The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1904-09-09
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cLArE r1NAN
Official Paper Of the CITY and County
PIERRE,S a e

Pltkkt'S CRAZY LOGIC
The Parker New Era recently is
sued q special edition marking that
citY's first quarter of a century.
Among the "reminiscences were the ex-
perienccs Of some of the early settlers.
OF course they had more or less of a
hard time OF it--as OF forefathers did
when they settled Ohio, Kentucky,
Illinois and Iowa. But the Fort
Pierre Fairplay thinks it sees a com.
parison with what the country be-
tween the present capital Of the state
and the Black Hills is passing through
and draws the usual deductions pecu-
liar to the present stage of the capt.
tai controversy.
The hardships the early settlers of
Turner county encountered were not
a circumstance with these endured
by the pioneers of Kentucky and
Ohio, and by the same theory Of logic
the great plains between the Missouri
and the Black Hills will IN time make
Ohio and the blue grass farms of
"Old kcntuck" look like a Sahara.
But with all the advantages the early
settlers of this state had natural con
dltions will forever be a bar to maxi
ing it a second Ohio-or a second
Iowa.
/ This writer's grandfather and his
family am out from Connecticut
years before there was Il railroad in
existence and settled in the woods of
the western reserve" in Ohio just
about the time that Major Zebulon NJ.
Pike discovered Pixies Peak. He has
heard his mother tell of seeing her
father walk across the sand-clean
floor of the cheap little house and
pick up a kernel of seed corn and
carefully put it away: of helping to
get the sheep in the log corral at night
away from the wolves, and of hearing
the varmlnts "snifing''at the doors in
the silent hours of the night, and OF
her mother taking her in her arms on
horseback and following a blazed trail
through the deep woods to the nearest
neighbors for a friendly call.
But the natural conditions were all
} present in that country to make a
garden spot and the home of millions
las it exists today-conditions which
no section Of the United States be.
tween the Missouri river and the
Pacific coast possesses or ever can
possess. They had, for one thing,
forty to fifty inches of rainfall an.
nually, countless running streams anG
rivers, inexhaustible springs and
numerous lakes and natural reservoirs
and a soil Of unsurpassed fertility
when cleared of the timber which fol
centuries had enriched the ground by
%decaying vegetation.
Pixies Peak remains today the same
formidable sentinel of tie Rockies al
its back as when Major Pike and his
gallant band Of men discovered it or
that November day nintY. eight years
ago. Mans Invention and ingenuity
has accomplished what MAJOR Pike
opincd could not be done-ascended
its pinnacle-and with a railroad at
that: but though the hills are made tc
give up their golden treasures and al.
most within sound of the Peak itself
the strains of music and laughter and
the rusCle Of silks beneath the moons
pale beams float out on the evening
air and mark the acme of the "win-
ming Of the west," from the Apex OF
the Peak may gaze for miles and
miles and find nothing but an un.
broken plain where pillow never set in
its point. Here and there, under the
shadows OF the mountains, water
from the melting nov on their scared
peaks is brought down ON the foot
hills and agriculture in a limited way
is successfully attempted: but for two
hundred or % miles toward the
Missouri river to the east there ex-
lists a scant and non too prosperous
people struggling for a livelihood
where nature frowns when the sod is
broken, and Colorado today. in spite
of its vast mineral wealth, it's unsur-
passed climate, its magnificent cities,
its millionaires, its natural parks and
rich irrigated regions, can sustain not
over one-tenth the population of Ohio
simply because its not another
Ohio.
In Turner county 160 acres of land
properly cared for will afford a man
and his family a splendid s%ustenancc.
West of the Jim river a man needs
800 acres. AS n approaches the
Missouri river he ought to have a sec
tion-whcn he gets west of Fort
Pierre he can't stay there unless he
owns or has theuse of several sections.
That's why the Fairplay's logic is