Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-01-25
THE IRON IS NOW HOT
Neville Islanders Hustling to Make
Way for an Electric Road.
MEETING TO DISCUSS PROPOSALS.
A Company Will Buy the Island or Make
Another Arrangement.
BEGINS TO LOOK LIKE REAL BUSINESS

If Neville Islanders continue isolated
from the world any longer, they will proba-
bly be left to work out their own salvation
hereafter. Mr.. Ralph Bagaley some years
ago stated that an expenditure of some
50, ,OOO,0 900 would have been made on the
island beside the construction of switch to
connect with the Pittsburg and Lake Erie
Railway if the islanders had had nerve
enough to have raised some $35 900 so as to
donate 20 acres of ground lying above high
water mark. But to tell of all the still
born efforts that have been made to deveE
op the place into something more than a
truck-patch would fill volume.
Again, something tangible presents itself,
and if the projectors can only secure con-
tinuanee of weather that will fill the river
with ice while deliberations ar in progress
and get negotiations clinched before trans
navigation opens, one of the most important
deals of late years may be consummated.
If, however, it is not completed before gar
den-making time it may fail, as did all pre-
vious attempts.
A company, one of whom is Mr.. Scully,
of the First National Bank, wants to put an
electric railway down the center of the
island, with down-river terminus on Second
avenue, Coraopolis, bridge to connect the
lower end of the island with the village,
being part Of the project. The piers for a
bridge at the upper end have already been
built by the county. The lower bridge
would not cost more than $40, 900, and pos
sibly might be built for SIS, 900, as the back
channel of the river is quite narrow.
NEGOTIATIONS IN PROGRESS.
A meeting of the islanders was held night
before last, and unwonted interest was
manifested, those present having submitted
for their digestion two propositions, either
of which is considered by disinterested
people, as highly advantageous One is the
purchase of the entire island by the COM
pany at 81, 800 an acre, allowing each in
habitant to reserve his house and small
plot of ground, if he so elect. This pur-
chase would involve an outlay of about
81, ,650, 900, as the area is said to be LOO
acres.
Another proposition is that if the in
habitants will give the company right of
way down the center of the island, the
corporators will survey and plot the ground,
and sell it for the owners at a cost of 10 per
cent on the sales. On the first proposition,
it is said some options have been purchased
and money paid.
The advantages of such an enterprise can
scarcely be estimated in dollars and cents.
The north side Of the river ia 1879 was Just
20 years ahead of the Southside, the railway
on the Northside having given it an impe-
tus from 1850 to that date that the building
of the Pittsburg and Lake Erie Railway has
even yet tailed to check. The islanders ne
elected to get into the dam because it would
have cost few thousand dollars, and now,
when they see their error, it is cheaper to
build an electric road than to nave the dam
removed few hundred yards down.
The south side of the river was fully as
slow in catching on as were the islanders.
During 100 years the people of Moon, Cres-
cent, and part of Robinson and Stowe town
ships, climbed a 350-foot hill, and went three
miles out of their way to come to the city,
and some of them came three times a week,
on an average, when they could have come
on the level all the way and saved that three
miles Of distance just as well as not.
MILES LOST EACH TIME.
Taking the climbing of the hill into the
the equivalent of at least ten
miles on the round trip was lost each time.
There were people, and many of them, who
made three trips week for 60 years, and in
making them each travelled unnecessarily,
curing Git is hard to call it long and use
full life when so much time was wasted),
go, 900 miles. Less expenditure of time and
money would nowadays carry them 3-5
times around the globe. But each of these
people lost nearly three years time, and saw
but little more of the world in travelling
80, 900 miles for nothing than does the horse
who travels his life away in a power wheel
in a wood yard. or a dog on the wheel that
lifts a churn dasher. An aged resident,
who in 1S49 cared to keep step with pro-
gress, was asked why they did so, and he re-
piled that to have built road along the
river bank would have necessitated the
bridging Of Montour and Moon runs.
By and by the Pittsburg and Lake Erie
Railway Company secured the ground for
its roadbed and for three miles along the
route there isn't room between the hill and
river for two roads. making direct connec-
tion with the city only feasible by the island
route. Only one good has been subserved-
the primeval beauty of the locality near the
mouth of Moon run has been in a great
measure preserved from such vandals as
those which left the northern slope of Mt.
Washington SCARED and blasted as though
the wrath of Omnipotence had stricken it;
all the Disagreement being caused that
coal miners might have supply of pit
posts.
Should some of the Neville Island people
elect to continue gardening, freight trucks
on the electric road would carry all their
stuff to the Diamond Market between mid
night and o'clock A. M, when the kitchen
bosses begin to hustle for fresh laid eggs and
vegetables.