The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1907-06-21
NoRFoLK's RAILROAD INDUSTRY

The whistling of a locomotive, the
crash of freight cars as they roar to-
gether in the switching yards and the
click of telegraph instruments are mu-
sic to Norfolk's ears.
Noisy nervous switch engines chug-
ging back and forth on the rails, their
smokestacks choking and their bells
dinging all day long and all night too,
every throb up and down steel threads
means life blood pumped into Norfolk s
commercial arteries.
Norfolk enjoys the distinction of be-
ing, outside Lincoln and Omaha, the
liveliest and one of the largest cities
in great Nebraska state. Without the
crashing Of freight cars, the clicking
of railroad telegraph keys, and the
chug-chug Of monster steel animals
that gallop over these prairies drawing
great trains of men and cattle and
merchandise Norfolk would have no
license to Stanton's size. For Nor
folk, unlike Stanton, is not a county
seat.
Norfolk has approximately 5000 peo-
pie. Pretty nearly $500 of those peo-
pie are in Norfolk by virtue Of the
railroads that are here. Between 400
and 500 men who make their livings
in railroad work of one kind or an
other, live in Norfolk. That means
that between 1000 and $500 persons
men, women and children-are kept
in Norfolk to carry on that portion of
the transportation industry which is
operated from this city as center.
And a good many more people find it
possible to make livings in various
lines of business because of the $500
customers created for them here by
the railroad payrolls.
Means $4,000 to $4,000 Monthly.
Practically Norfolk's only large pay
roll today is the railroad payroll.
Between 100000 and $4,000 in cash
money is paid out in Norfolk and to
Norfolk men every month in the year
| by railroads that center here. That
means not far from half million dol
lars a year goes into Norfolk's stom-
ach through the railroad industry's in
strumentality, to say nothing of the
other hundreds of thousands of dol
lars distributed here each twelvemonth
| by people passing through and living
here for the sole reason that Norfolk
is railway center and that trains run
in and out of here with frequency.
| Between Norfolk and Dallas, South
Dakota, there are a good many thriv-
ing towns ranging in population from
200 up to 1900. Each one exists on
the trade created by the farming dis
trict around it. With Norfolks rail-
road industry removed, this city would
industry round about, and a town of
perhaps 600 would stand where the
present populOus and growing gate
way to the new northwest holds forth
But fate decreed that Norfolk should
be built into the hub of a wheel with
metal spokes which should radiate out
for many miles into many directions
over fertile plains of the middle west
And added to the 500 or 600 people
that we might have had as a trading
point for the few miles of farming ter
ritory in the neighborhood, Norfolk
has been stimulated by the couple OF
thousand people located here to run
the railroads into city of possibilities
For besides giving work to the extra
BARRIERS who shave them, bakers who
bake for them, liverymen who hau,
them, and merchants who supply them
with calico and shoes and sugar, these
railroads, leading out from here anC
penetrating vast areas of rich regions
give Norfolk an opportunity to become
the great central trading point of the
great northwest, and the opportunity
only needs to be taken advantage OF
to produce a yet further growth in the
town.
Three Railroads Here.
Norfolk is made a railroad center
by three lines that enter the city. The
Chicago & Northwestern, the Unior
Pacific and the Chicago, st. Paul, Min
neapolis & Omaha roads all enter Nor
folk and the three combined make il
what it is, over and above what i
would be as a country trading point.
For the Chicago & Northwestern
road, whose president and directors
passed through the city this week
Norfolk is the official center for The
entire states OF Nebraska and Wyom
ing, and for part of South Dakota
, This is the terminal point of the Co
L. l..