The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-05-04
NJ. NJ. MURDOCH. Editor.
WHY WICHITA WILL BE GREATER
THAN KANSAS CITY.
An Article for the Better Information Of
the Latter and in the Interest
Of the Former.

finer live stock country In the world than
the Arkansas valley. There are coun-
tries, it may be, Boosting as equitable a
climate, others as fine native grasses,
and still others where all kinds of domes-
tic animals are ever healthy; but, there
are but few countries that can truthfully
claim all these advantages and be, IN adj
dition, q great grain producing country.
The Arkansas valley is not only the
healthiest land for all kinds of live stock,
where native and tame grasses flourish,
but the lower Arkansas valley is, in adj
dition, the greatest corn growing sec
ton to be found in the west. And
it is corn that makes the superior
beef, the number one pork and the
fat mutton, and no other grain can
render these meats the prime product
which leads the market and commands
the fancy, therefore the profitable prices.
Southern Kansas may attract the atten-
ton of the world for her sugar and silk,
and her grains may, and will, be quoted
in the markets of the world, but after all
her future wealth will come from her
horses, hogs, cattle and sheep, and for
all of which Wichita viii be the chief
initial market.
And this present source Of wealth and
of future greatness again leads us to the
important figure which Wichita will
sustain in connection with this leading
interest, FOR no material interest of this
grand domain has been developed as yet
that did not directly find Wichita a
prominent factor. Any point that proves
a principal market for the products
of its surroundings can never
fail of being the distributing
point for the trade of such surround
ings, and no place can become the
distributing point for its surroundings
that does not become also the manufact-
uring place for such surroundings. In
other words, the city that becomes
the market for the principal products of
any country, at once and at the same
time, logically, becomes that country's
trade and manufacturing center, for the
very simple reason of that which estab-
fishes the one promotes the others. Kan
sas city could not have become the job
bling, banking and manufacturing center
that she is had she not become the cen
trail market for the hogs and cattle of
her surroundings. Denver could not
have become the jobbing, banking and
manufacturing center of Colorado had
she failed in the control Of the Colorado
mining interests, which in an early day
were so largely owned by Denvers citi-
Yens. Minneapolis becamea jobbing and
banking center only because she con-
sroiled the wheat, the only prime pro-
duct of her surroundings. Pittsburg could
nothave become the great manufacturing
and iobbing center that she is only by
controlling the iron and coal, the princi-
p~aEproducts of her surroundings. This
"'controT" generally primarily comes of
location. but often of both natural and
acquired advantages combined. Den
ver's importance came wholly of &C
quired advantages, Pueblo being the
natural pathway to the mineral regions
of Colorado.
That Wichita's present importance has
and that her assured future greatness,
will come of the natural advantage of 10
cation, none will dispute, while it is equal
ly true that her acquired advantages are
and stronger. These are Just
as evident to the discerning as is the fact
that she is controlling the products of
her surroundings, some of them wholly
and others of them with an increasing
partiality. Wichita was a natural
and inevitable station in the great cattle
highway of the west even before a
railroad had reached within a
hundred miles of her doors. Wichita,
therefore, in controlling the live stock,
the leading product of her great sur
roundings, viii as inevitably control the
minor products, and be the central mar
ket for grain, the distributing market
for jobbers, and the manufacturing point
for all of a territory at least equal to that
from which she draws her prime factors
and commodities.
That Wichita's chances, therefore. are
manifest, that her opportunities for be-
coming a greater city than Kansas City
salient, needs no argument. and must be
readily seen and understood. In Just so
much, then. as Wichita's surroundings
surpass those of Kansas City or Dem
yer, in just so much will Wich-
ita, in the long race, excel those
cities in Importance. That Wichita's
surroundings are greater than those of
Kansas City, Omaha, Minneapolis or
Denver from a natural standpoint we
will not stop TO argue. Wichita's field is
so new that it has hardly commenced to
develop, yet some Of the counties CON
tiguous 10 her have not only become
banner counties of the state in the value
of their productions, but banner counties
of the country at large. As for other
surroundings, Kansas City, FOR instance.
enjoys and fattens from the patronage of
Leavenworth, Lawrence, Topeka and
Atchison. These constitute all the good