The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-06-11
Only Drawback Is They Are il
Chicago Heights.
BUBBLE THAT BURST.
Relic of the Days When Men
Were Land Mad.
Big Advertisements in Eastern
Papers Found Victims.


who owned over 1000 building lots in
a Topeka addition should be consider
ed immensely wealthy because of the
possession of so many lots.
* such expectations were realized
n. L. George, who owns a thousand
lots, more or less, in Chicago Heights
addition to the city of Topeka would
be worth half a million.
In fact at one time, along in 1886
or 1891 these same lots sold for fabu-
lous prices and money was made, by
the one who sold them, and money
lost, by those who bought them
chicago Heights addition to the
city of Topeka is IL miles from To-
peka 10 the north and is mile and
half north OF Kilmer station on the
Atohison branch Of the Santa Fe rail-
way.
The purchasers of the lots gradually
came to learn the distance of the adj
dition from Topeka and slowly but
surely the owners of the lots stopped
thinking about them or tried to, and
quit paying taxes on them. George
began buying up the lots, in about
1892, at tax sales and now he owns
them all with few exceptions, and
Chicago Heights is once more a COW
pasture and farm-whieh it always
should have been.
It was during the boom" days
along in that cycle of years of which
1887 is the pivot, that H, 3. Boege
d
mile and a half north of Kilmer sta
ton and laid out Chicago Heights adj
dition. At that time Beoge ran a
loan and real estate office on West
Fifth street. The sign in front of
Booge's office said: I'VE sell money"
Booge plated Chicago Heights and
had Madison, Monroe, Quincy and
Kansas avenue extended. supposedly,
II miles into the hills north of the
river and he had Twenty-fourth and
Twenty-fifth and other numbered
streets His prospectus announced
that Chicago Heights was beautiful
building suburb to the city of Topeka,
] minutes ride from the center of the
city. which was true as far as the
statement went for the Santa Fe
trains viii run II miles in about" D
minutes-but BoOge didn't explain
that the road only ran one passenger
train day each way
The advertisements contained pic
lures of the Kansas state capitol and
other large buildings. The dome of
the capitol was not completed in those
days but had it been investors looking
for Chicago Heights might have seen
the heights from the dome-if they used
a field glass.
Lots in Chicago Heights were priced
at 800. 5000 and more according to the
location. Those next the cathedral
were the highest in price OF course
there was no cathedral in Chicago
Heights then nor ever afterward but a
good many Topeka cathedrals have
been built in prospectuses.
The advertisements of the heights
We're run in New York. Boston. Phila.-
delphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, St, Louis
and other eastern papers and people
looking for G. r. Q. concerns were
quick to bite and it was but a short
time until all the lots We're sold None
of the advertisements were used in pa
pers printed within 500 miles of To-
peka.
While Col. James Burgess was regis
ter or deeds in the old court house he
received one day from man in Phila-
delphia deed, for lots he had bought
I'm Chicago Heights, to be filed The
consideration in the deed was SIG, 500
but no one now remembers how many
lots We're enumerated in the deed but
that makes no difference SO far as this
article goes for all of Chicago Heights
and any four more quarter sections
Astounding or abutting on the heights
collectively were never worth $16500
Colonel Burgess wrote to the Philadel-
phtan that he must send along the fee
for registering the deed before it would
be recorded The Philadelphian must
have discovered that he had bought 4
gold brick for he never answered.
ABOUT three years ago, while John NJ.
Wright was county clerk a we'll dressed,
d1gnined Individual in a high silk hat and
the rest of that sort of raiment which
goes with the habitual use of a silk hat,
called at the clerks OFFICE to inquire
about his lots in Chicago Heights. He ex-
planned that ne lIXed IN London and that
upon the representation that he was buy
ing valuable lots for mere song, he had
invested IN q mess of Chicago Heights
lots He had paid taxes on them for ten
or a dozen years and as he was travel
ing from New York to San Francisco he
thought he would stop off and see his
property and see if he could not sell them
Tor neat sum.
Mr.. Wright broke it to him as gently
as he could. He displayed to the gaze OF
the Londoner a list of 700 or 500 lots in
chicago Heights which had already been
sold for taxes Then he showed the
Englishman, on the map, the II miles he
would have to travel from Topeka TO his
lots. He tried to make it easy by ex-
planning that the lots We're in good corn
and hay region. The Londoner left for
Frisco and never gain paid any taxes
on Topeka, real estate
Now Mr. George, who has lived in the
vicinity of Chicago Heights for many
years, has bought about all excepting 80
or 40 of the lots on tax sales. Each OF
the lots, however is still carried on the
books of the treasurer's and county
clerks office the same as any lots in To-
peka and the streets and walks and cross
ings are all accounted for, although the
streets and lots and walks are all alike,
furroWed and narrowed Tor corn fields.
1t requires about 30 or 40 pages of the
tax roll books for the enumeration of the
lots. The assessed valuation of the lots
Is 81 each and the taxes on each lot is
cents year. Even then Mr.. George gets
the best of the county, for the tax rate
on each lot is really .02s2 cents and the
county can not collect the 80 hundredtns
mills and therefore loses and 2 cents
on each 100 lots. Chicago Heights has
cost Mr.. George approximately $1,000.
Millionaire Weds Workers Daughter
Brockton, Mass, June 11-Maud Ella
CroWell, the pretty daughter of Fred
erick CroWell, a workman in a shoe fac
tory here, has been married to Henry
s Fiote of San Francisco. The groom,
VINO is said to be a millionaire, met
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