The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1900-12-21
A CENTURY AT WASHINGTON.

Fridays celebration at Washing
ton, of the one hundreth anniversary
of the removal of the federal capitol to
that city serves to call to mind the
rapid passing of events of the century.
When the government was located
there century ago. Washington could
hardly be designated as even village.
Its str eets, if the pathways and road
ways leading from one point to another
could be termed such, were not inn
proved, and in rainy weather were
almost impossible. Even up to and
after the war, Washington was not a
place of beauty, so far as improve
ments made by man was concerned
1t is to man, who at the time was
known as Boss Shepard, that Washing
ton owes its present beauty. Probably
no man in the country was more
abused than Shepard was for the
work. He was accused of being ex-
travagant, and limitations were made
that corruption was rife in the work
of transforming the city, but so far
as memory serves us, nothing was
ever unearthed to sustain such asser-
tions. 1t was a case in which Shepard
builded better than his fellows knew
and he transformed Washington into
a modern and beautiful city, and men
who once denounced it are now proud
of Shepard's work. Its beautiful,
wide, paved streets, its parks and
shaded hooks are lasting. monument
to the man who conceived the scheme
and had the nerve and energy to carry
out the gigantic plan. 1t is not al
ways, in fact is seldom the case, that
man who has done great work for a
community, under such circumstances,
ever receives the honor due him during
his lifetime, But Shepard did. After
his work in Washington he went to
Mexico, where he was engaged in
some mining venture we believe.
His work at the nations capital was
wholly unappreciated both there
andthrough the nation at large,
and his reputation was under a
cloud. But a few years ago he re-
turned to Washington. The plans
which he had conceived had been fully
carried out, not in all respects in the
expensive manner in which he had
set the pace, but Washington was trans
formed into a most beautiful city, and
Shepard's work was duly appreciated
and due recognition given him by it's
citizens.
But if Was hington has been trans
formed from struggling village with
muddy, almost impossible, str eets
to beautiful, modern city,
so has the nation and the world
been transformed. The greater
part of the progress of the nineteen
centuries of the Christian era, has
been made in the one hundred years
since our nations capital was removed
to Washington. All of our great in
veptions have come since then.
twenty-five years ago. people wonder
ed if any greater improvements could
come. Yet the greatest advance of
the century has come since then. At
that time the marvels wrought by
electricity were unknown. Today the
electric power is an indispensable ad
junct if our civilization, and its won
ders and power have only commenced
to unfold. Then the United States
consisted of only narrow fringe of
states along the Atlantic ocast Now
it stretches from ocean to ocean, with
possessions beyond the seas, one of the
most powerful nations in the world.
Taken all in all it has been mar
velous century and the marvellous
change that has been wrought at
Washington is only an incident in its
great progress.