The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1895-07-25
THE SACRAMENTO CITY AND
AUSTIN DAMS,

This is the way they celebrate a small
enterprise, small in comparison with that
of the Austin dam, at Sacramento City,
Cal. Several enterprising citizens built
a dam 80 feet wide AID feet deep
across the American fork of the Sacra-
mento river, about % miles above the city
and above the mouth of that fork which
flows into the Sacramento river ON the
northern border of the city.
This dam which they celebrate as the
greatest enterprise in this or any other
country is only 80 feet wide and s feet
deep and yet the Sacramento Bee thus
records the completion of the enterprise.
The Bee of July 13 says: AT o'clock
this morning the booming of 100 guns
announced the birth of the new Sacra-
mento. At that time the lightning from
the power house at Folsom, % miles
above the city, generated by water power
from the American river, smote this city
and caused an armatured magnet in the
power house of Sacramento City to
whr so fast that its motion could hardly
be discerned. The incandescent glass
bulbs on the switch board leaped into
life as though touched with fire from
heaven 1--WE supposed all lightning was
from heaven and the steady buzz and
hum of the magnet was the sweetest
song ever heard in Sacramento, for it
was the music of the new birth hymn,
proclaming to the world that Sacra-
mentO was not only the first city in the
world to receive electrical energy from
a distance 50 great, but is today the only
city in the world that contains so large
an electrical plant"
The Bee continues to say: "Sacra-
mentoans do not fully appreciate the full
force of this statement. 1t means in
other words that Sacramento has become
the most favored spot in the United States,
if not in the world, for manufacturers"
This is big brag and we glory in the
public spirit that it manifests, but what
if these enthusiastic people should take
a look at Austin's great dam and water
power? The Sacramento people have
dam so feet wide and s feet deep %
miles above the city. The Austin people
have a dam 100 feet wide and 60 feet
deep, the dam and power house being
located about three miles from the centre
of the city, with volume of water OF
an average depth of 10 feet contained
in a magnificent lake upon which the
finest steamers run daily to the beautiful
resorts along its romantic banks.
Do the Sacramento people think they
have 1.-THE most favored spot in the
United States, if not in the world
for manufacturers? If they are still
under that delusion, let them bottle up
, their 50-foot dam s feet deep and pre-
serving the water until their return, come
and take a look at the dam across the
Colorado at Austin.
However, these people are naturally
elated at their small success and they
are going into raptures over it with the
booming of cannon and the reverberation
of oratory. How much more elated we
of Austin should be and how truly we
can say that Austin, not Sacramento
City, "is the most favored spot in the
United States, if not in the world for
manufacturers"
The elaton of the Sacramento people
is so great that they are working together
as one man to make their small plant
great success. Would it not be q
great reproach to Austin if we permitted
this little pond above Sacramento to out.
strip us in the race for obtaining facto.
ries? Our advantages over this are just
! in proportion of HOO feet in width to &c