Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1895-02-21

ural Advantages Bid Defiance to Disaster
by Fire and the Blight of Hard Times.
From Trading Post to City.
Spokane Went from trading post to
a city of $4,000 and bank deposit of
81, 500, 900 in ten years, writes corre-
spondent of the Chicago Inter Ocean
Then came the fire i'll 1889 to wipe out
the whole business section and destroy
many millions of property. The day aft
er the fire the people began rebuilding
with unlimited credit from the east, and
in two years the city was as beautiful
and as full Of promise of power as the
wonderful Spokane falls, which had at
tracted all this energy and investment
in the center of the inland empire of
eastern Washington and northern Idaho.
Its handsome business blocks were built
on borrowed capital, and when the panic
came many men in Spokane who had
been reputed wealthy found themselves
almost penniless. But happily Spokane
is peopled by intelligent and energetic
young men, full of grit and pluck. They
are like the youth who bore the banner
with the strange device, Excelsior, .
and they do not allow the mountain of
mortgages on the glaciers of hard times
to discourage them.
An Ohio man, who has been resi-
dent of Spokane for 10 years, says of its
prospects: ''In the first place., I" said he,
II don't think that there is any city in
the northwest that has shown tho per-
centage of growth in population and
commercial development that Spokane
has shown. While Tacoma has grown
three times the population in ten years,
Seattle three and one-half times and
Portland two times, Spokane has grown
twenty seven times Its commercial
growth might be estimated in about the
same way
Spokane, as the center of great agri
cultural and mining districts, will have
phenomenal growth anyway. Admit
ting that we have unfavorable contli-
tions we have here enough advantages
to send Spokane ahead and give her q
population of 100, 900 in five years. We
have minerals of all kinds-gold, silver
copper, lead and iron For stone we
have marble, granite and onyx, and i'll
agriculture, where we had one acre un-
der cultivation ten years ago, we now
have 20 acres. We have coal tributary
to US, plenty Of it, and of prime quality
II base my faith on the future of
Spokane because of the force of her posi-
tion. She is the capital of one of the
richest sections of this country, and she
has no competition. Helena is 400 miles
to the east, and the sound cities are 400
miles the other way. There is no room
for other large cities to be built 1t is in
the midst of the richest section of the
continent. don't think that you can
find another section to equal that taking
in western Montana, eastern Washing
ton and northern Oregon. The railroads
make this country all tributary to Spo-
kane. The climate is such as to invite
all classes of people, whether they come
to do business in the city or take up
farming in the country.
"Next we have class of people who
in enterprise and energy are second to
none. You can't find man who has
lost faith in Spokane. Even those who
have lost their all in the hard times will
tell you that Spokane is all right. They
have absolute faith in her future. Take
our mineral wealth, and it alone would
insure the future of the city. We have
also valuable timber and rapidly devel-
oping agriculture and horticulture. I"
The Spokane falls have long been
noted for their beauty. But the beauty
Of the Spokane falls is secondary to
their practical use. Mr.. G. w. G. Fer
ris, the architect of the great Ferris
wheel, says: 1.-The condition which will
determine the relative expansion of cities
and towns in the next decade is the pres
ence of water power. The whole problem
Of electricity is one of cheap generation.
Now, any town in this country which
has water power within an available
distance, and that water power is a large
one. has, SO to speak, a gold mine. Wa
ter power means the minimum of cheap
ness in the generation of electric power.
You can easily see, therefore, that any
town which possesses this advantage
must take lead over any that does not. y
Spokane meets the conditions. The
falls here have minimum of 80, 200
horsepower. and they have already been
harnessed to run mills and big electric
plant that runs many miles of electric
l railway. lights the streets, business
houses and homes and distrib butes pow
er to a number of small factories The
division Of these falls into cascades in.
q oreases the power Of the water and en-
ables wider distribution Of its use.
There :is = total fall Of 124 feet in a dis,
ss;t tsnoe of 800 yards, divide Into fon,
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