Omaha daily bee., 1905-12-19
PAST POINTS OUT THE FUTURE
Nebrasks's Growth TO he Duplicated
by wyoming Within q Few
Years.


Il read in some newspaper the other
morning the startling statement that
the egg crop alone of Nebraska was
worth more dollars than tho mineral gold
silver, lead and copper products Of Colo
RADIO said John II. Martin of Cody. wyo,
who is a guest a the Merchants Nov.
isn't that food for thought. as we'll as food
for the millions? Bully for the busy old
hen. was a farmers boy in Otoe county
when gold was discovered on Cherry creek.
where Denver now stands i'm 1855 I had
an uncle who followed the flicker of this
gold so soon as the news reached the
struggling string of settlement along the
west bank of the Missouri river that then
constituted the explored part of Nebraska
territory. A paragraph i'm his first letter
! from the Pixies Peak Eldorado still lin
gers in my mind. he said After you get
twenty-five miles west of the Missouri
| river, clear to the mountains. the land
would not raise white beans knowing
what we know now. how would YOU like
to send a man with that quality of iudg-
| ment to- look for q new home for YOU? And
he was not fool. He just did not know
the soil: could not foresee that rain. irri-
cation. the pillow and the railroad would
make that strip Of soil down which the
! Platte slips from the Rockies to the Mis-
souri, a granary for the millions
! we have seen it. and il seems like a
page from the Arabian Nights Dream
| We recall the rush of gold seekers to Pixies
Peak. How they toiled up the Platte and
the Smoky Hill fork of the Arkansas. pass
! ing by unheeded riches greater far than
all their toll these fUrty-fiyc years has been
able to wrest from the rocks of the CONT
| nent west in all the region from the Rio
| Grande to Alaska. The only man ! know
| who foresaw this and said so almost n
/ half century ago was j. Sterling Morton.
| We have seen the wild men give way to
the white homemaker, the buffalo vacate
! for his herds and flocks. the stage coach
and the bull train supplanted by the
palace car and the long trains of COM
merce, the sod shack for the farm house
and barns. The bare. bleak prairies dotted
now with trees hedges and orchards. the
towns grow from nothing to cities, the land
from free hOmesteads to "a value of $40 $50
SO and 500 per acre. Could the saying,
| What fools these mortals be- have ever
been more applicable than applied to those
gold seekers of-well. ever since 49,?
THE Mormons passed this paradise i'm
~, but they had to. They were seeking
| p'h'O anu SttluSlbll, do wei as homes, but
they were the means of Providence. for
did not these Industrious toiIers show us
the result of wedding water to the sun
parched soil of the arid deserts? Show
us that forty acres intelgently titled I'M
der irrigation was equal in production TO
160 under rainfall?
This brings me to the evolution Of
Wyoming. In the mad rush for gold Wyo-
ming for years was given over almost en-
tirely to the cowmen, the horsemen and
the sheepmen. That part of the state
reached by the pioneer railway. the Union
Pacihc, was not so fortunate i'm the mat
ter of good, irrigable lands and the water
to reclaim them as the part of the state
in which / live.
! The central part of Wyoming, the region
around Lander. is more fortunate in this
respect. Railway building now in process
and the opening of the Shoshone reserva.
ton is soon to bring great changes tc
this section. But the Big Horn basin! Ir
the language of Colonel Sellers, Mari
Twains king of optinlists, There's tn,
spot. my boy" why, we have got NOR,
land better land and water to wet it with
and then plenty for all other purposes. in
Guiding the reclamation OF a large slice O
arid Montana. which the government il
~ W
dcCOO acres of land in the Big Horn BASH
, that is now sage brush desert will b
farms in the next two years. This is nov
; free homestead land-can only be taken h,
I actual settlers. So each forty or eight,
acres will he a home. The water right
will cost So to $50 per acre, but at that it,
I cheaper than your Nebraska land was a
G the free homestead price of forty year
l ago. The enhancement in the price of lam
in Nebraska has been great but with u
II is marvellous. Land with good waite
, rights and no Improvements is right no,
ready sale at $50 to 500 per acre. accord
ing to location.
The Burlington's new lines in the basl
will put new towns on the map. now un
named, that will be trade centers of i'm
portance two years from now We hav
[ timber, coal and excellent prospects ia
T. paying mines-gold silver copper an
s lead, petroleum and the finest buIdin
= stone and climate all our own aud jus
e to suit us--wouldn't trade ours for an
8 mans weather.
What's all this 10 Omaha, YOU say
r Why my boy. everything. We have beer
n are now, "A great stock country All thi
s land going under the pillow will not max
a dent in the business of the cowmen, tn
d sheepmen and the horsemen. belev
II these industries will be increased The
= all ship here. sell here our merchants In
y goods here. Don't that mean business e.
II Omaha? But the way railroads are pol
ing their noses into Wyoming from a.
n south will make it we'll for Omaha to waite