The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1894-11-15
PRIZE CONTEST
The Essay on Redwood Falls En-.
tered In the ST 900 Prize
Contest Essay.
The Boston Real Estate Investors
Offer to Promote Ameri.
can Towns.

OtoS0o 4uV0SVO1, VI DOOIOuS ASAes0O'3 q
paper devoted to the promotion of
American enterprises, offered $1,000
in premiums to the persons writing
the three best essays on Ameri-
can towns. The prize was to be divid-
ed as follows: $500 to the first best;
$500 to the second best and $500 to
the third best. In the neighborhood
of 500 American town we're placed in
the contest, some of them being writ
ten up two or three times by parties
looking for the prizes. The judges
are Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge. of
Massachusetts; Hon. Charles F. Crisp,
of Georgia; and Hon. Julius Caesar
Burrows, of Michigan. About $50 of
these descriptions have been publish
ed, leaving in the neighborhood of $50
to be published at this writing.
The essays are to be judged from a
historic standpoint, the picturesque
location and appearance of the town /;
its advantages as manufacturing
center, and its desirability on account
of climate and health. The COM
pc itor entering Redwood Falls has
his letter marked 303, and it was pub
lished in the issue of Sept. 8, and is
as follows:
Health and wealth consolidated
form the essence of true happiness.
Picturesque nature tinged with ro-
nance never becomes tiresome. A
progressive American population,
born of American sires, and boiling
over with patriotism, and forming a
solid social phalanx bent npon max
ing each member happy, is an elysium.
A sturdy yeomanry, cultivating the
richest soil on earth, is the foundation
of commerce, and the city that is To-
Gated in the heart of such country
can boast indeed.
About 118 miles from St. Paul and
Minneapolis, and nearly 500 miles
from Chicago, on the Chicago &
Northwestern and Minneapolis &
St. Louis railroads is located the little
city of Redwood Falls, the gem of
Minnesota, as she is sometimes called.
On the banks of the Minnesota river
near the mouth of the Redwood, or
within a mile from the place where
the celebrated explorer, Beltrami,
wrote that his eyes we're resting on
valley of the most lovely, and interest
ing character, the city stands, bril-
liant diadem in the cluster of Mime
sofa towns. The scene transports
the imagination back to the classic
lands OF Latium and Magma Graecia.
Rocks, scattered as if oy art, over
plain, on plateau, and on hills, at
little distance from the city, perfect
representations of the varied forms of
the ruins of antiquity. In one place
can be seen themal substructures, or
those of an amphitheatre. circus or
forum; in another the remains of a
temple, cenotaph, basilicon, or a
triumphal arch. The rocky banks
of the Redwood are of granite, and so
beautiful and varied a quality, that
the tricky dealers of the Piazzo
Navona at Rome, would sell them to
the most enthusiastic, and in their
opinion the most learned, antiquarians
as Oriental and Egyptian porphyry or
basalt.
The banks, in places, rise 200 feet
above the river, and growing out of
this rocky pile are countless ever
green's, or red cedar trees. The Red
wood falls, but few moments walk,
go dashing down precipice 40 feet
high into seething whirlpool, a
spectacle that never grows, weary to
the human eye. The. Ramsey falls a
half mile away, hid in forest of trees,
fall fifty feet as musically as do
Laughing Waters.
The city has system of waterworks
equal to any, the water coming from
mammoth springs on the banks of the
river. A sewerage system on the lat
est principles is now in course of con-
struction, and will be completed next
year. Our health reports show re-
markable low percentage of deaths,
and the completion of the sewer sys-
tenn will decrease the rate. Social
circles are united, an American pop
ulation acting in harmony in social
affairs, and half dozen ministers of
the gospel to watch over the actors.
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