most interested parties have decided
that the time for action is at hand.
! we nave been waiting for some furth-
er details to be arranged, and expected
10 give some of the particulars in our
/ words to day, but brother Mitchell, of
+ the Duluth Tribune, was over here last
/ week lnqulrlng about the deal of Mr..
( Bardon, IN behalf of some of his friends
who had written him concerning the
! matter, and when he went home he
wrote 1t up and gave it to his readers
Sunday morning. AS the Tribune has
sa.d so many naughty things about us
III the past, we prefer to let it speak in
our favor now, and make Our own com
ments at another time. The Tribune
says;
IN The race for the commercial SUI
premacy at the head of the lake, of
course plucky young Duluth has a long
way the start, but there is no disguis-
ing the fact that she now has a formid-
able rival in the double headed city OH
the opposite SIDE of the St Louis river,
IN the state of Wisconsin.
a mistaken policy on the part of
the large property owners in Superior
from twenty to twenty-five years ago,
gave Duluth start which under other
circumstances, she could not have Sc
cured. Because Superior had been To-
Gated On an exceedingly beautiful pla-
teau, lying alongside of an exceedingly
beautiful bay, which was capacious
enough to furnish safe harbor for all
the vessels that will ever navigate this
great lake, those property owners la
bored under the pleasing delusion that
with those natural advantages she
would, 10y the very force of those nat
ural advantages, and without any spe-
cial effort on her part, maintain The
start that she then had, and forever re-
main the chief city at the head of this
great inland sea. They did not believe
that city OF any consequence could or
would ever be built up on the north
side Of st. Louis bay. They regarded
the earlier efforts Of few Minnesota
ans in that direction, as far back as
1859. as the merest bluff, and for sew
eral years thereafter they did nothing
to help themselves or their town. but
appalled,, apparently, with the ,,re-
sumption of the early pioneers of this
city, they seemed for long time to be
seriously considering whether we were
really III earnest, or not, in our declared
intentions to make Duluth the com
mercial emporium of the head of the
lake. BY the time that they had salts
fed themselves upon this point, Duluth
had secured such a splendid start, that
she had no trouble in maintaining her
supremacy, and by that time the people
of Superior seemed to be too much dis
c0uraged to even try to overtake her.
After few years, however, some
far-seeing and aggressive men came to
the head of the lake and acquired the
title to large amount of property ly
ing i'll the forest and the swamp be-
tween the original townsite ct Superb
or and ST. Louis bay, and they resolved
that ii Old Superior would do nothing
towards building up city on the Wis
c0nsin side, they would build up new
town of their own-to be called West
Superior. So said, so done; and the re-
suit has been that this new city of the
trinity of cities at the head of the lake
has, during the past three years, made
as rapid and as marvellous a develop
ment as has ever been made in the
same length of time by Duluth, during
even her palmiest days.
THE results accomplished by the
enterprise and pluck of the people of
Duluth and West Superior have set the
property owners, both resident and
nonresident, of the original townsite
OF Superior TO thinking, and they have
finally come to the conclusion that
natural advantages unimproved will
never build up a city; but that pros
porous and progressive cities can be
built wherever energetic, public spirit
ed and determined men decide that
they shall be built; and that the only
way by which they can have a great /
city on the spacious plateau on which |
Superior was laid out more than thirty
years ago, is to go ahead and build one, |
and this they have now apparently de |
cided to do. Old, or East Superior, has /.
shown more signs of life and has made /
more substantial progress during the /
past year than during the previous |
twenty; and durin0 the past. few |
months, III particular, the signs of pro- I
gresS and Improvement there are man
itest on every hand. Conspicuous /
the improvements which the |
visitor there Will notice are the elegant |
and capaciOus new four story brick ho- |
tel now almost ready for occupancy, on
Fifth street, near the court house, and |
a fine brick school house near by, now |
in process Of construction. This hotel !
will cost when furnished, some SIS, 900, I
and it would be a credit to any city in /
either " isconsin or Minnesota; while |
the school house viii cost about @35, 600, |
and viii be the equal of anything in
that line III Duluth.
WHAT or TIE FUTURE?
zone of the drawbacks which Supe-
rior has always had to contend with
has been the fact that most of the old
toWnsite has been owned by non-resi
dents, scattered all over the union, who
were able to hold and who did not care
to sell any of their property, and that
it has been practically impossible for
new men coming to the head of the
lake to acquire the title to property
there for business or manufacturing
purposes If a man succeeded in Sc
puviIeH p1ea moro la4c in, ,riv-a,, l. 7