The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-08-15
ROMANCE OF A ME-. eRAskA CIT.
The Rapid Growth of the State Cap4al
and the Real Estate Boom that FL.
lowed,
New York independently

| ~Ss'A A1Aky ouOIlcS VI tuc luQSuTOOu
cities of the West-of Leadville becom
| ing populous center in two years, and
then growing smaller almost as fast as i
grew large. But Leadville had no stat,
| university, no magnificent post ffic
building and courthouse, no architec
turai phenomena, such as beautifu
white stone state insane asylum of a sig,
and elegance that any state of any natiof
might well be proud, and a penitentiar,
| equally imposing. Many men went te
Leadvllle; but surely you could not have
| found there the scholars of state, as
you might have found at Lincoln. Lead.
vile didn't get five railroads all in a
lump. Railroads may fail and pass into
the hands of receivers; but railroads are
substantial things, and however badly
they pay, there they are, fast and solid !:
and usually they have to be run, though
there was time, possibly, in the hard
tlmeseof the 70's, when the railroads
lying around and about in Lincoln were
not all run.
Lincoln, was from the first, a city to
be proud of. Born, as / have said. full
nedged as city from the wisdom of the
state, with all the paraphernaIia and
impeuiments of cityhood thrice aug
mented, as have described, it mai n
lance shinea lsseit steadily and continuously
Tor It was then that the finest buildings
were put up, and that settled air of east
ELL trn culture was attained. And all is
Iaue, JUST as have stated. flor | am no
an inhabitant of Lincoln, and
:. as not born there, and it is years
slrsee my nostrlls breathed its brisk airs.
But | saw, OF heard from my own father
all that / have described.
The rest of this romance of city
must be devoted to dry statistics-not
as to the number of paupers, insane and
criminals, the number of students at the
university, male and female, and SO
forth. but to the price of city lots for
all the bloom and all the tragedy of this
fair young city was in the price of her
city lots.
City lots in good locations started in
at about 5000. were bought for $500 and
over in the early seventies. and sold for
500 after the crash of "a. Only those
who were obliged to sell sold and those
who were not obliged to sell held their
property at the old figures But prices
went steadily down for the next seven
years. Land worth $4,000 declined to
80 for $1,000. Each year the city grew
1000 inhabitants: it matured and became
more or less rich in and of itself, but it
had little surplus money TO put on to
prices of lots. The slow steady decline
forced out the POOR little by little, and
the prosperous and wealthy bought. hop
ing for happy day.
/. At last the happy day came It had
been prosperous year, and the wheat and
the corn and the oats were excellent.
The country in general was prosperous.
Everything was propitlOus. How it
started nobody knew, but it got into
the air-that happy day. Long and
patient walters recognized it at once.
They could not he mistaken, they who
had waited for fully IS years for the
happy day TO come. They recognized 1T
when it was only breath in the sir
They encouraged it at once by every
power within their reach. They famed
the little spark OF boom till it began
to blaze. They wrote to their eastern
friends about it. Their jealous rivals
the new corners to the city, who did not
hold the land but wished they did, saw
the spark and offered to buy. The old
ones sold, and then bought back and
then sold again. Every body heard how
prices were going from $500 to $1,000 and
$1,000 to $500. Young boys went down
to the real estate offices and bought sur
UuTUdu loJS lOE SOUu Ill but IuOIuluQ ana
sold them the next morning for $780,
Two hundred dollars for mere boy who
knew nothing, and that in a single
night! Money grew like Jonah's gourd.
People heard about it and rushed toward
the great city of Lincoln. Lincoln,
said the old ones, was the great railroad
center of the West. Every important
railroad ct the plains passed through it.
1t must be the great shipping center of
the whole vast West. 1t was destined to
be like Chicago, the mighty, only larger
There are 10000 people in Lincoln, which
had been growing steadily at the rate of
1000 in year, or even 1000. Now, 10000
people came at once. The hotels were
crowded. Ten Thousand people must
have homes. Ten thousand people must
buy lots to live on and build houses 60
inhabit They would not come and 90
away again as they did from the mush-
room mining towns for Lincoln had it's
university, its schools, its culture it's
improvements, and it's insane asylum
and penitentia,y. If men lost their wits
in the wild race, still would stay in Lin
coin; and if men went daft and commit
ted crimes, still they stayed. Lincoln
from. 1t may have been uncertain just
what these 10000 people would do after
they had their homes and had speculated
But at any rate they had to stay there,
and they did.
Prices went madden and madden Then
they grew cooler and cooler There were
no more buyers and no more sellers.
Land, city lots, had doubled, tripled in
value, all the old inhabitants had made
their fortunes, and, the city having
gained so per cent in year values could
never go back again.
There was Father Brighton. He had
come from Illinois with few hundreds
in his pocket. In Chicago he had Just
missed making his fortune, and now
he was old. With his few hundreds he
bought a quarter section of unbroken
land on the edge of the city limits. erect
ed battened barn, in which he housed
his family, and lean to shed. in which
he housed his cattle. He made him a
garden and turned his cows and horses
out to grass. When the boom came he
sold his quarter-sectlon for city lots-all
but fine estate Of 10 acres on a COM
handing eminence in the center of West
Lincoln, for SIS, 1000. The $4,000 he in
vested in mortgages at 10 per cent on the
land he bad sold, and there he was, in
his old age, finding the fortune he had
always missed till now.
There was Ingram. He had been a
real estate dealer all these years, some
times with money to feed his family,