The Iola register., 1902-02-07

Mr.. Mitchell, one of the editors and
owners of the Nevada, Mo-, Evening
Post, visited in lola last week. On
returning home he told something of
what he saw and the REGISTER repro
duces it here.
x DAY AT lola
The biggest thing in lola is natural
gas.
To the man who has for life time
been compelled to coax reluctant heat
from slaty coal and wet wood, lola is
revelation.
The natural gas OF that district is
found at a depth of 900 feet in a fine
white sandstone. The power which |
forces it through the dense stone is
still puzzle to scientists, but the fact
that they have been unable to solve
the problem has no ooffect upon it's use.
The money which has been expended
in utilizing it is steadily crawling up
into the millions and the inception of
one great enterprise follows so close
ly upon the establishment of another
that even the citizens themselves are
unable to keep pace with the improve
ments.
1t is essentially manufacturing town
but to the visitor who has learned to
associate smoke and CRIME with such
community, the town is a most plea
SAINT surprise. The gas is free from
SCOT or odor and the fresh and clean
ly air of the city is one of the first
features to impress itself upon the
stranger.
The streets are unusually broad and
most of them are edged with hand
some shade trees. The ground is
gently undulating, but in places is
broken by swels which afford particu.
larly inviting building sites.
The town is almost surrounded by
the Neosho river and one of its trib-
utaries and the handsome forests which
border them suggest that a section of
Missouri has beer deftly inlaid upon
a Kansas prairie.
lola is beautiful city but it is
probable that there is not man in
town who has had sufficient leisure to
observe that fact. Everybody is busy
and the dominating ambition seems a
desire to be buster. The business
atmosphere is full of ozone and the
man who breathes it tingles to his
finger tips with desire to accomplish
something quickly in order that he
may accomplish something else.
1t is the worlds greatest zinc smelt-
ing district; but smelling is but one of
it's great industries. Its cement works
are producing more than 5000 barrels
per day, and the quality is said to be
without an equal. Its acid works will
employ 400 mon. The output OF the
brick factories would startle the man
who is familiar only with the ordinary
methods. Other industries already
realized and others in process of real
ization are keeping an army of work
men busily building and producing.
In days visit to the gigantic ce-
ment works, the up-to-date American
finds a more useful inspiration than a
week would afford among the paint
ings of italy or the marbles Of Greece.
There are acres of great steel build
ings and in them more than 300 men
and nearly 1000 horse power engines
are crushing, roasting and mixing
shale and limestone in one uniform
and almost impalpable power.
To the student of words, pandemon-
ium means the habitation of all kinds
of demons but modernly it is used 10
express an illimita BILE aggregation of
immeasurably discordant sounds. THE
harshest tumult that ever rose from
pandemonium would sound like lul-
laby in cement factory.
An instant after the sight-seer steps
into one of the vast rooms, he feels
that the axis of the universe has
slipped from its bearings and the cog
wheels of each planet, thrown from
their meshes, are crashing and crush
ing upon each other in one mad race
to general destruction. AT the top OF
his voice, he shouts into the ear of a
friend, but fails to catch the faintest
sound of his own words. He loses
confidence in his power to make him
self heard and an hour after
wards finds his conversation,
pitched in high key.
There is battery of immense steel
cylinders in which a man could stand
upright. They were partially filed
with finely broken stone and we're re-
volving with sufficient speech to keep
the contents clinging to the concave
shells. The open center was a vortex
~ rad Aapoa Tho haat raoi Gtarad