Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-11-24

postage, foreign postal treaties and the
building of railroads in Europe We're other
contributing causes to population growth of
this period. The knowledge, also, In Eu-
rope of the beneficent operations of the
homestead law, which Horace Greeley had
succeeded in pushing through Congress,
was great factor in this development.
The German Influx.
The German people, with their love of lib-
erty. their thrift and intelligence, gladly
seized the chance to make homes for them
selves in the new country: railroads has
tened and cheapened their journey to the
seaboard in their own country, ard the
great ocean steamers, which had hardly
been running ten years Cor the first ocean
steamship. the Sirius, arrived in New York
in 1929, soon brought them to this country
where the railroad again swiftly sped them
on into the boundless and bounteous west
waiting with open arms TO receive them. In
this decade the center swept almost stralsh'
west, being swerVed only nail a mile 10 the
north
That was the greatest period of progress
In population the country has known.
When the government mathematlc1anS ten
years later sat down to compute new
center of population they found 1t forty
two miles northwest, or about forty-elght
miles east by north Of Cincinnati. The
war and the devastation of the south, to-
gether with the imperfect census returns
from the southern states in 1870, sent the
center point bounding sharply off to the
north. farther than it had been since lSOo,
and the northward movement was more
rapid than the southern movement had
ever been.
There was a better count Of the popula-
ton of the south in 1850. The colored peo-
pie, who had not been counted very thor
oughly ten years before, had increased in
intelligence as well in numbers, and
produced their effect upon the center point
of population. This time the center was
drawn southwark some twenty miles, the
,y~Jr hejnp weight
1t Moves South.
The precise point eight miles west
of Cincinnati at a little place In Kentucky
called Taylorsville The southwark move
ment this time was due to the great in
crease the south had made after she re-
covered from the effects of the war. Her
own natural growth and immigration from
Europe and the northern states served to
balance in great part the increase OF popu-
lation in the west and north.
From 1880 to 1890 the population center
moved northwestward forty-eight miles.
This was due to the admission of the new
states of North and South Dakota, Mon
tana and Washington, with the great in
crease of population within their borders.
For the past ten years a pretty meadow
just south of the little hoosler village of
Westport, on the Vernon Fork of the Mus
catatuck river. has been the population cen
ter of this great republic The progress In
the decade has been less than for many
years New York and the other eastern
states have been increasing more rapidly
than heretofore in comparison with the
west. The great increase in Texas and the
opening of Oklahoma and Indian territory
have kept the point from going much far
Their to the north. 1t Is now hardly five
miles north of Cincinnati, or where it was
twenty years ago. Although the west is
growing more popuous it is now by natu-
raj increase more than by immigration, and
the east, with it's denser population, is also
growing rapidly in population. At the
present rate of progress it will take half
a century for the center point to reach the
Mississippi river.
1t will not be until some time after the
year 2OO0 at the present rate of progress,
that the center of population will reach the
geographical center of the United States.
This point is on a meridian of longitude
running nearly through the city of Dead
miles distant from the intersection of this
meridian with the boundary line between
North and South Dakota.