The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-09-29
Five South Dakotu Towns Moved.
IFrom the New York

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Five well established South Dakota
towns have been torn from their founda-
tiOnS this year and dragged across the
prairie to the irresistible magnet of new
ly settled countries, a railroad extension
The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul
road this year has built from Armour
west through Charles Mix county-which
never had a railway beforehand from
Bowd1e west of the Missouri river. rur-
posely the surveys missed all the towns
and new townsites were plotted. As
result Geddes and New Platt,
the new railroad towns on
the Charles Mix county extension,
and Evarts, on the Bowdle extension,
are thriving communities of 500 persons
each, while Selby, Bloomington, Edger-
ton, Castalia and Old Platte are now
only memories.
The railroads towns have been doomed
to a point where collapse seems i'm
minent. A $4,000 hotel, of sixty rooms,
is building in GeddeS; there are three
banks there and many general stores
At Platte the growth has been so nearly
instantaneous out of treeleSS prairie
lands that it is still in disorder, but the
streets are daily lined with scores of
teams and the saloons, stores and black
smith shops do a big business The real
estate men are flying high just now. AT
the sites of the deserted towns a solitary
church or cottage stands as a sentinel
among the gaping cellars from which
homes have been dragged The streets
are grown up to weeds. The howl OF
blighted hopes for which the railroads
survey is accountable.
1t no longer is considered worth while
to find the towns in running railroad
surveys; the enterprise of the times die
tates town making. At the first intima-
ton that a railway was headed toward
a town up would go the prices for land
and clear titles were, moreover, almost
out of the question. So railroads of the
west now quietly purchase town site,
plot it, sell the plots and pocket what is
received for them above the cost of acre
land as clear gain. There is no trouble
about right of way or dickerlng with
obstinate town councils. So railroad
goes out of its way to leave the old
towns high and dry and in consequence
the old towns migrate Never in the his
tory of the country has there been such
wholesale migration as the Milwaukee
road caused this year First old Platte
swallowed its pride and disappointment
and one building after another, stores,
homes and saloons, were hauled to the
gines were hitched to the structures and
away they went up hill and down dale
half miles to the place the railroad COM
pany had picked out for a town. Cas-
Italia moved its buildings ten miles to
Platte Edgerton and Bloomington both
divided their buildings between Geddes
and Platte One of the biggest structures
moved was a general store owned by M
moved with all the merchandise on the
shelves from old Platte to the new Platte
Business went on all the time it was go
ing over the prairie
Selby. Geddes and Platte. They are sur
rounded by rich farming lands and viii
be the shipping points for the grain and
cattle of great regions. Platte. will get
the shipments of wheat from the farms
than which there are no richer in South
Dakota or the west