The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1900-08-16
BUILDING UP TOWNS.
RAILROADS A MIGHTY FORCE IN THIS
DIRECTION

Western Railway Companies to
Next Two 1ears-Things to Com
slider In Selecting Sites.
American railroads and railroad COM
panies have been town builders since
railroad tracks began to be G marked
feature of the national landscape, says
the Kansas City Star. 1t was fire.
quently the case In the west that the
railroads came first and the towns
came after, but there are few towns,
great or small, that were not made by
the railroads. The railroad as To-
Gator, promoter or dictator in town
building has always been a conspicuous
factor
Where there was a division of in
terest, and the town company and the
railroad company worked at cross pur-
poses. aggravating conflicts occurred.
The town which the railroad company
was going to boom in spite of every
thing was an expensive nurSeHng for
the stockholders. A rich and variegat-
ed variety Of human meanness was dis
played in profuSiOn-the travelling pub
lie suffered, the railroad service was a
crying disgrace, and the towns which
were the victims Of the original con-
fiict evoked no other notice than the
passing tribute of sigh.
With the cessation of the building
Of the long transmissssippi lines in
unsettled countries there has been less
talk of railroad towns and town build
ing, but it is now announced that the
railroad builders Of the past are to
become, ON an extensive scale, the
town builders Of the future. The Atchi-
son, Topeka and Santa Fe, the Chicago
and Northwestern, the Burlington, the
Chicago, Milwaukee and st. Paul, the
Northern Pacific, the Chicago and
Eastern Illinois and the Eastern Illi-
nois have determined to build 200
towns within the next Is months or
two years in Oklahoma, New Mexico,
Kansas, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Mich
igan, Wisconsin, Montana, Idaho,
Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado
and Oregon.
to this enterprise a great amount of
information and experience. They
should know all the signs by which the
future infant cities may be read. They
should be able to locate the future
centers of population and marts OF
trade with reasonable certainty. Past
experience should teach the companies
not to attempt impossibilities. No eff
fort should be made to found towns
where the Almighty has distinctly
signifed his nonapprovaEin swamps
and deserts. On the surfaces of bald
and shining rocks. In localities cut off
from earth, air and water. Great as
is the power of corporations, they can
not make town grow with these nat
ural features in its make up.
The prerequisites for town are an
accessible site, water within a conven-
lent distance and the assurance that
the railroad company is to be a friend
to the end. Take two towns, one plant
ed by hand and the other by the rail-
road company. and the latter should
the more abound provided the railroad
town has from it's birth a certificate of
STYLE. gait and action which child of
nature town can hardly possess. With
the presence of d railroad company
which has superintendent and assist
ant superintendent and general anc
department managers is associated the
idea of arrangement, order and disci-
pline, and it may be believed that
railroad town will grow up in order
and not diffuse itself over the ground
after the manner of eczema.
Two hundred railroad towns, wheth,
er destined to replace Carthage, Nine
web, Babylon and the like or otherwise,
should be respectable additions to the
populous centers of this great country.
Places rescued from ugliness and
squalor, fastened by bands of iron to
the rest Of the living, breathing world;
within touch end hearing # not sight
of it, shaken loose twice a day by the
rushing train. with its jar and call.
from the great world; never dead or
dying and with the hope and impulse
of life these are the monuments Of en-
terprise which the railroads are rear
ing all over the land. .~..+s.~,..
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