The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-04-13


municipal breadth and area of Wichita.
True, the city is not solidly built up be-
tween these stations, but the traveller must
not forget that it is all Wichita.
Wichita has been boom town ever
since it was laid out in 1870 In 1891 Gen
eral Sheridan, on a tour of military in
spectiOn in the southwest, pitched his tent
one night on the very spot where now
stands one of the biggest blocks in town.
There was then not house or an inhab-
liant. Wichita was not then in existence.
But in 1870 the place took a start; then
came Marsh Murdoch with a few hundred
pounds Of type, an old army press, a ream
or two Of paper, and in a few days the
Wichita EAGLE began to inform the civil
lied world that a new metropolis had been
born on the banks Of the Arkansas river,
and from that day to this Editor Murdoch
has never ceased for a moment to keep
the human race informed about
the progress and prosperity of
Wichita. Murdoch is an artistic and
accomplished boomer. There is nothing
crude or misshapen about his work His
methods are convincing and forceful: his
imagination has an easy and graceful play;
his hopes are as bOundIess as the ocean; his
lies are even poetical in their alluring in
fuence, and his whole being is in his work
He certainly has lifted the town into a
world of renOwn and brought it to the
point of metropolitan grandeur. There
have been numerous attempts to beguile
Murdoch into new and untried fields of
usefulness, but Mr.. Murdoch was true to
Wichita. He put temptation behind him
and threw even more poetry and imagery
into his facinating work. The result of
this twenty years of boomingis that Wich-
tia has 10000 inhabitants, magnificent
business blocks, electric lights, and electric
railways that take one miles into the
suburbs, several packing houses, a
big area devoted to stock yards,
and ten or eleven railways, radiat-
ing from the town like spokes in
a wheel. And to Editor Murdoch is cheer
fully accorded most of the credit for these
important results The editor himself has
not Jared i'll. His canvas tent of 1872 has
given way TO three-stOry brick, filled
with presses, bindery machinery and all
the paraphernalia of a great printing
house. His old army press has gone to the
scrap heap; and its place rests a So, 00G
Webb perfecting machine, with a 100-hOrse
power engine to drive it. Up in the top
story, in a spacious sanctUm filed with
costly bric-a-brac, and furnished like a
royal apartment, sits the boom editor,
happy in the performance of great duty
and content with the good things his agile
and fanciful pen have brought to him.
Wichita has its own markets. All pro
duce dealt in at the Wichita Board of
Trade is quoted at Wichita prices. The
markets of small fry cities like Chicago.
Kansas City and st. Louis, are scarcely
noticed in Editor MurdOck's great paper.
He argues that it can make no difference
to Wichita what are the prices OF
cereals in other cities The markets in
Wichita are what the world should be in
terested in. Wichita market reports cover
nearly page in the great boom journal.
Here are the sub-heads under which are
recorded each day the prices of Wichita
commodities: Wichita Live Stock Mar
ket Wichita Provision Market, p" witch
tia Wholesale Fruit Market Wichita
Grain Market" Wichita Flour Market"
"Wichita Produce Market "Wichita
Leather Market" Wichita Hide and Tai
low Market"
Some of the prices of Wichita staples, as
quoted by the boom editor, viii be re-
garded with interest by the small provin-
cial trade Of Chicago. Thus:
business around the grain market is very lively
these days. Receipts are liberal and heavy orders
from the south and east Tor Kansas corn. Prices
Receipts for twenty-rour hours: I2,55a bu. corn.
lp@ bn- oats. so bu. wheat.
Gralu-t4r lots on track
ast IN. 1ff1
are quoted at sic and down.
Corn No. 3. OF better, l5c.
Ryc-So.2 5. 5s52ac. Nos a7a22c.
Hays 80 per tom - in car lois.
Wheat at 80 cents a bushel and corn at
Is cents looks rather odd 20 the Chicago
board OF trade man. but then there is
plenty of corn about Withita. Sedzwick
county, of which Wichita is the county
seat, last year raised S@O.O0O bushels of
corn. enough 10 feed an army and paralyze
Wichita's board of trade.
The Board of Tradeof Wichita lisa unique
institution. It i one of the show places
in the town. 1t does not appear that there
Is any active trading or specializing in In
lures there: that i not the way Wichita
does business. There i too fnuch Of the
actual stuff on hand 10 be sold to leave
time for gambling in futures Whenever
a stranger comes to town he j at once
taken to the board Of trade and introduced
TO Secretary Pierce. who l. the custodian
OF the place and distributor of the tons Of
boom literature which Editor Nurdock's
lightning presses turn ont and the board
of trade SCatUers over the world The
Wichita board Of trade i a good object
lesson 70 ANYBODY anxious 70 become a
Kansas farmer and raise corn The room is
studded and festocned with corn. Corn
hangs from the ceiling and projects from
the walls and pillars and adorns the cor
nices. Some of the furniture Of the place
Is built Of corn The chairman desk IS
frosted with corn. Picture frames are
made of corn and corn fills the eve where
ever II rests. Then there are corn stalks
pumpkins. ~.gusShes and other articles Of
produce. In fact everyr hing connected
with the corn industry can De seen AZ the
Wichira Board Of Trade. except the stoves
TO burn il in
Il was said in former letter that Wich-
its had practically repudiated Prohibition
Il could hardly be the lively boom town
that il Is If il did not However. the Wjch-
It;US show an outward respect for the law
and there are no saloons visible To 5he
naked eye There are a few wholesale
liquor houses. buf they display no signs
nor 10 they advertise their wares The
liquor traffic Is not seen q everybody II
y9u want 10 get a glimpse 81 it you have
10 70 up into the top stories ~ the tall
buildings and look down iHto wagons