, 1901-12-31
AN OUTSIDERS VIEW
HOW WYOMING APPEARS TO
COLONEL o. FRANK
POWELL.
Beef of This State Found Upon the
Tables of the Civilized World and
Her Wool In Every Loom Where
the Best Cloth Is Made-Laramie
Plain No Longer Part OF a Desert.

convention III this city:
! Mr.. Chairman, Delegates to the Wyo-
ming Industrial Convention:
Ladies and Gentlemen:
When / received an invitation to be
| present at this convention, all other
business for the 18th and 18th of De
cember was put aside, and the impera-
tive mandate, "On to Laramie" obey
ed.
And now what can l say to interest
you? Nothing, nothing to those who
know the state. but ! can add my tri-
butte to her worth, and that | do most
heartily. In speaking of wyoming
as she appears to an outsider" the
thought occurs that, perhaps, an out
slider on the inside may be as well able
to speak knowingly of the state as an
insider on the outside am proud to
belong to the former class. No obi
Gus comparison is intended when |
say hat while Colorado. your sister
state, justly boasts of beautiful Den
yer, of the mineral and other resources
| which have made her famous, and OF
her gateway to the Garden of the
Gods, Wyoming proudly points to her
gateway of the pioneer and to Il long
trail leading through it to the and of
the setting sun, along whose weary
way the frontiersman has left, on the
banks of every prairie stream and
mountain brook, the ashes of his camp
fires; and, alas, too often, the bones
of comrades slain by the red man, jeal-
GUS of the pale faces e~ncroachment
upon his hunting grounds.
Like uneXplored beds OF mussels
within whose unopened shells lie prec-
| ip,,c nnor1c NNvnpninc nntiapt1v nor
haps too patiently, awaited the recog-
milton of outside capital for the devel-
opment of her latent riches. And yet
no blame can be attached to her citi.
zens for lack of energy nor the push
necessary to bring her to the front.
Circumstances have had much to do
with this, for the only "old Fossils in
Wyoming are to be found imbedded in
the banks of her long dried streams
and upon the shores of her seas exist,
ant and dead, before man came upon
the scene.
We, of more eastern states, have a
suspicion that perhaps the cattle king
could explain why the click of the pick
and the sound of the dynamite blast
were not long since heard in the foot.
hills, and among the crags OF the rock,
1 ASS. lJut Az" ShS S"s - oSAS " -
to the world hat Wyoming is rich in
mineral, that coal, iron, copper, silver
platinum and gold are here. 1t is now
known that she has inexhaustible
fields of oil, which the chemist has de.
clared unlike any other in the world
for the quality and richness of it's by.
products, and nothing can now prevent
the influx of legions of adventurous
and en%terprising men who have here.
tofore ignored this treasure land only
because of their ignorance of its won
derful resources. The miner no longer
passes Wyoming by. One of her cop
per belts is the wonder of the mining
world. The Calumet and Hecla ore OF
Michigan averages less than 8 pei
cent of copper, and yet tens of millions
of dollars profit has been made in thai
mine, But up in Carbon county, this
lstate-iAs i-~ no rare thing tur sSSa ore
carrying from 20 to 70 per cent OF cop
Iper, and its apparent extent from sur
tface to water level and from water lev
lei to earth's center.
The beef of Wyoming is found upor
fthe tables of the civilized world, and
her wool in every loom where the best
cloth is made. The white huntsman
and the red, now find the ranch, the
herd and the flock, where, but o few
years ago, roamed the buffalo, the an.
telope and the deer; and yet the first
page of her story has not been read by
the world; the leaves of her history
are yet uncut. Are the people of Wyo.
ming and her friends of other states
enthusiastic over her her
prospects and her future? No, not at
all. Enthusiasm requires an element
of doubt, and is born of hope. Now,
not hope, but certainty coIfronts this
commonwealth, for hope has ended in
fruition.
A short time ago, short even for a
young nation like ours, the Laramie
plains and all that vast stretch of prai.
rie, from below North Platte way on to
the farthest Rocky mountains was a
part of the so-called Great American
Desert" A land hunter demonstrating
or preempting west of Old Lone Tree
or Kearney as the extreme limit, was
laughed at and derided. Every
second year he was grasshopper.
ed, and burnt out with drouth
the remaining four out of every
seven. All this has been chang
ed by the judicious selection of crops
and stock, irrigation and forestry. Now
the cities and ranches, the herds and
ffocks, the manufactures and mines
and all that make a country great,
form an almost continuous line from
the banks of the big Muddy" clear
through to the western coast, and Wyo-
ming Is the very heart of that great
belt.
Way up north and west in the noun
tains, midst the Shoshone and Big
Horn ranges, the hereditary home OF
the grizzly and the elk, the locomotive
whistle is now heard, and within the
next twelve months a railway will run
through valleys, foot hills, mountain
pass and cacon to the Grand Encamp-
men and Upper Platte mining districts
midst the shadows Of the Sierra Mad
ras of the south.
That old scout, w. F. Cody, is max.
ing the Big Horn basin a paradise for
homeseekers. BY diverting streams
and rivers from their age-worn chan.
nels Buffalo Bilf' with ditch and
sluice is irrigating thousands Of acres
of the best land in the world which
needed moisture only to make 1t bloom
and blossom and grow rich and
profitable crops. From Scandals
mountains and sea shores, from
the isle that's ever green, from
Afric's Boer-land and countries OF
emperor and king, emigrants are
now preparing to make home upon the
soil reclaimed from dearth and drouth
by that old frontiersman, and his long
time friend, the Hon. John Kuykendall,
lis. in like manner, preparing homes
for the tenth Of q million people in the
southern part of the state. Judge