The Green Forest tribune., 1901-01-19
THA' I DEPOT MOVEMENT.
NyiH the Business Center of Green Forest be Disturbed?

@nearly completed to Green 4Forest as to be almost a reality, Nit behooves our citizens to begin |8to look the situation squarely in rfhe face and to become alive to &existing conditions.
 & So far our people have, in the #main, treated the movement to restablish another business center of the town at the depot with si- lent contempt, but it is now use- Less, and even unprofitable, to talk in a whisper regarding the matter. Our growth has al- < ready been hampered to some extent by the timidity of some prospective investors who sought other locations on account of what they considered unsettled conditions relative to the business center of the town.
 The announcement of the Green Forest Herald last week, if true, that seven more two- story stone buildings are soon to be
 erected near the depot, shows that the movement to start an other business center is we'll de-
 fined, and newspapers are said to wield strong influence in such matters.
 Building new towns is a per-
 feetly legitimate business and any one who has the means and inclination have perfect right 10 engage in it, and from bus iness standpoint are not to be blamed for 1t. For precisely the same reason the business men of the town who have made 1t possible for Green Forest to have a depot, have also the right to protect their interests. The situation resolves itself in- to a question like this: Will the money we have promised to the railroad company to pay for right-of ways rebound to the slaterests of the business men of ,ac town as a whole, or will it be 1lhe means of our everlasting un- ~doing, by moving the business center, or part of it, a half mile away from the very property we all sought to protect? The rem edy sought in the answer to these questions easily suggests itself: Will our business men and all who have the highest in- terests of Green Forest at heart, lend their financial and moral support to move that threatens ruin to them and disaster to the town in any event? Will they discontinue improving their property and enhancing the ap- pearance of the town as it now stands? THE TRIBUNE believes they will not Intentionally do so. Candidly, we fail to see the ne- cessity, or profit to any one in moving the'business center from where it is to the depot, or the establishment of another busi- ness center there. In the one case it would be disastrous to nine-te tenths of the owners of bus mess property. In the other it would be disastrous to both cen- ters and the surrounding country as we'll.
 No town ever prospered under the embarrassment of town site war, nor can it prosper with >two business centers; one is as equally impossible as the other. The effect of this movement, if in any measure successful, will result in a detriment to the town from which it will never re- cover, for the reason that capital that would have come here had sought other fields where rivalry conditions did not exist.
 The suggestion that has often been made that the two business centers will build up so rapidly that they will soon, or at any time, meet, is too simple to ad- init of argument.
 THE TRIBUNE has labored long and untiringly for the commonin- terests of Green Forest and has always presistently refused to give our moral support to any thing that would be detrimental, either in understanding or ex- aggeration and has unreservedly