The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1895-01-04
A Grand Total of $4,000 in All--Where
Are Our Would-Be Rivals
Today?
Here Is One Western City That Builds
Itself Up With Its Own Capital
No Fictitious Values.

st. Louis, Mo-, has been the butt Of
many jokes for years on account of its
being ''too slow" The authors of
these puns have been the newspapers
of Kansas City, Chicago, Omaha and
other towns of less Importance.
St. Louis was slow. 1t takes time
to save money under the wage system,
but it is surest, and the metropolis of
Missouri forged steadily ahead.
Windy Kansas City and Wyandotte
induced eastern capital to step in and
take hand in their business. The
boomlets burst and those towns suf-
fered severely. st. Louis remained in
tact. Through all the strikes, and
the failures, and the poverty and dis
tress of the fearful year of '94, the
one western city whose name was not
furnished by the whitening hand of
rascality was st. Louis. 1t did it's
own building, used it's own money in
all things, and when the reckoning
came the grand city of the south
stood head and shoulders above the
wrecks of men and things around her.
Yet they said ST. Louis was ''slow!"
Kind reader, do you see where our
own little city has had a noble
parallel?
The grand total of investments
this year will not quite reach that of
93; but we feel sure the people know
why it has not, nor ''set down aught
in malice" for lack of confidence on
the part of our fnanciers.
An important step has been taken
during the past twelve months in our
city's march of progress. There are
grander neutrality-suspicious. homes
that in years gone by were not con-
sidered. Where is there more
conveniently arranged business
block than the Patterson
Payne? Where is there handsomer
apartment building than the "Secur-
ity," equipped as it is with all the i'm
provements that modern mind can
suggest? Where are there more home
like homes than those of III. @. Ger
ZACH, Charles Boynton, K. G. Sweet or
Charles Harris? There are grander
homes than these, but none more
modern or more beautiful
There is marked improvement all
along the line. We are getting too
big to be "town" and want a real,
big city, and as start in the right
direction we have outgrown macada-
mixed streets and are talking about
paving, and will get it. The horse car
line, that little band of steel that dis
tinguished US in years agone from the
clowns" around us, no more has the
charms of yore, and we are talking
about an electric trolley system, and
we'll have that, too.
We outgrew the old telephone fire
alarm system with its irresponsible,
disjointed business principles and
wanted real Gamewell telegraph. We
got it, and the next thing, though we
may not get it in minute, will be a
paid fire department., for the insur-
ance men tell US that the reduction of
insurance premiums following the
establishment of paid department
will more than counterbalance the ex-
pense of maintaining real fire laddies.
That's another important thing, and
we'll get that, too.
Mankato has wise heads at the front
ranks of her onward march. So far
she has had no "bOom," doesn't want
it, and financially is in as good a con-
dition as any city west of the Missis-
sippi river. There are nohungry men
standing about the street corners
yainly seeking for work, for every