Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1893-03-23
FOOTPRINTS or CIVILIZATION.
A pen sketch of Dakota Past and Present
h Faith of Her People.
L. peLestry in the Great West for March.

wards the setting or the sun, lOF peo-
ple Will follow the great orbit in its
westward flight, as If seeking beyond
tho range of their immediate horizon,
the dawning Of the new and better
day-of which it was written, it
should come. The solor magnetism
seems to drive the races from the
ancient cradle OF the world in the
east, to the new brighter c%onquests Of
the west.
1t is no wonder then-history re-
peating itself-to see the same spec
tacle enacted in our W country and
in our own days.
Reminiscent history is ever inter
esting. But it is doubly so, when it
covers the recent past and treats Of
scenes almost under our very eyes.
With what varying moods of for
tune has time dealt with Dakota.
Now we hear of vast, boundless fields
Of golden grain, so rich in their
| abundant harvest, that human ingen-
uity, with all possible labor saving
machinery, can scarce take care of
the immense crops, when harvest time
approaches.
Then comes the wall Of distress;the
cry for aid for a people brought TO
the very verge of ruin and despair by
crop failures and drouths. Seasons
when the cloudless sky would not
shed a drop OF rain to cool the burn
ing soil, smothering with all its vege-
tation beneath the symOon-like
winds that sweep the earth from the
| southland.
But such is the faith of the west
erner, that despite his miSfOTtunes
and sorrows, he clings to the land he
has chosen for a home, and the chang
ing season brings him change Of fer
tune. Again he looks C~Ontertcdly
about him, FOR another cry for aid
goes out, but it is a cry announcing
the advent of plenty and prosperity.
Give us cars" he says, railway
cars to ship the millions Of bushels Of
wheat we have raised TO feed the
world. Aid us 10 get them to a mar
ket, ere they spoil.!'
PIONEER DAYS
are practically gone. When thirty
years ago the wagon trains left, what
then were the border settlements, on
the upper Mississippi, to start on their
uncertain journey TO the Rocky
Mountains, from whence came tales
of fabulous wealth, a vast uninhabit-
ed wilderness stared them in the
face. Hundreds OF miles of unbrokcn
prairie lay before the traveller, not
unlike the great Atlantic stretched
out before Columbus. The Indians
and wild game abounded, harassing
the people On their way, and many
venturesome beings left their bones
to bleach upon the sod, serving as
]sickening milestones for those who
followed in their wake.
But the passing years have worked
wonders in transforming the stamp
ing grounds Of the buffalo and the
hunting fields of the warlike Sioux
into a region Of civilization, a garden
of agricultural productiyeness and an
area peopled by a hardy human popu-
lation, whose every energy is bent up
on bringing the new infant forward
to a giants development.
How many stop To think of the
past, when they read that Dakota
will this year ship so many million
bushels of wheat or so many bushels
of something else.
How much unwritten
there is depicted in the faces Of
some of these men and women who
baVe brayed IL on the frontier, when
all was but an experiment on these
vast prairics. Scattered fortunes,
lack OF opportunities, perchance,
brought many TO the plains, who saw
In this new region their only hope for
a fresh start in life. 1t is but a few
years since the advent of the railways
made it possible for farming to be
carried on with a profit.
Yet there are sections to-day as
primitive as the more favored por-
tions were twelve years ago. Twelve
years have sufficed to advance MANY
hamlets to towns and towns to cities.
Twelve years ago the railway twas
expected but had not yet reached
the spot where now stands a city Of
1000 people, in whose walls these
lines were written. But the expecta-
tlon was sufficient and the nucleus
Tor a town was formed at once. The
nrst buildings were the very ssence
OF primitive creation.
Buthope and expectation are the
stock in trade OF the typical Dako-
tian. From this crude beginning
few shanties built hastily from the
very sod upon which they stood-the
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