The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-05-09
WICHITA IS IMMORTAL.
WAS INTENDED TO BE METROPOLIS
OF THE PLAINS.

cry of the Greatest Room Town
on Earth--Fnith of Her Inhabit-
ants in Glorious Future.
Correspondence of the Chicago Record
Wichita, Kan, April 2s.-The pressure of
local pride and ambition at Wichita is
about as powerful as that of the natural
gas at Iola-about 1000 pounds to the
square inch--and a skephc can easily cause
an explosion by expressing doubts as 70
The future greatness of this city.
Wichita as typical boom" town
Twelve years ago it had a population of
5000. To-day il has perhaps 5000 which
is a considerable recovery from low tide in
1895, when It had less than 1900, accord
ing to estimates based upon the number of
names in the directory. In 1865, before the
boom broke. Wichita real estate was sell
ing al New York prices. and they point
out lots on the main street that sold for
$500 a front foot for which the owners
would now be glad to get $500 or $500 The
real estate exchanges in New York in
good times viii reach about $22 900 a
year; in Chicago in 1892, just before the
worlds fair the transfers as shown by the
recorders books Were about $50. 900 600. but
at Wichita during the Ave months preced-
ing the collapse in 1888 more than $35 co.,
900 in town lots changed hands.
There was never such a craze for specu-
lation anywhere else In the world. Town
lots were sold at auction, night after
night. The trading at the real estate ex-
change was like the speculation in stocks
NeNy Work md 10,
wheat on the board of trade in Chicago.
Comparatively few of the sales were fol
lowed by actual transfers. Before the deed
could be made out the property would be
sold TO some one else at an advance or
loss, as the case might be, for values were
affected daily by plans for improvements
and rumors of street-car lines, new rail
roads. factories and fine residences to be
erected in the neIghborhood. Blocks and
streets were laid out over an area suf-
ficient 10 accommodate 100000 people.
When the boom burst it is said that 1900
houses were torn down and the material
used for firewood. Town lots that once
were severed sand sidewalked aud piped
for gas and sold for hundreds of thousands
of dollars are now cultivated as cornheids
One man sold a quarter of his homestead
on the outskirts of town for 81 900 900 and
spent large part of the money in build
lIlS anu tQulPPluk u StttNt NdI me W
reach il. lie took the land back from the
purchasers upon the payment of a small
part of the purchase price and surrendered
the notes they had given him for the
amount of $4,000. The rails of has tram
way were sold for Old iron, the ties for
firewood and the cars, which were brought
all the way from Philadelphia make a
picturesque group of outhouses around his
barnyard.
One of the real estate men who survived
the boom tells me that his commissions on
sales of town lots were 100000 the week
before the break The week after they
were less than $1,000.
The collapse of the boom in Wichita is
traced directly TO an editorial written by
Marsh Murdoch and published in his news
paper, the Eagle. That editorial probably
caused more commotion in this little West
ern world than any other article that was
ever published, because it knocked all the
wind out of Wichita, and the rapid panic
that followed became contagious and
spread 90 every Kansas town. II is a
question whether Mr. Murdoch realized
the possible results of his admonition. He
was a pioneer in Kansas-a state builder.
He started the first paper west or south
of Topeka in 1853 and he came to Wichita
before the railroad. He loved the town
more than any other man in IL. His am-
DlliOH, MS pIIuts HIS lDptC were ali Ills
VOWED in its interests, and he did more
than any other man to create the fiction
of metropolis which he himself exposed,
and TO inspire the decisions that he de-
stroyed. Nobody doubted his sincerity.
Nobody ever questioned the honesty OF
his motive, but il Is doubtful If wider on
deeper or more vigorous imprecations were
ever heaDed upon any other man. Thous-
ands of spectators who thought they
morning. Every line of that editorial cost
| 81, 900 to the town of Wichita, and with
out doubt it was the most costly article
that ever appeared in type.
But the boom would have broken sooner
or later. The balloon had become so dis
tended that 1t must have burst within a
few months, and IL was that knowledge
which prompted Mr.. Murdoch to Call a
Halt" Under that title, in a few impress
sive words, he warned the people or
Wichita that they had reached the limit
OF human folly, and in the name of hon
est citizenship and ordinary business sense
he demanded that insane speculation in
town lots should cease, and that the ener-
gies of the people should be employed In
the fulhllment of the promises and the
development of the resources upon which
| the boom had been based. He called tho
attention OF the public to what was al
that II would require half a century of
patient toll TO carry out the plans thar
had been made for the improvement of
Wichita. and that there was not enough
money in the state of Kansas TO settle the
| obligations that had been assumed in that
town. He urged his fellow-citizens to
| abandon speculation and settle down to
| business.
The Wichita Eagle had big circulation
in those days and it has always been one
Of the most influential papers in the state.
Murdoch was recognized as a man of great
power with the pen and a strength of
purpose that never faltered. Hence when
the real estate spectators and the boom
ers read that editorial they realized that
ii was the honest exbortation of man
who could not be buDied or deceived.
They knew that Marsh Murdoch was &c
, tuated by conscientious motives and that
the publication which threatened their in
terests would be followed by others of the
same sort. So everybody hurried down.
town to sell his property for the best
| price he could get and found that evarv