Arizona republican., 1905-07-16

blocks of dilapidated places and bad smells, even though it has been inn proved a great deal by the building of the drainage canal The city has all ready spread so far south that half of it is out in the country and the sky scraper has come as a positive neces- sity. But even the sky scrapers are now crOwding each other and the busi- ness congestion is greater than ever. There is bound to be a limit to build ing castles and business blocks in the air
 Colonel Barr is a civil engineer by profession and some years ago while , in the employ of a large railroad com pany he devoted much time to a study l of conditions in Chicago and their | bearing on railroad construction. He is therefore familiar with the situation and since he has been living in the | west he has worked out a plan that he believes might be made the sal
 vatiOn of Chicago. It appears reason l able and attractive to everyone he has taken into his confidence and some | time ago without hope of reward or | any other purpose except to do good | he prepared an article for publication l SC ttng forth his plan. He sent it con- l SC cutively to various Chicago papers. l E very time the copy came back he " puld forward it to another. He kept u this process until finally somebody l fS filed to even return his manuscript, ] b ut nobody ever printed it. Then he | S ant it to the mayor and various of t le councilmen but there was no reply. The other day a reporter for The Re p ublican heard about it and inter | iewed Colonel Barr gathering the da- | { for this story.
 l Briefly his plan is to take the Chi | C ago river by the tail (which used to | r,e the h aad) and jerk it out straight l -hen dig a new ditch from the end ot | it to the present drainage canal The | river would then run practically 1 straight west from the lake as far as l desirable before it turned south. The 1 present river, where it runs approXi- mately north and south would be fill
 ed up and the business district coulC
 expand straight west as far and a'
 fast as it wanted to- The nauseatins 1 river and it's environs would give wa!
 to paved streets and more sky scrapers
 Though Colonel Barr has not attempt
 ed to estimate the cost of this work n
 believes the section reclaimed for busi
 ness purposes would have an addel
 value gr eater than the expense of tn
 new con structiOn beside giving the cit,
 a working plan for the future and re
 moving the disease breeding old cess
 pool which so much money has bee
 spent in trying to purify.
 The plan of operations would b
 ron.ghly after this manner. First selec l a tier of blocks running west from tn ] river parallel with Lake or Madiso l street. some tier that could be tn
 most cheaply acquired and demOlishe 1 and where possible perhaps utilizin
 streets. Along this right of way, pla
 the building of the new river The frs ] thing to do would be to construct tun ! nels in the dry ground where the rive = is proposed to be turned at it's inter
 section with every north and sout
 street. These tunnels could be cheapl " scientifically and rapidly made und5
 such conditions. They would take tE
 place of the present unsightly draw
 bridges across the river that inter
 fele with both street traffic and rive . traffic Then when the tunnels al