The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1892-02-06
THE yUrURE OF GREAT FALLS.

A city becomes pOpulous, prosperous
rich and great by reason Of it's location,
its surroundings and native
The sea coast cities of Portland (Maine),
Boston, New York, Charleston, New Or
leans, San Francisco. and Portland Ore
gon) owe their Importance to causes di-
rectly traceable to their location, sur
roundings and native resources. The
same may be said of all the large inland
cities. The Great Architect of the uni
verse fashioned the molds; nan simply
filed them.
A place must possess inherent wealth
to sustain itself; that is, it must possess
something inseparable from it that may
be turned into or be made to produce
wealth. A fine harbor is an inexhausti-
BILE capital. The grounds at the con-
~tiuence of navigable rivers flowing
through "A productive country possess
natural or innate wealth. A great water
power is inwrought capital-inexhausti-
BILE wealth. 1t cannot be sq%uandered; it
is as stable as the everlasting hills. The
surrounding lands possess an inbred,
inseparablc value, and when the power
and the grounds are buttrcsscd by vast
areas of fertile lands, immense measures
of coal. great quarrIes of building stone
and mountains ribbed with silver and
gold, an Importance is added to each
which cannot be measured in dollars and
cents-an importance which insurcs
population, prosperity, wealth and great
ness to the city possessing these aggre-
gate native advantages.
Great Falls and vicinity possess
them. 1t has the finest water power in
the world; it is surrounded by prolific
agricultural lands; it may justly boast of
vast coal measures, great quarries of
stone and is in close proximity to the
most promising mining centers in the
west. The Almighty cast Great Falls in
a heroic mold. Its energetic, public
spirited citizens are slowly but surely
filling it in the Inauguration and COM
pletion of public works and private en-
terprises. A forecast of the city's future
be p%redicated upon them. A few
short years ago the grounds upon which
the city stands were the f~avorite haunts
of antlered game and fattening herds;
today 5000 souls call Great Falls their
home, and the sound of the hammer and
saw, of rolling trains and changing ma
chinery are heard where but yesterday
it were-the howl of the coyote alone
awakened the echoes of the environing
hills.
And yet but the first chapter is writ
in the progress of the city. What
will the last one be, when Great Falls
shall have filled the full measure of it's
stature? Even a doubling Thomas can
race it's lines at this distance, for Ma
stamped it's destiny in the deeply
channel of the mighty
stream which flows by it's doors; she
wrote it in the far-rcaching plateaus and
he mountains of gold and silver which
environ it and engraved it in living letters
ipon it's %unbounded native
The way-faring mar though a fool can
lot fail to read it.
The future of Great Falls is not a
ealed book. 1t stands alone among all !
he cities of the west in natural advan-
ages. These will make it the manufac-
uring, ore reducing and mineral refining
of the northwest. Capital and 8
abor and enterprise, the landmarks of :
prosperity. are being daily attracted to =
+, and when in the course of time they g,
hall have developed its latent resources :
he last words of the last chapter of its r.
rogress will read: Great Falls, the @
lost populous, the most prosperous and
he wealthiest city in the western half of
he North American continent: