St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-04-29

right away from me under the infiu-
ence of the railroaderS They are
probably the dandy town-site men, And
the worst of it Is that ordinarily you
can't reason with them at all. They
know that they have got the call on
you, and they work the thing for all
it's worth. They want the whole hog,
as found out later OF.
Yet laugh, too, now, when l think
of some of my early town-site ex-
periences. / want to tell you about
time had IN place called Phelps City,
in the central part of Nebraska. That
was about 1878. was called to Phelps
City on business, and found the cit
liens there in a great fret and stew
because the new railroad was not going
to run within three miles of the town,
and had decided to locate station
seven miles further on. / remember
that in a recent business deal with men
connected with the same company they
limited they would negotiate for a sta
ton on a. financial basis, and thought
perhaps 1 might buy them off, and so 1
told the leading citizens that if they
would give me ten lots in case I was
successful would undertake to get the
ra1lroaders to change their minds. This
was agreed to and set about the job.
"At first the railroaders said they
would listen to any reasonable PROPOSE
ton had to make. Feeling encour-
aged, told them that as representa-
tive of the business interests of the
town 1 had been deputed to offer the
road free station grounds, and. with
wink, two lots to each of the gentlemen
representing the road. One of the
blamed scoundrels laughed little
when he heard this. and, after blowing
the smoke out of his mouth, he said:
II can do better by the company than
that. Down here seven miles I own
$50 acres. and after giving the company
fifty of them, will have several corner
lots left for myself. I don't think that
we can make a trade today That
ended the matter.
REPORTED PROGRESS
to the Phelps City folks, and they
made ready to pull up stakes. The
next week they were buying corner
lots from the railroad man.
When 1 was operating in Idaho, at
the time the Northern Pacific went
through the territory, was tickled al
most to death to see how one town,
L
of that kind of railroad thieves. 1t
was like this: When the regular rail-
road town site engineers came riding
through they stopped and called a
mass meeting of the citizens of Ly-
man. Their spokesman made a speech,
in which he fattered the people on
their lovely valley, their fertile soil
and majestic mountains, and ended
by saying it was a great pity that the
lay of the land was such that a station
couldn't be located there. Up jumped
the mayor of the city. a big man in a
red shirt and face like a lion. "It is,
Is 1T? he called out. Well, I want to
politely inform you and your whole
crew OF railroad men that as sure as
you don't put depot and side tracks
here in Lyman not a blamed train will
ever get out of this valley. Now, do
you hear that? We 'uns here owns
the whole country. and the railroad
that gets a train through here with
out picking 1t out of the ditch every
two mile will be the smartest road
that you ever heard tell of. Come on
now with your road. We're ready for
you
wen, II Woulu nave Hldue you iduSD
for week to have seen those railroad
town site fellows wilt. They stood
around for a while talking the matter
| over, and finally went away without
saying anything. When the road
| went through it went to Lyman, and
they put station there. but I'll bet
that it don't stay there long. You see
| it is a rather wild country, and ii
| don't pay now to run against public
| opinion. But when it gets settled, and
| they get to holding court up there with
a little more regularity and ceremony
you'll see Lyman wiped off the face OF
the map"