The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1898-10-08
4 DESERTED CITY IN NORTH DAKOTA.
Though There Are Fine Houses and
Streets There Ii Not q Resident.

x00u&0 I1eTe Are E10o HOUSES a0Q
Streets There Ii Not q Resident.
A city large enough to house q
population Of 5000, yet absolutely
tenantless; place with substantial
brick blocks, well-laid streets and
walks, handsome residences, costly
store buildings-in fact, metropol-
itan city-but without resident,
with not even cock to crow BY day
nor dog to howl by night. Such a
place exists, although even in North
Dakota, which State claims this
tenantless metropolis. West Lynne
long ago passed from the memory
of most men and women, says the
San Francisco Call.
A weird place it is. The "city" is
there-deserted, abandoned, going
to decay. No traffic goes on in its
streets, no business in its stores !;
the sound of human voices is not
heard in its dwellings. The streets
are graded, the walks are of macad-
am and trees and shrubbery flourish
in the yards surrounding the resi-
dences-but all in silence and lone
illness.
Such a place is West Lynne. on
the west bank of the Red River of
the North and almost on the Cana
dian boundary.
The history of the place is one of
the romances of the "boom" period
from 1878 to 1881. The people of
the. Dakotas will never forget those
''boom days" when towns sprang up
in night; when few lots staked
out on the prairie and styled col
lectively Central City," New Lon
don," or something equally impress
sive sold in the markets of the East
one day for hundreds of dollars,
and the next day for thousands.
It was then that shrewd men
waxed affluent, fattening upon the
credulity of the Eastern investor.
A golden stream poured into the
land where yet the Sioux-the
Apache of the North-fought his
ancient foes, the Blackfoot of Mon
tana and the Pawnee of the Niobra-
ra, and, having vanquished them,
joined in an attack upon some tribe
springing from his own parent stock
fought just to be fighting, because
it was the mater of the beast" The
lowly laborer, drawing his weekly
stipend, made enormous by stress
of "boom" prices, invested it in
prairie soil, and at the end of a
month found himself rich beyond
the chance of again having to toll.
Those were the "good old boom
days.
But there came the collapse. Men
who, not foreseeing the crash, in
vested more heavily instead of turn
ing their holdings into coin, awoke
one morning to find themselves
land poor" and in debt, unable to
complete the extensive improve.
ments they had begun upon their
realty. The fortunes that had been
made ia day were scattered in a
night; villages that had sprung ur
in few hours and grown to the i'm
portance of incorporated towns and
cities in few months, were deserted
by all save those who, swamped by
the crash, found themselves with
out enough money to get away.
The collapse of the Dakota boom
In 1881 marked the beginning of 6
new era in the great wheat belt O.
the Northwestern era of steady
settlement and growth, of prosper
lty founded upon vigin soil which
"tickled with hoe laughs har
vest," until now in the hands of til.
Dakotas there have sprung up two
great commonwealth, for the out
put of whose granaries the people o
distant chimes give up their gold.
West Lynne was "boom town
and the most noted of them all. I
was plated by schemers with NOR,
fertility than scruples, at point OF
the Red River, where, they claimed
the Great Northern Railroad wa
to cross when built through to tn
Pacific coast. The possibilities O
the place were exploited in the East
capitalists became interested an,
money was plentiful.
There was no sham about tn
actual construction re Woe+