The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1892-01-01
A TALL, SLIM YANKEE.
Il. III. Elwell, Jr., Tells of Sioux City's
Millionaire.

At their club house last night the mem
bers of the Portland Wheel Club and in
vited guests, as they watched the old
year out, listened to brief lecture by
Edward II. Elwell, Jr., entitled "a Re-
marlkable Advertisement" Mr.. Elwell
described some impressions of a trip to
Sioux City, Iowa, in 1899 as a member of
a party of 100 New Englanders who had
been invited to visit the city and inspect
its wonderful corn palace at total cost
to their hosts of $4,000 1t was a NAM
moth advertisement, suggested by one
A. S. GaTetson, a Sioux City millionaire.
who had risen from an Office boy to be
the leading fnancier and capitalist of
the place. We quote the following from
the lecture: The next morning after
our arrival saw talking with one of our
party man with notebook, whom /
took to be seedy reporter. He was a
tall, slim, why Yankee, with a perfect
Uncle Sam type of countcnance, and sug-
costing also the pictures of Abraham
Lincoln, by his awkward LONELINESS of
den g nor and kindly intelligence of ex-
preston. His cheap, well-worn suit of
navy blue, was evidently ready-made and
the pants were too short and very baggy
at the knees. The lining of his sack coat
hung down behind. He appeared about
40 years of age. Judge of my astonish-
ment when lie was introduced as Mr.
Garretson. Could he be the man at
whose advice we 100 New Englanders
had received this royal hospitality at an
expense to our hosts of 800 for each one
OF us? Could he be the shrewd financier,
the Inauguration of great enterprises, who
had done more than any other man for
the building up of this city from one of
1900 Inhabitants in 1884 to one of nearly
10000 in 1889? Was he the millionaire
who had built the palatial hotel, named
after him, where we were to be banquet
ed that evening, and who owned corn
field, that stretched without a break. q
level, waving, rustling sea of giant stalks
and leaves and spindles for five miles in
one direction and six in another? Itwas
even so and he had come down to inform
us, before breakfast, that he had arranged
for special engine to take our train out
to this vast cornfeld some 20 miles
farther down the Missouri"
AT the banquet in the evening we wit
messed another popularity of the great
financier Garretson. He was as timid as
school boy and though urged with all
the frank insistence of the West, on this
occasion could not be induced to speak.
He sat there in such evident distress that
finally his friends let him alone. Later
in the evening, Judge Allison, bluff old
fellow, brother of the famous Iowa SEN
ator, having just finished long speech
himself, went up to the trembling mil
Gonaire, who had gained his wealth and
created that of the whole town. by the
boldest of business enterprises, and clap
ping him on the shoulder, exclaimed,
For Gods sake Garretson, get up and
let 'em know what's in yerr' But Gar
retson wouldn't get up. What strange
weakness in a man otherwise so strong.
Though he had built that splendid hotel,
finer than any Maine will see for some
time, and though, but for him, that com
pany of New Englanders, would never
have been present there as guests in it's
elegant dining hall, yet he absolutely
could not get up and even SO much as
bid them welcome