The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1908-03-20

solidation o. the rural schools has gain
ed great Impetus throughout Ohio since
the development of electric lines.
| Another writer says. There is an
awakening and thrill of life in every
town and village through which an in
terurban line runs never felt before.
Commercial opportunities which lay
Idormant are made possible and become
profitable realities. New markets are
Opened. The dweller in the small
town or in the country, while escap-
ling the expense of living in big city
receives by means of the interurban
car his morning paper every day be-
fore breakfast and his afternoon paper
before his evening meal and is kept
in close touch with the world. The
weekly newspaper is getting to be a
thing of the past. His sons and daugh-
tiers may attend the higher institu-
tions of learning in the city and return
to the parental fireside every evening.
The theatres and concerts are likewise
| favored No longer is the statement
| true that with the introduction of the
interurban roads the large cities are
benefited at the expense of the villages
and towns" 1t has been mentioned
| by more than one that farm buildings
along the line of interurban roads pre-
sent better appearance than those
remote. The very fact of so many
people passing on the cars, stirs up
the owners to slick up and put their
buildings and farms into better cOndi-
ton.
The country dweller is more than
glad of the opportunity of quick trans
portation to the cities. 1t is no lon
ger a matter of a long. tiresome and
possibly cold ride to town, but few
minutes ride in clean comfortable
car free from cinders and smoke and
at remarkably low cost. Taking an
electric at ones own door, at almost
any hour of the day, is an. Improvement
over drive to the steam railroad
station at inOpportune hours that is
greatly appreciated by the jewellers
along the electric lines. The family
on the farm now enjoy the theatre,
the lecture or any other entertain
of the city. 1t is breaking up the
menotony of farm life to remarkable
degree.
The following extracts show the
effect on farm life in New England as
transformed by the electric roads:
"Thcre are in truth comparatively
! few people in the three southern states
| of New England, and similar conditions
are coming about in the northern states
who are not nearer in point of distance
and time to the center of good sized
city than are the people of Yonkers or
New Rochelle Metropolitan suburbs
from the shopping and theatre districts
| of New York City.
Now, that statement of itself i'm.
plies that the old time country popu-
lation is being rapidly converted in to
a class of suburbanites. MomentOus
changes to be specific have taken place
in the last twenty years in the status
of the average family living at dis
lance of say ten to twenty miles from
such a city as Hartford. Providence,
Worcester, Lowell and Bangor.
The members of this family in 1895
saw town so infrequently that their
visit was always more or less of an
occasion involving long drive or an
expensive ride by train. Urban enter
tainments and other attractions except
the circus was very much out of their
lines. Today on account of the troll
lev connection the members of cOun-
try family are not more remote as
regards time and not much worse off
in the item of expense of travelling to
and from theatre, concert or religious
meeting in the city than are the subur-
bantes of towns within the metro
politan district of Boston.
Each city in New England now has
local point at which gather the troll
ley cars on lines that radiate from
every point of the compass. There
are lesser villages everywhere which
twenty years ago could only be reach
ed by train twice or three times a day,
now whoever has business in one of
them takes a train to the nearest large
center and makes the rest of his jour
ney in half an hour or an hour by troll
ley. The farmers wife who used to
drive perhaps once a fortnight to town
now runs i'm several times week. The
older children 90 back and forth to
the city schools; often,a son or daugh-
ter who has obtained employment in
a factory OF store, and who formerly
would have been obliged to board in
the city, visiting the home folks once
or twice month over Sunday, is now
able to live at home under its whole
some restraint. City families more
over are everywhere moving out into
the country because it has been found
the bread winners can get to their work
regularly at reasonable rates
''We are beginning to sec that If the
trolley had been discovered fifty years
ago there would have been no deserted
farms 1t takes a trolley aide through
the country to learn the wonderful
adaptability possessed by our people.