The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-16
From the Kansas City Star.


 (0 Lon Hill of Harrington, Tex. His
 wealth is conservatively esti-
 mated at $S,5O0,ooo He owns more than
 1000 acres of the best land in the Rio
 Grande valley. Every foot of it can
 be irrigated. At the rate which other
 land in this section of the same charac-
 ter is selling $2O per acre for this 100000
 acres would not be an excessive figure.
 Figured on that basis this Indian is
 worth s6OO0.OOO. He is not given to over
 rating things and the first estimate is
 his own.
 Lon Hill is a full-blooded Choetaw. He is proud of his Indian blood and a stranger is not long in his presence before the fact is made known by MT Hill that he is Indian.
 This Indian has been able to take care
 of himself" he will say. 'I never have
 received anything from the government
 and I am not expecting anything
 This Is true. He has never shared in
 any of the allotments in Indian territory.
 He has been making his way alone and
 unaided ever since he was boy. lHe IlldTNtlOuS tHlllS dDOul tHt 6lcdl
 fortune which Hill now possesses is that
 he has accumulated it all during the last six years. He located at Brownsville % miles below Harrington, little more than six years ago. That was before a rail- road had been built into the region. It
 was then 1e0 miles to the nearest rail- road outlet to the outside world Hill
 says that when he arrived in Brownsville
 he was worse than broke" He did not have any money and his debts amounted
 to s2OO He had been practicng law at Beeville, Tex. He had made a good rep utation as a lawyer in southwest Texas, but he reached the conclusion that the l time was not far distant when the valley | of the lower Rio Grande would be trans l formed from its primitive wilderness of | chaparral into cultivated farms and gar | dens.
 When he had got we'll settled in the bor- der town this progressive Indian began the work of interesting capital to build railroad to the place. He enlisted the ef- forts of wealthy land owners in the pro- ject and a party of them, accompanied by Hil went to St. Louis to lay the scheme before men of means of that city. It was the original intention to submit the proposition to the chief officials of l the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad | company, which was at that time building | into San Antonio and was headed In the l direction of the lower Rio Grande region. | It happened that B. F. Yoakum, now chairman of the executive committee of l the Rock Island and Frisco systems, was l personally known to Hill and other mem- bers of his party, and they naturally | thought it would be a good plan to get | his advice before calling on the Mis- souri, Kansas and Texas people. They
 called upon MT. Yoakum at the general l offices of the Frisco in St. Louis and laid l their plans before him. MT. Yoakum lis- l tened to what they had to say. He then l surprised the committee by telling them 1 that they need go no further; that he l was perfectly familiar with the resources 1 and requirements of the region which was ! so badly lacking in transportation facili- | ties and that he would enlist the neces- l sary capital and build the road The com | mittee returned to Texas without taking up the matter with the Missouri, Kansas
 and Texas officials.
 l Possessed of this knowledge of the prac- 1 tical certainty of the building of the road 1 the redsllln lawyer began to secure op- l tions upon the rich valley land adjacent | to Brownsville. This wild land was cov- l cred with an almost impenetrable growth l of brush and small trees. It was consid- 1 cred almost unfit for grazing purposes so | thick was the chaparral upon it. The value placed upon the land ranged from | s1 to s1 50 per acre and some of the own l CTS perhaps thought that they were rob- bing the prospective purchaser when they l fixed those prices in the options. Hill, for l his own purposes, was willing at that l time to concede that he was agreeing to l pay an exorbitant price for the land | When tho plans for building the railroad
 had progressed sufficiently far, MT. Yoa-