The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1889-05-23
A Voice from the West.
MASON, Tex. May 8

Special Correspondence to the Statesman.
Steadily and surely the wheels of prog
ress are advancing and the wilderness is
being converted into homes and farms
Towns and cities are sprlnging up many
places where within the writer's frontier
life experience stood the wild Indians
wigwam and where the white man Travelled
with great caution and apprehension
where scalps have been taken, desperate
battles fought, etc.
The last raid from Indians made in our
county was in 1876. Since then the ne,
cessities for six-shooters and Winchester
rifles have passed away. A great chang
has taken place in the country west of
your city since the Indian warwhoop ceased
to occasionally greet our ears.
1t does not seem long since our people
hauled lumber on OK wagons from Bren
ham, ninety miles east of your then
comparatively speaking, village
town. Ia course of time the
iron horse brought it to Austin
for US distance of 120 miles away. AT
ter this we egaiu pulled it through the
mud and rocky cedar brakes by the same
OK power, until the railway moved out tc
Burnet only 70 miles from US. From
the latter point we have hauled our
freight for several years. All this time
our increased railroad facilities have
been approaching us from Galveston vie
Houston and Austin, and these points have
been commanding our trade almost exclu.
sively ever since the road reached Burnett
But we begin to snuff the smoke from g
distance rapidly coming nearer and nearer
vii Mt
Fredericksburg to Llano, which will bring
our goods, wares and merchandise to
within thirty-six miles of US, and take out
our cotton and other produce to differ
ent deep water point than that at Calves.
ton. Shall this be so? Most certainly unless
our former and %%now present trading
points come nearer us in time to avert the
transition from the old points to the ne Y
Build the Arkansas Pass railway to Llan o
and it will at once become the interest of
Mason, McCuIloch, Menard and Kimb BILE
counties and other territory west of US and
Joining us to trade at San Antonio and
Arkansas Pass, unless some other road con-
Meeting US with deep water at Galveston
or the mouth of the Brszos comes west of
Llano or the Arkansas Pass road.
We want road whose depot is within
one-half mile of our court house, and such
road will get our trade and to this end
the people of Mason are willing to do a
reasonable part, and Mason county knows
che merits a road by reason of her great
resources in minerals and agricultural
products. She envies not any county
east or west of her on account of their
granite, iron, soapstone, slate. manganese,
silver or gold. The latter two have never
been discovered in anything like paying
quantities in this county, neither have
they in any of the others, as far as heard
from or demonstrated, but both have been
found mere. Granite we have in such
q uan titles we have heretofore thought it
of mention. We boast of the
Gem mine, of ell that have been bought
and tested thoroughly by the Wakefield
Iron company, perhaps the finest de-
post of manganese only twelve miles
from our beautiful and healthy town of
Mason that there is in the world. There
are other mines of it unprospected, await
ing men of capital and experience to pros
pect and develop them. No point laid off
in town lots between Red river and the
Rio Grande that is Mason's equal for the
building up and healing of lung troubles.
Reader, if you don't believe what say
,ome aud see for yourself. mean every
word of it. OLD CITIZEN.