The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1894-05-11
The Newer Northwest.

lington railroad now completed through north
ern Wyoming almost to the Montana line, has
opened for development an immense terri
tory, whose resources have hitherto been
hardly suspected by the general public and
not half understood by those who were most
familiar with them. The line traverses, for
more than 800 miles, a section previously
wholly without rail connection, and although
such an incident as the opening up of such a
new and magnificent region would a score of
years ago have attracted national attention,
it occurred last year without exciting much
more than a passing paragraph in the press.
So much railroad building has been done and
SO much zeal has been displayed in advertis-
ing the extreme Northwest and the Pacific
coast that this nearby territory has been COM
paratively neglected. So far as the public has
had any impression of this region, it has been
that it was, if not wholly desert, at least suf-
fciently arid and uninviting to be the founda-
ton for the now-acknowledged myths con
corning the existence Of the "Great American
Desert"
It'has, however, been of late years pretty
thoroughly demonstrated and rather gener-
ally conceded that this region is admirably
adapted to the breeding of cattle on a large
scale, and this degree of knowledge of its
resources is being succeeded by the newt
able discovery that much of it is well fitted
by quality of soil and other conditions for
successful agriculture.
There is real romance in the way the Great
West has gradually and with much difficulty
struggled out from beneath the cloud cast
upon it nearly a century ago, when early ex-
plorers misnamed the Great American Desert.
State by state, county by county, single file,
it has emerged in small ~detachments, with
much fear and trembling of those first settlers
whom it had taken into its confidence and
invited to make their homes upon its bosom.
1t was almost as if a work of redemption was
going on rather than a work OF development
of what already existed. The Burlington
other agencies combined. 1t was the first to
push out, without the encouragement and
assistance of subsidies, into the vast region
over which hung the blighting reputation of
aridity and barrenness. 1t has pioneered the
way for the sturdy homesteader, made his
path easy and invited him to follow in con-
v~enience and comfort. 1t has opened up for
against his protest, and he has gone into them
doubtingly, but has remained in prosperity
and peace. At every new invasion by this
enterprising railroad of a new portion of the
western plains, this same thing has happened
as if it were a part of the regularly laid out
programme. First, the road; then a fringe of
the boldest and hardest settlers, located near
the n~avigable streams of the older states in
the older times when there were no railroads;
then a flow beyond these, and then the taking
| possession of the entire territory and the up
building of a rich and strong community.
These scenes are being repeated in the
newly-reached region penetrated by this road,
located in northwestern Nebraska, south
western Dakota and southeastern Wyoming.
Contrary to the generally accepted impression,
this, immense territory-three hundred miles
long by one hundred miles wide, and in area
equal to several of the smaller states of the
Union-is possessed of resources that qualify
it to be the home of a million people, and its
future inhabitants are already moving in and
taking possession in droves of thousands.
New towns are springing up. Those already
organized-Alliance, Hemingford, Crawford,
Edgemont, Newcastle, Sheridan, etc,-are
enjoying a period of unprecedented prosper
ity, Gigantic notwithstanding, irrigating,
yes, even manufacturIng-have chosen this as
their field of operations anG on all sides the
results of wisely-directed energy are apparent.
The capitalist, however, is by no means
the only person whose presence in this Newer
Northwest is noticeable. This is, if not a
veritable poor mans country" at least as
good a territory as the man of moderate means
can find anywhere. Most of the land still
belongs to the public domain and can be had
only by homesteading-except that in certain
portions it may be taken under the desert
land act and title to it secured by putting it
under bitches and supplying it with water for
irrigating purposes. What remains is the last
of the once vast area that has given free
homes to millions of enterprising American
citizens. 1t is rapidly being absorbed in the
same way the great mass of it has gone, and
the man who delays is deliberately throwing
away the last opportunity to secure for him
self and his children the heritage of a liberal
government.