Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-06-14
How to Build 4 City.

improve parks, pave streets, erect nne
public building, beautify bouleyards, put IN
sewers, bridge the river, erect q grand
courthouse. These are some OF the things
that will make Fort Worth great. y few
days ago 4 Kansas City reporter inter-
viewed u St. Paul man who told how one
city was made.
''AlOSsbackism versus modern methods II
the result is shown in the history of Mime
apolis and St. Paul with the latter pre-
senting the messy side of the case" the
sneaker was a St. Paul man briefly in haa
sas City on business.
I've lived in ST. Paul since II, and l get
sultIy when I look back and see where we
missed it and Minneapolis caught firmly
on. ST. Paul was big town when Mime
apolis was still in the ante-chamber of
time. If you had told me eighteen years
ago Minneapolis would race ahead Of our
town, [ should have looked on you as some
humorist and made mirth and scoff at YOU.
Minneapolis is a bigger, richer, hand
somer city than st. Paul. St. Paul, by
lying still and doing nothing, performed a
great part in making her So This talk
sounds funny from St. Paul man, but
I'm tired of lying. l am going to tell
the truth and see how it feels if 1 get
taTred and feathercd when l return.
Minneapolis is ahead and keeping ahead.
Three out of every four new corners 10
that part of the world go to Minneapolis.
They pass by st. Paul like so many Levites,
on the other side of the way, and steer
straight for the Flour City. 1t makes me
sick
How did Minneapolis manage this SUI
premacy! That's easy. st. Paul is. as
Western cities 90, Old. She was a great
big spot on the map away before Minneap-
oils. In that older element unfortunately,
it had, still has, in fact, host of mossbacks
-hard-shell terrapin sort of people-who
IL
q dollar, and think more of a gold piece than
an eye-tooth Eye-teeth amt in it with
money: take their notion. These moss
backs wouldn't do anything nor let anyone
else. They wouldn't spend cent. jog
trot methods and mud roads that was their
way.
Minneapolis was and IS different. She
didn't have any moss-backs. All modern
men-those outcasts who built up Minneap-
oils. They went at city building as they
did at private business. They didn't begin
by putting hobbies on themselves and call
ing it safe conservatism like st. Paul. They
paved severed, curbed, made parks and
planted trees and had some style about
them. They built palaces for their public
buildings. They made i beautiful and at
tractiye city, in fact; one thar man would
like to live in.
There was no similarity in the two
cities. Minneapolis was aggressive, mod
ern. public-spirited St. Paul was slow,
messy, and howled if you spent a dollar.
Minneapolis wore shoes: St. Paul went
barefoot One dressed up, and had the
rich air of prosperity; the other donned
tow shirt, patched its oyeralls and seemed
hard up.
LAS fact. at that time St. Paul was
richer, bigger and stronger than her rival.
But She didn't look it-didn't act it, She
had the air and ear-marks of unsuccess and
hard luck. Minneapolis was right the other
way.
Now, people don't join fortune with
failure, or anything that looks like failure,
so Immigration went clear of St. Paul
Minneapolis was bright and even with the
times, trotting neck and neck with the age
we live i'll. She had everything every
other city had. 1t might come high, but
Minneapolis must have it. There was
nothing too opulent for her. They were a
sanguine, bumptious set, these Minneapolis
people But they got everything a Nine
teenth-century city should have, and so i'm
migration went there.
The first thing st. Paul noticed, every
body seemed going to Minneapolis to live
The second thing was that those eXtTava-
gances OF her rival turned out in the light
of time to be the best investments city
ever made. Paid great big dividends more
than their cost a dozen times. Their curbs,
and sewers, and pavements, and parks, and
trees, aud bouleyards, and what not that to
us over in St. Paul looked at first like the
wild flights Of some municipal spendthrift
galloping on to ruin, put up the value of
contiguous property six, eight and ten fold
its aforetime figure. We St. Paul people
hadn't thought of that. l could take you TO
and point out 50, 600, 600 worth
of public works, which, if it were torn out
and all hope of its restoration refused, would |
bring $780, 600, 600 worth of private property |
which lies adjacent down to $40, 600 COO. |
That vanishing $50, 0OO, 900 has no foundation |
but the s., 600 900 worth of city improve |
ments and you take the last and the other !
sinks and disappears. a man who says |
public improvements don't pay, better get |
out on the prairie and live in dug-out. |
He can't be too hasty about 1t, either
But St. Paul has begun to rub her con-
sentative eyes. Like that celebrated per- |
son who walked Off the bridge in the dark, |
she saw where she missed it in the morn
ing. She now goes in for payements, parks |
and boulevards. There have been six or |
seven breathing places added to the citssh
assets in later years. She is right now la
boring on a boulevard that is to be the |
street of the world, IL took time, but St. !
Paul learned the lesson at last. Minueapo-
lis is way ahead. but we are going to trot |
the heat out anyhow. Our rival may fall |
down or throw shoe OF break sulky |
wheel, and st. Paul be winner yet