The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1904-07-29
cLArE r1NAN
Paper Of the City and County
THE GlsI OF THE ARGUMENT

ultlCldl fdp8I OF me Glty dllQ county
THE GlST OF THE ARGUMENT
1t is not a question of settlement Of
the lands west Of the Missouri but the
extent of it. No man at all familiar
with the state believes that the great
ranges will ever be as thickly populat-
ed as the older lands east of the
Missouri. There are counties on this
side of the river with but four or five
thousand population that cover a
greater area than Iowa counties with
thirty thousand people; counties in
which almost every square mile is
tillable-and yet where a man must
have Il section or he can't make a
living: whole districts where one may
drive for miles and never see Il human
being. Are the lands a hundred
miles west more desirable-if so, in
| What respects:
Lands across the river not too far
west may be preferable at fifty cents
an acre to those just described in the
hands of spectators at So to $40 an
acre. But when the best of them are
picked up-and three-fourths of them
by non-residents who have filled on
them-what then: The man looking
for a nome will prefer this side, will
/ he not: where he can have all the
advantages and none of the disadvan-
tages and n of the most telling and
decided advantages as near the Sioux
City or Chicago market as possible?
When the great rush took place
into South Dakota in the early
! eighties lands in northwestern Iowa
had no market value and any amount
s,of the best could be purchased at $40
an acre. But people did not want
them; they could go a little farther
into South Dakota and get them for
the filing fees and a nominal price to
the government. But when the best
of the lands in the Jim river valley
and out toward the Missouri had been
all taken up, what happened: The
demand for the northwestern Iowa
lands went kiting skyward and four
counties IN northwestern Iowa gained
10000 population between the census
of 1880 and 1900. a greater per cent of
gain than any four counties IN South
Dakota, Notwithstanding in many of
them land was selling as low as SO an
acre as compared with $50 for the
Iowa land,
You read a great deal about. all the
available land across the river soon
being "taken up,' and the impress
sion is conveyed that that means
actual settlement and improvements.
Go into the Pierre land office-or any
of the land ot1ices-and see what per
cent of claims are committed and held
by non-residents or by school ma'ams,
clerks, business men, physicians, at
Gorneys and others living in towns and
cities. Fault is not found with this
OF course; objection is simply made to
misleading ideas. Four thousand
land filings come nearer. representing
five hundred actual settlers than a
larger number.
When the capital removal question
is studied, it should be kept in mind
that no matter whether the settle
ment west of the Missousi is big or
little, Pierre remains as inaccessible
as eyer. Nothing can change that;
and as the east half of the state in
creases its population the matter
grows worse instead Of better. The
only north and south road likely to be
constructed between the Jim river
and the Missouri will be. the Milwau-
kee from Platte to Orient, which will
make Mitchell even more accessible to
the great mass of people Of the state
than at present.