The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-03-26
LOOKOUT MouNrAlN.
A Point from Which Seven States May I
Viewed.

Viewed.
One of the most remarkable curios in
Uncle Sans cabinet is Lookout noun
tain. at Chattanooga, Tenn. The trav-
eler expects such occasional combina-
tions of mountain and plain on the
edges of the Rockies, the Selkirks and
other great mountain chains, and yet it
is doubtful whether any other as beau
tifu1 is to be found. For it has seldom
happened that tall mountain rises
abruptly to interrupt and dominate q
view SO majestic and of such varied
features. Glistening water, smiling
farm land, forest, city, hill and island
all lie upon the gorgeous and gigantic
canvas of the Master Painter, who
invites mankind to His studio to enjoy
such views as we had fancied only
the stupid denizens of the air are priv
ileged to duly scan.
To surfeit ones self with the won
drous changing, widening beauty of
that splendid scene one does not have
to consider the martial records that
brave men wrote with their blood all
over the foreground of the prospect.
But when it happens that the specta-
tor is an American whose soul has
been stirred by the poor printed an
nails of Chickamauga and Mission
Ridge, the feast spread before Look
out mountain ministers to the under
standing the while it ravishes the eye.
In nothing is this wonder-spot more
wonderful than in its accessibility. It
is even more convenient to the tourist
than Niagara falls.-almost the solitary
great natural curiosity in our country
for which one does not have to travel
far and labor hard. In this case the
grand view is one of the sights of Chat
tanooga, 1.-The little Pittsburg'' OF the
south. The city enjoys it as a house
holder does his garden. as it were, for
the historic mountain is at the end of a
five-cent trolley line. During half the
year the tourist is even better served,
for the railroads haul the ''sleepers'' up
the mountain-side in summer, and dis
charge the passengers on the very
edge that divides terra frma and
eagles vision. Guided by Mr.. Milton
d. Ochs, of the Chattanooga Times,
who could have offered very wonder
full view of his own from the towering
pile in which that newspaper is housed,
l took the trolley line during what the
southern folks are pleased to call
winter-time. The way led to just
such a looking railway as one finds at
edge, though this one darts up the
two-thousand-foot high mountain side,
and is famed among professional en-
gineers as remarkable creation. 1t
was planned and built by W. R. King,
U. S. A. It is four thousand five hun
dred feet in length, with an elevation
of one thousand four hundred feet, and
a grade of nearly one foot in three at
the steepest place.
The terminus is the Lookout Point
hotel, which appears to stand upon
bowlder suspended over the remainder
of creation, as if a mountain rising
out of plain had thrust out finger
and men had put up a building on the
finger-nail. The biblical word-picture
which tells of our Saviour being taken
up on high mountain and shown the
kingdoms of the earth conveys the idea
that the view from this point suggests.
One can but have an idea of it, and it
can only be expressed or described with
a figure of speech. To be told that it
commands five hundred miles of the
earth's surface, and that the most dis
tant objects are parts of seven different
states is too much for the mind to
master What the eye takes in is
checker-board made up of farms, roads,
villages, woods, ridges and mountain
ranges, all in miniature. The Tennes-
see river gladdens the scene. Though
it is one thousand four hundred feet
wide, it looks like a ribbon, and,
like ribbon thrown care
lessly from the mountain-top,
it lies in many curves and convolutions,
dull green band everywhere fringed
with thin line of trees that wall in
the farmers fields. You may count
ten of it's curves, and three of them,
Immediately below the mountain, form
the exact shape of an Indian moccasin,
around the toe of which toy freight
train crawls lazily with a muff1ed gasp
ing out of all proportion to it's size. A
brown and white mound of smoke and
steam beyond the nearest farms is
pointed out as Chattanooga, and a roll
| ing wooded region on the right is
| spoken of as the bloodiest field of the
rebellion-fearful Chickamauga. The
| low dark green mound in the immedi-
ate foreground is Mission Ridge, and
! between that and the curtain of smoke
| that hides the busy city tiny bit of
| yellow road is seen to disappear at a
microscopic white gate, which is the
| portal of a cemetery wherein thirteen
| full regiments of northern heroes lie
| the blue who have turned to gray in
| the long embrace of death-five thou
sand of them not renlem bered by name
! Julian Ralph, in Harper's Magazine.
He Knew the Game.
$50 you were playing cards for
money!" said the magistrate, severely.
mo, sir; we were playing for chips"