The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1903-02-06
STREET CAR LINE
Matters Are Looking Reason
ably Favorable.
Capitalists Expected After st. Peter
Franchise Is Granted--0ptIon TO
be Secured en- Rails.

From Tuesdays Daily
The st. Peter council expects to take
action ON the street railway ordinance
next Monday night, when it holds a
regular meeting. All of the aldermen
are said to be favorable to the ordi-
nance, and all of the business men ex-
cept one or two. The ordinance was read
at special meeting Saturday night. 1t
grants right of way along the first
street toward the river from the avenue.
Hord & Keator will appear before the
county board tomorrow and ask for a
right of way through the county toward
st. Peter, along the highways, etc.
Adlai Ewing. and Mr.. Hall of Chicago
are not expected to arrive until next
week, by which time it is hoped that the
question of right of way will be settled.
Mr.. Ewing will meet some steel rail
manufacturers this week and secure an
option on enough rails to build the line.
1t is necessary to get in early for steel
rails, owing to the great demand.
Claude Ashbrook, stock broker of
Cincinnati, Ohio, has written lengthy
article in regard to the Aurora, Elgin &
Chicago road, which Colonel Hord built.
1t appears that the preferred stock of
this company recently sold up to par,
and then reacted, and the broker advises
that it be purchased for an investment,
predicting that it will go to $l20 per
share, which would put it upon a five
per cent basis.
Mr.. Ashbrook says that the Aurora,
Elgin & Chicago Third rail System is
conceded by experts to be the greatest
interurban in the United States, if not in
the world. Eighty pound rails are used
in sixty foot lengths, the road is gravel
ballasted throughout, and the ties are
spaced 2,S40 to the mile. It's stone cul-
yerts are of the finest masonry work,
and its steel bridges are things of beauty
and Joy. From a scientific standpoint
the property is attracting the attention
of railroad builders and electricians
more than any other interurban railway
1t serves some twenty cities and towns
outside of Chicago, having population
of 100000. Seventy miles an hour is the
maximum speed capacity. Including
stops three miles apart, trains are oper-
ated at an average speed of fifty miles
an hour.
Major General William A. Bancroft,
president of the Boston Elevated Rail-
way company, has an interesting article
on "Street Railways and the Public in
recent number of the National Maya
zine. He says that there are few classes
of investment where ownership is so gen
orally distributed as street railways,
contrary. The Boston Elevated Railway
company, for example, has 2,l50 stock
holders, distributed throughout twenty
two states.
The following is quoted from the arti-
Gle: "There is hardly any business
which is expanding more rapidly, or be-
ing improved more steadily, than that of
street railway transportation. If the
man in the street will pause to consider
the difference between the methods of
ten years ago and the methods of today,
in nine cases out of ten, if he is a fair
minded man, he will abate a large part
of his criticism against the service which
is now being furnished. Probably there
are not now "a hundred miles of horse
car railway in this country outside of
New York city, where certain local con-
ditions retarded the complete introduc
ton of electricity as motive power.
And electricity is not only more econo-
mical to the company using it, but is
safer, quicker, less troublesome, and
more powerful; so that the company
employing it can give larger ride for
the money, and speedier one; and is
able to spread out more rapidly to meet
the growing suburb, or the country vii
lage, or even the scattered farm houses
which were supposed few years ago to
be practically inaccessible to the street
car.
oIn eastern Massachusetts-or for that
matter all through the state-the posi-
bilities of electric street transportation
are something enormous, and quite be-
vond the dreams of even the most pro-
oressive electrical engineers of decade
ago. Nowhere else in the world, pro-
badly, are the facilities of this variety
of local traffic so great. The city dwell
Ter may go into the country, or the coun-
try dweller may come into the city, with
| a freedom of inter communication which
bids fair to do away almost completely
with those two great problems of popu-
lation, the congested civic center and the
abandoned rural district. 1t is almost
possible to go by electric roads, even
now, from Boston to New York; in
few years more one may probably not
only make the journey without difficult
tv, but have choice of variety OF
routes. And what is possible in the regu-
lar course of events, in other parts OF the
country as density of the population IN
creases; the electric road being introduc-
ed into center after center of population,
and being used to connect two centers
until a perfect network of cheap, regular
and convenient transportation is built
I'D. What this ease of connection means
to the wealth, prosperity and recreation
of the modern community can hardly be
oyerestimated. Next to the United
States mail, by which, for two cents, a
man in Tampa may send letter to his
friend in Seattle, the growth of the
street railway promises greater bene-
fits, perhaps, than that of any other me-
thod of communication.
4 sThe street car is the vehicle of the
poor man, as has so often been said; and
one need not have more than moderate
income nowadays to enjoy even sucf
lluxuries as a house in the country al
the same time that one continues t.
earn ones living among the varied actl