Wood River times. [volume] (Hailey, Idaho) 1882-1915, 1890-08-02
RAPID GROWTH.

The Changes Of the Past Sixty Yesrs-
Our Increase in Population From
1s.00O.OOO ~ 10000, 900 souls.
II. B. B.. In womsn's journal,
The passage al the bill for the ad.
mission Of Wyoming marks an era in
our national history. The number Of
our States will hsnceforth be forty.
four instead Of the original thirteen.
| look with sstonishmens at the rapid
growth of this great sisterhood of
republics. Much is said of our mats-
rial progress. but no one can fully
realize ITS magnitude. To those OF US
who can look back sixty years land
shor. Seems the retrospec.) how amsx
ing is the change within our brief
lifetime! Then the United States
numbered twelve millions, now sixty
four millions. Then not \ railroad or
telegraph: our frontier, Michigan
and OHIO; our backwoods, Kentucky
aid Indiana; all the vast expanse
from the Missouri to the Pacific
Ocean an UNEMPLOYED continent Of
prairie, mountains aud deserts. Now
we can go from Maine to Alaska
and return within . month.
In 1882, asa boy, l remember
New York City less than halt presen,
size of Boston. accessible only BY
sailing vessels, stage coaches and
ba,ges; the krie Canal just opened;
steamboats, just beginning 10 ply
upon our rivers, but no steamer then
Or for many years afterwards. cross,np
the Atlantic. Ia 1888 l was eleven
days in going ir"m New York t.
Cincinnati. he Ohio river flowed
fos thousand miles through an VI
most unbroken forr.t. There | found
u bright, aspiring little town, calling
,tseli the "Queen of the West" with
fire wood at two dollars . cord, eggs
tour cents q dozen, beef sirloin SIX
cents y pound, oats twelve c. ITS u
bushel, aud -four two dollars barrel.
Yet our only currency was paper, 50
scarce and SO fuctuatiux in value,
that It was harder to pay those small
prices than it is to pay the greater
prices ofto.day. think the only mat.
IL America then considered . million.
n.ire was old John Jacob Astor, o,
New York. Our great fo,tun 8 were
unknown. have seen Alexander L.
ewart, afterwards merchant prince,
measuring of ladies' dress goods with
his own hands behind his counter.
As a school-boy l have often bought
q cents worth of broken candy from
the parents of the brothers Stuart,
afterwards great sugar refiners, ut
their little store on Greenwich Street,
hefore- tina iqQllefn--Ar Art of xuuxr r.
possession Boston directory of 1880;
it contains only $4,000 names. and
scarcely foreign name among tn. m
Boston has bren u city only ,iuy
eight years. The mills and factories
W s<O"Cu 0uO A6WIcUC0 anu fAHRr.
hill AMI Lyn" and Fall River and
New Bedford and Holyoke, OF Lewis.
ton and Ssco and Biddeford and Man.
chester have been created within n
s'nRle life time. was born in 1928
and decline to consider myself old
mot having vet arrived at wears of
d'scretion; hut Lowell! WAS incorpor
ated IN 1925, and Lawrence in 1883.
ls it any wonder that in these sud.
den a19reRations Of European emf
grants. in our cities aud manufac.
turing towns, there is poverty, igno.
rance. vice and crime? Ouch, we
not rather to feel surprised at the
thrift. intelligence and comfort 50 sud-
denly improvised out of such various
elements and nasionalities? DO not
charge our shortcomings to liberty.
They are the products 1t monarchical
institutions not vt wholly outgrown.
In 1910 went from Cincinnati, to