Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1902-03-04
IN FERTILE WRIGHT
Wright County's Wonderful Rise
in Land Values During
Twenty Years.
Face ofthe Country Has Changed
..- Lost Lakes OF the
County.
Flowing Wells Are Common and
Add Great Value to the
Farms.
special to Times-Republican.

Special to Times Repubiican.
Clarion, March 4.-Nowhere in iowa
is the great agricultural progress and
resources of the state more strongly
emphasized than in Wright county,
where farm prices have risen within
less than twenty five years from 81 to
$50 or even $50 per acre. Time was, not
twenty five years ago, when a man
could throw a stone from the city linn
it's of Clarion to land listed for sale at
SIS per acre, and when lots in that town
which are today worth from $1,000 up
might have been purchased for $40 to
$25, as they CHANGED to be in the block
or on corner. An Illinois man who
bought fourteen years ago at $40, told
me last week that he had an offer of
$50 on it. With the exception of some
fence, there wasn't stick of improve
ments on the place. He afterward sold
at a presumably higher price-just
how much did not learn.
There are more than one reason for
the rise in land values here. Among
others is the fact that the face of the
entire county has changed. In the old
times portions of Wright county We're
so low that the spring break up made
their culture an impossibility. Be-
tween Clarion and Goldfield the coun-
try in spring was a lake, an immense
mud hole. Farmers planted their corr
in the mud. One spring | aided an uncle
to replant corn. where we went bare
foot and in places stuck the kernels
into the mud under a foot of water.
Those days Wright looked like a duck
preserve.
But all this has changed. The big
sloughs where the black rushes -four
ished are gone and great corn crops
are raised where the rushes grew. The
roads are passable in all kinds of
weather.
Even the lakes are gone. Out north
east of Clarion three or four miles in
the days / write of. was Elm Lake, a
body of water all the year round COW
ering perhaps section of land. 1t
was q great resort for pickerel fisher
men and hunters. Today the lake bed
Is dry and some one has plowed per-
haps 100 acres in preparation for a
crop, and next year in all likelihood the
boys Will husk corn on the ground
where only few years ago the pick
erel disported themselves in eight feet
Of water.
Wall Lake, southeast of Clarion. was
a mile wide and nearly two
miles long. A thin TO wof black rushes
m the center. where the lake used TO be.
marks the site of Wall lake. once ia
nous among scientists and the subject
Of hundreds of wild theories as to the
peculiar wall. perhaps ten feet high,
which enclosed it's entire circumfer-
ance. A favorite tradition in Wright
county was that the Indians had erect
I'd the wall and planted the hard maple
.rees about its borders. The state ge-
)losist, however, attributed the forma-
ion to the freezing of the lake in win
.er when the ice picked up the boul-
1ers, sand and mud from the bottom of
he lake, and as it melted in spring rose
With it's burden. which it carried to the I
shore as the wind drifted it. AT any
ate a high. we'll defined wall was
he result and at times the water
within the wall was several feet higher
han the land outside the levee This |
axe was also a great fishing place and |
'esort for all kinds of wild fowl. But |
4 ;e q.
o the fringe of rushes that mark it's
deepest pools. The home of the Bird
alls, of whom Judge Ben Birdsall and
he bankers at Dows and Alden are
veil known over northern and central |
owa, was located on the shore of this
axe.
Wright county's flowing wells sre a
ever failing source of wonder to the
Illinois or other eastern immigrants.
Vest of Clarion farm after farm is
Implied with plenitude of clear, cold
water that runs night and day from
ONE unknown reservoir tapped by a
hole. These wells are rarely
eep. Eighty feet is more than an
but some OF them run a two
ar1ner said, with considerable pride,
That we'll is worth $1,000 to me-" And
e was right, too.
Goldfield has splendid flow at one of
IS depots. All along between Holmes
nd Clarion are flowing wells. Down
n the Iowa river they grow numerous
gain Near the old Rowan mill site
ne bursts from its goose -necked pipe
nth such force that 1t is hard to catch
nough for drink in a cup, or, indeed,
. hold the cup beneath the stream.
here are thousands of foot pounds of
over running to waste daily from this
'ell into the Iowa river, which might.
the wells We're located more conve-
iently, be used to great advantake.
f. A. MOSCRIP.
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