The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-07-26
GREAT SHORT LINE
THAT WHICH REACHES THE EAST
r. BY WAY OF MANITOwOC,
WIS.
SAVING OF 200 MILES.
HOW MILWAUKEE, Is BEGINNING
TO APPRECIATE MANITOWOC's
IMPORTANCE.

IMPORTANCE.
ONLY FEW DAYS TO WAIT
Before Business With the East VIII
Be Conducted Across Lake
Michigan.
Special to the Globe.
MANITOWOC. Wis, July 24-There
are other matters in this land of peas
and plenty" than its peas and canning
factory to interest and attract the at
tention Of those jewellers in the great
Northwest who raise Europes food,
and those who convert 1t into the inter-
mediate conditions between the field
and the table, as well as those whose
business is that of finding markets and
distributing the food material over the
most direct routes. 1t is getting things
from the field to the consumer that
costs, as many farmer has learned
in comparing home markets with those
of final consumption, and it Is a matter
Of interest to him If the route can be
shortened and thus cheapened. He may
not get all the benefit but he will get
some. And in these nipping times
when the margins are snug, too snug
for comfort, the same matter interests
the miller and the merchant, the ship
pers out and In. And it is this feature
Of this little city on the shore of Lake
s4I,f
in transportation whose effects will
reach to the farthest farm in the great
Northwest, that makes Of present in
terests the work being done here
I wrote from here something more
than year ago Of the railway scheme
that was to make line from the Twin
Cities to New York and Boston nearly
as direct as the bird flies. Transverse
ly across this line lay sixty miles of
lake. For years, ever since rails began
to be laid for trains to carry the pro-
ducts Of the West to the hungry East,
this stretch of water has been regarded
as an insuperable obstacle which, like
the log in the field that Lincoln told Of
in one Of his illustrating stories, that
could not be moved nor burned, but
was "plowed round" The railways
plowed round the great pendant of
water that nature hung on the face Of
the earth. three hundred miles long
and sixty miles wide, athwart the cur
rent OF land commerce. Take your map
and see how they have gone around
to the south and make Chicago pos
sible, or to the North across the 500.
| Necessity knows no law nor for long
yields to distractions. Commerce. like
motion, runs on the lines Of least re-
| sistance. If the lines are not there they
must be laid; if the resistance is
| there 1t must be removed. If the lake
will not get out Of the way it must be
subdued and made to serve the uses Of
commerce. So, in due course of time
came the venturesome man who pro-
posed to lay rails on q boat and run
! the trains on them and make the lake
| bear the train across itself Car ferries
/ across streams were no novelty, but
across broad lakes, sometimes turbul-
ent and, in winter coated with ice was
quite another thing. But nature is
| getting accustomed to being subdued
! by man and she had to Yield here The
| car ferry has established itself and
someday in the future, car freight
trains will be billed direct from st. Paul
| to Vienna and be ferried across the
| "A t1d11lIC ~ Idhc lie Id1lS Oh Tie Quiet
| side for the completion Of their journey
The line of the Wisconsin Central,
| OF which l wrote, is nearly completed
and will be ready for traffic in a few
days. Here everywhere there Is busy
preparation for handling the business
that is to come. Let us stand On the up
per bridge that spans the river that
makes a straight run for the lake after
winding about to form letter rs" in
natures largest font Of type, and take
note Of what is going on. Eastward,
toward the lake, between the harbor
piers, dredge Is digging up the mud,
on account Of the general government
and dropping it into q mud-scow which
a waiting tug will tow a couple of miles
out into the lake where the scow's load
will be dumped. Nearer us another
dredge is putting away as its great
shovel comes up with Its load. 1t is
fourteen feet now to the bottom and the
dredges and the two others at work
elsewhere are sinking that bottom
down to twenty feet, four feet lower
than Chicago harbor can be made I'M
less the tunnels are given up or lowered
! The general government pays for that
! outer harbor dredging and the city
pays for the interior, mid-river exca-
waiting, while the lot owners will have
to pay to get twentyfoot channel to
their properties. Chicago gets her in
side as well as OUTSIDE dredging QOn0
at the expense Of the whole country,
but then Chicago ie a hog and Manito-
voc wears no bristles.
Now turn Westward. Here at the
right are the terminal grounds Of the
Central, over twenty acres of them,
with the river bending around them in
a half circle. This was all a ship yard
| in the old days when vessels got fifteen
cents a bushel for carrying wheat from
Chicago and Milwaukee to Buffalo, and
thousand shipwrfghts used to find
good wages and steady work there.
But large propellers with their barges
have changed all that and the dry-dock
across the neck, doing repairing of dis
abled vessels, is about all that remains
of that industry. Just above the depot
building there where that pile driver
Is at work sinking row Of piles, is
the slip into which the car ferry will
back and connect her rails with those
on land, so that the freight or passen-
ger train may run from the tracks on
| land to those on the boat. Further up
workmen are building the great coal
docks, like those across the river where
a steam barge and her lows are un-
loading coal from Buffalo or Cleveland
Down there by the lake the North
western road-you call 1t the Omaha"
| in st. Paul-is going to cut slip sew
| arol I,,zpdrod long o0d h11fld coal