The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1904-08-04
A KANSAS RAILROAD.
A Il. Stilwell Is Building Orient to
Develop This State.

The Wichita Eagle says in an edi-
We some times think that the BUSH
ness men and property owners of
Wichita, nor the people of the other
towns along the projected line of the
Kansas City, Mexico and Orient rail-
way realize the advantages that are
going TO accrue to them through the
complexion of this stupendous enter
prise, this far reaching conception of
A. T. Stllwell. The possibilities of
the protector of a transcontinental line
or ran which in avoiding the SHOWS
ana troubles and expenses of winter
Lralnc OF the other transcontinental
mes nne thousand miles shorter
TO the Orient, can only be estimated
Dy what he has accomplished in the
past. There seems to be no end to the
man resources. Had he but sprung
ms enterprise year sooner, when
times We're flush and foreign and do
mesue money was seeking investment,
peIore there-was any suggestion of war
in the east. the whole scheme would
nave been Immediately fioated and
upon its face advantages.
"A majority of the stockholders of the
Kansas CITY, Mexico & Orient railway
1--we west of the Mississippi river This
is unprecedented in the history of rail-
road enterprise, and it makes the road
peculiarly a western enterprise. More
imam THIS, much Kansas money has
been invested in the enterprise, and
now that the road is so soon to be in
Wichita and doing business where we
all can see 1T and feel it, more Kansas
money is going into it,
The road will be into Wichita with
its track and trains by the first of Sep
TENDER. With the Wichita connection
II Will have nearly $50 miles of track in
Kansas and Oklahoma. Only 80 miles
or the grading between Wichita and
Usage City remain to be done, and that
Will be done and track laid by January
l. when trains will be running into
Kansas City, using the Missouri Pacific
east of Usage City until the rest of the
Orient is built.
Mr.. Stilwell is master of big enter
prises and if he gets what nature made
him for he will be one of the worlds
great captains of industry. The Pitts
burg and Gulf, which he built, 800 miles
as the crow flies, when nobody else
could raise money for railroad con-
struction, is a work of the mans
genius. That road knocked ten cents a
hundred out of the export grain rate
to the seaboard, stimulated the eleva-
tor business all over Kansas, and added
dollar an acre to the value of wheat
and corn land Now he has undertaken
another big enterprise, and Kansas
newspapers should encourage him. He
is going to build the Orient all right
he is building it right under our noses
but II helps man to hear or read |
We'll done" occasionally. He is d man |
of big things, of energy and resolute |
courage, and when he succeeds he is !
the same ola SnOe, without talnt OF
snobbery.
But take wichitas interest, leaving
out the fact of the shops which are to |
be built here, and the people these will |
employ, and leaving out the fact that |
this city is to be both a freight and pas |
5enger division, and yet this, when only !
from the Red river to this |
point and from nere to the Missouri |
river, will give the greatest impetus to |
the growth of Wichita and increase of |
business. through advantages which the |
Orient will afford, such as no other road |
has ever given this city. From Wichi- |
la to the Red river is a vast new field |
which will be opened to our live stock |
yards, to our packing houses, to our |
merchants. wholesalers and retailers, |
and to many other interests a field |
which can be reached by Chicago and |
by Kansas City only through Wichita.
But of more Importance still will be the |
inc from here to its Missouri river con-
lections. Stilwell is not the man who |
IS going to permit his road to naul |
empty cars back and forth from WITCH
ia to the Missouri river as he demon
;trated by his operation of the Pitts
burg and Gulf after completing it. Still
veil will have his share of the outgoing
md incoming tonnage of this the larg-
Ast commercial city in Kansas, and of |
he grain and live stock center of all
his country. and have and hold such
snare of tonnage by the only way pos
;ible. and that will be by making such
'ates as will command it, as he Gid |
IN the Pittsburg and Gulf road.