Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-03-13
GREAT VELASC0.
A STEAMER TO BE LOADED WITH
COTTON.
1t wnl Take 5000 Bales Right at the
Wharf The improvements Continue
in All LInes-Velaseo is Growing.
Special to the Gazette.

Special 10 the Gazette.
VELAsCo, TEX, March 12.-Mr. NJ. P.
Morrissey, general manager of the Velasco
Terminal railway, has just returned from
Houston and informs your correspondent
that the well-known ship brokers MesSrs.
Ross, Howe & Morrow, who do large BUSH
ness at Charleston, S. c.; Pensacola, Fla.
Mobile, Ala; New Orleans, Galveston
and Houston, have informed him of their
intention to establish branch office at We
lasco Immediately. They also arranged
with Mr.. Morrissey for the shipment from
Houston to Velasco of 5000 bales of cotton,
which they intend loading on an ocean
steamer that will arrive at this port during
the latter part of the present month.
Mr.. Morrissey says that was not all the
good news he collected for Velasco while
absent but all he can tell Just at present.
The ballasting of the Velasco Terminal
is being rapidly finished by q large force Of
hands, and its roadbed is certainly re-
markably fine one. The material used Is
sharp sand and petrifled shells, said by ex.
perienced railroaders to be superior even 70
coal cinders.
The only arrival coastwiSe yesterday was
the schooner McInnis from Morgan City with
q cargo of hard wood and 100000 cypress
shingles for the new hotel that is being
built in the edgeof tide water at Surf Side
beach below the city. In driving the pal
metto piles for this hotel the contractors
were agreeably surprised at striking firm
bed of blue clay few feet from the sur
face, which assures a foundation better
than rock In boring the big artesian well
here, the auger went $50 feet through this
strata, which evidently underlies the entire
sites of Velasco and Surf Side beach.
Capt Sol Larsen, 7. E. Howell tho
Deger company, the M. T. Smith company,
Siddal & Pattillo, Smith Bros. and the
Seaboard manufacturing company, the prin-
cipal lumber dealers here, are all expecting
=. ~ ,.a1-- H.
Texas and Louisiana by rall and schooners,
and from Pensacola and Mobile by briggs
and barkentineS
The long-continued contrary winds have
delayed many gulf vessels, and two from
New York are also over due. These latter
are loaded with cement and hardware
Your correspondent has ceased trying to
keep the run of arrivals here. Formerly It
was an easy thing, for then they all regis
tered at hotels. Now, however, the great
majority go to homes in or near the city
that have been built during the past two
months.
These people come from nearly every
state in the Union and from Canada, and
the quantity of household furniture brough
by the Velasco Terminal freight trains
proves they come to stay.
There is another thing worthy of re-
mark. There seems to be more children in
Velasco than in any town OF its size in the
country.
Their number is about the first thing
strangers notice while walking the streets,
and the schoolhouses, built last summer
ana pronounced much too large, cannot ac-
commodate half who apply for entrance.
Churches are in the same fix. Congrega-
tons started several months ago on struct-
ures which they thought would answer all
demands as far as space went, for
several years at least, and before
the roofs are well on find that they will not
be half large enough to seat the members.
The proposed Catholic church, which will
be very handsome and costly building,
has been delayed because of this trouble,
the plans having been changed three times
so as to enlarge it, and parties interested
said yesterday that they would have TO be
changed again.
Thed1rincipal shipments here by rail con-
.sists of hardware, furniture, groceries,
grain, iron and sheet metal, cement, bricks,
lime, vehicles. wire, cordage, lumber, con-
crete 1ueS and drains, household goods and
country produce, the latter coming from
adjoining localities.
Messrs. Berard and Donaldson, the we'll
known railway engineers, who are running
the linea0f the Velasco and Northern that Is
Witlff the next eight months to connect
this city with the great systems Of tha
state, at Rosenberg junction, ffty-four
miles distant. say that the route is one OF
the finest they ever saw, extending nearly
all the way along eleVdteO ClQS6S anu plat
eaux, and traversing region, both forest
and prairie, of surprising beauty and fertil-
ity, watered by clear, high-banled creeks.
Gardens are beginning to show up with
early vegetables, and trout and black bass
fishing in the streams and lakes is improv-
ing upon the advent Of ''balmy spring"
Except among the white farmers crops
are as usual backward in this and adjoining
counties. The crying agricultural need in
this end Of Texas is white men who will
buy or rent small farms and work them as
in the north and central parts OF the state.
AL of that class here are doing well and are
more than satisfied THE GAZETTE CORE
spondent has visited every neiehbrohood in
this county where they have settled and
ms not found one who regretted coming or
who was not doing as well or better than
they expected. Their success has induced
many OF the owners Of the old-time, large-
sized plantations to cut their lands up into
smaller fields and offer other inducements
To that class Of immigration.
z. McCENN.