Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1900-08-24
BUILDING UP TOWNS.
RAILROADS A MIGHTY FORCE IN THIS
DIRECTION.
Western Railway Companies TO
build Two Hundred Towns In the
Next Two lcnrs-Things to Com
slider In Selecting Sites.


Buiid Two Hundred Towns In the
Next Two Ncnrs-Things to Com
slider In Selecting Sites.
American railroads and railroad COM
panies have been town builders since
railroad tracks began to be a marked
feature Of the national landscape, says
the Kansas City Star. II was fire.
lucntly the case In the west that the
railroads came first and the towns
came after but there are few towns.
great or small, that We're not made by
the railroads. The railroad as n To-
Gator, promoter or dictator in town
building has always been a conspicuous
factor
Where there was a division of in
terCst, and the town company and the
railroad company worked at cross pur-
pnscs aggravating conflicts occurred.
The town which the railroad company
was going to boom in spite of every
thing was an expensive nurselng for
the stockholders. y rich and variegat-
ed variety Of human meanncSs was dis
played in profusion-the travelling pub
lie suffered, the railroad service was
( crying disgrace, and the towns which
were the victims of the original con
( diet evoked no other notice than the
/ passing tribute of Il sigh.
/ With the cessation of the building
/ of the long transmSssSippi lines in
unsettled countries there has been less
3 tnl l. f,Ny nd h13ilH
/ ing, but ii 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 Hi
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.
The railroad companies should bring
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 he able to locate the future
centers of population and marts of
trade with reasonable certainty. Past
experience should teach the companies
not to attempt impossihilities. No ef-
fort should be made to found towns
where the Almighty has distinctly
significd his nonapproval-in swamps
and deserts, on the surfaces of bald
and shining rocks, in localities cut off
from earth air and water. Great rs
is the power of corporations, they can
not make a 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 friend
to the end. Take two towns, one plant,
ed Ivy hand and the other by the rail
road company, and the latter should
the more abound provided the railroad
town has from its birth certificate OF
STYLE, gait and action which child of
nature town can hardly possess. With
the presence of a railroad company
which has superintendent and assist
ant superintendent and general anG
department managers Is associated the
idea of arrangement, order and disci
pline, and it may be believed that q
railroad town will grow up in order
and not diffuse itself over the grount
after the manner of eczema.
Two hundred railroad towns, wheth
. er destined to replace Carthage. Nine
veh, Babylon and the like or otherwise
should be respectable additions to the
populous centers Of this great country
Places rescued from uglness an(
squalor fastened by bands of iron t
the rest of the living, breathing world
within touch and hearing if not sigh
of it, shaken loose twice day by tn,
rushing train, with its jar and call
from the great world; never dead Of
dying and with the hope aud impuls,
of life-these are the monuments of en-
) terprise which the railroads are rear
. ing all over the land.