The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1907-06-05
in Real Estate
Nv FREDERIC J. HASK1N

Vanderbilt, Astor and Rhinelandcr fam
lilies in New York, the "Silent' Jim
Smith fortune in Chicago, and Others
there are sad stories of bankrupt fam
lilies who lost their all IN the booms
Booms are going on now, but they are
on safer plane than in the eighties,
A real estate investor must be able
to wait and wait patiently When the
great Birmingham boom started in the
Alabama coal and iron fields in 1882,
the Elyton Land company was formed
with capital stock of 100000. That
stock was not increased, but at the
food.tide it 8 hundred dollar shares sold
on the open market for $3.50 each. or
course Birmingham suffered when the
boom busted but now it has
reached the same plane, or higher one,
by the process of natural growth, and
everything that the boomers said about
the future of Birmingham is being real.
lied. The only thing is-real estate
fortunes cannot be made in day. Time
is necessary.
After the panic of 1898 the receiver
of bankrupt land and loan company
in Kansas City tried in vain to get
fifty cents an acre for vast tracts of
Kansas farm lands. That same land is
now selling for $40 an acre. and one
would be lucky TO get much of it for
that. The average price of Kansas
farm lands. improved, in 1900 was
Sl5.51. Five years later, according TO
the government statisticians, it had in
creased TO S23,9o, In the last two
years IT is estimated that there has
been a further increase Of from 10 TO
10 per cent.
Washington. the capital of the ma
ton, is purely ''made>' town. There
n
ence, and had not the fat of the Fed
ersl government brought ite.into being,
there probably would have been moth
ing worth while east Of Georgetown on
the banks of the Potomac The high.
est price ever paid for real estate in
Washington was $76 square foot. re-
Gently given for small lot at Four
teenth nnd f streets, northwest, where
the path of men pursuing politics and
pleasure crosses the trail Of the women
seeking shops and soda water. The
whole price of the place was $3.50, 600
the Improvements being nothing but
an antiquated residence, which was
Immediately torn down. This lot bad
been in the Stone family since 1S4o,
when it, and two others Of about the
same size, were purchased by William
j, Stone from Jasper Cope of Phila-
dclphia for the lump sum of "tbree
the United States. -
Two squares further out Fourteenth
street is the old Oxford Hotel, pur
chased few years ago by Thomas f.
Walsh, the Colorado mining millionaire,
for $3.50 900. These three lots were
once knocked down 10 Robert Morris.
the first great American fnancier. for
$50, but he refused to accept them be
cause they weren I worth il. In 1902
they sold for three cents a square
foot, fifty years later the whole tract
went for $4,000. aud in another fifty
years the price had leaped TO q quarter
of million dollars.
In Virginia, where land is high in
price. farmer bought foriyhve acres
of land for sac an acre FIVE years ago
it then made eight bushels Of wheat to
the acre. He sent samples of the land
TO a chemis, to be analyzed, found out
what it needed aud applied the proper
chemical fertilizer. The wheat yield
increased to thirty two bushels an acre.