Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-10-14
NOT THE USUAL WAY
Beneficent Plans of the CIeve-
fand-CIiffs Company.
TWO MODEL TOWNS BUILT
Denuded Tracts Replanted With
Trees.
EFFORTS AT COLONIZATION
Inducements offered to Farmers and
Other Settlers-Lands Sold
on Installments.
BY WILLIAM f. CURTIS.
Special Correspondence of The Star and the
Chicago Record Herald.

| cares for nothing but the ore In the
| ground. and when that is exhausted looks
| for other deposits. leaving holes In the
ground. rotting timbers, dilapidated cab
ms and worthless machinery to deface
the earth. The Cleveland-CGffs company
Is carrying out various benevolent plans
for the permanent benefit of all whom II
may concern. When 1T takes the me tai
from the earth and the timber from the
forests 1t designs to substitute some
thing Of equal and permanent Importance.
The land it strips of natural wealth. II
its plans are successful, will not be aban-
doned, but will continue to yield prod
ucts of equal, if not greater. value IT
Is trying TO settle the lands it has cleared
with industries and farms. and is build
ing two model towns, which are growing
rapidly. The company has eight iron
miues at 1shpemins and Negaunee, and
has recently opened up four others in
what is known as the SwanZey district,
directly south of Marquette fifteen or
twenty miles.
Independent in Operations.
1t owns and operates $50 miles of rail
road, which do a general passenger busi-
| ness in connection with the Chicago and
| Northwestern, the Duluth, South Shore
| and Atlantic and the 500 line, as well as
| opening to settlement a large tract of
| farming country and hauling the timber
and the ore produced by the company to
the harbor of Marquette.
These products are conveyed to Cleye-
land and other Ohio ports by fleet of
ten Of the largest steamships on the lakes.
The companys dock at Marquette, 1900
feet in length, is equipped with all mod
ern appliances for loading and unload
ing vessels. has capacity of 10000 tons
lnf dow md toc hot, f51n1 I =
600 tons.
The company operates two furnaces at
Marquette and one at Gladstone, which
covers eight acres of ground, and, / am
| told, is the largest furnace in the world
that make pig iron by the charcoal proc
ess. These furnaces. however. can con-
sumo only small portion of the ore pro-
duced from the company's mines. Never
theless. their product in pig iron is con-
siderable. Thus you will see that the
company digs its own ore from its own
mines. reduces 1t in it's own furnaces with
charcoal made in its own ovens from
its own timber. hauls the surplus ore over
Its own railroad and sends it to market
from it's own dock in its own ships, which
| makes complete and independent opera
| ton. 5,
| In addition to it's iron and timber bust
ness, the company has nearly a mil
| lion acres of land which it is colonizing
| with farmers and other homeseekers,
4
building up two model towns, Munising
| and Princeton. both of which are grow
| ing rapidly. OF the 5S.915 square miles
within the boundaries of Michigan, about
| two-fifths compose what is known as
| the upper peninsula, and although 1t has
| never been developed, much of that area
| is we'll adapted for farming and fruit. The
proximity of the mining districts furnishes
| permanent, regular and profitable mar
| ket for agricultural products.
Few Agricultural Products.
The cost of living in all Of the min
ing towns is very high because all food
and forage except potatoes and hay are
brought from Chicago and other distant
points of distribution. 1 wrote you from
Houghton about train days." as Mon
days and Thursdays are called, when
| trains of refrigerator cars come rolling
! into that town laden with food from Chi
| cago upon which the life of the commu-
| nifty depends, and people here are just
ply as If they were camped on desert
| island. Even the fish that are caught
in the waters of Lake Superior are ship
| ped to Chicago for distribution and sent
| back, except a few that are brought in
| oy individual fishermen and peddled
| around the town.
Farms are few on the upper peninsula.
All human effort is expended on the
| mines. The vegetables and fruit eaten
here come from lower Michigan the but
| ter and eggs from Wisconsin. The only
| products of the soil that are plentiful are
| iron, ore, timber and wild berries of all
sorts, in which the woods abound, straw
berries, raspberries, blueberries and black
| berries in season
! In August, when the blueberries and
| blackberries are ripe, miners, mechanics,
| longshoremen. railroad hands and other
| laboring men take their vacations and
| with their families join a hegira to the
| woods along the south shore of Lake Su-
| perior where they camp out and pick
| blueberries and blackberries to sell for
81 25 and s.. so bushel to the commission
| men on South Water street, Chicago
| They go out on railway trains in car
/ riages. wagons. on bicycles and on foot,
| men, women. Children the grandmothers
| and the babies, carrying pots. kettles
| bedding and camp equipage, and live in
| the woods for two or three weeks. They
| not only have a beautiful time and i'm
| prove their health, but earn enough by
! picking the abundant berries to pay al
| their expenses and a good deal more, an6
| make a profitable holiday.
Attempt at Colonization.
The Cleveland-Cliffs Company is max
ing an effort to locate settlers upon 1t:
lands individually and in colonies, as wei
as to encourage the introduction of largt
and small manufacturing enterprises ina
will furnish employment for that portion
of It's settlers who do not wish to till thu
soil. 1t will sell lands to actual settlers
in forty and eighty acre tracts at Sc al
acre, $40 cash down and the balance IL
FIVE equal annual installments at per cen
interest. AS an inducement to homeseek
ers it will sell timber lands at nomina
| prices with contracts to cut and delive
the timber at it's railway stations. Thi
gives the farmer a chance to pay for hi
land by his labor and make profit be
sides.
For the education Of the new settler
the company maintains an experimental
| farm on scientific lines with nursery an,
dairy attachments. 1t is called the Belle
vue Farm. 1t Is located three miles from
Negaunee and comprises 600 acres, di
vided into tracts and devoted to the cul
tivation of grain, vegetables, fruit mead
ows and pastures. with u modern dair,
| to teach the farmers how to make butter
The state Of Michigan has similar farm
of 100 acres at Chatham. on one of the
company's railways, about eighteen miles
from it's town of Munising. This expert
mental farm has done a great deal o.
good in promoting agriculture.
Game Preserve on Grand Island.
Not every mining company provides it!
stockholders and their friends with fish
ing and game preserve and summer re
. sort The Cleve,and-Cliffs Company Is al