The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1908-07-30

a very different sort of work, it means
business and not half play. The en-
gineer in charge of the work plays
no ~favCrites, "all Don look alike TO
him" His business is TO get as much
work done as possible for the least
expenditure of money, consequently
every man who works on the 0 Will
stand solely on his merits, his job
depends altogether on the efficiency OF
his work.
Now let US look at the i~nterurban
railroad from a business standpoint,
of the cities and towns touched by it.
Perhaps no better illustration OF it's
benefits can be given than to recite
the experiences OF the town OF Giles
pie. in the state of Illinois. This town
is situated on the Big Four railroad
and is about fifty miles from st. Louis.
When the Big Four was built some
twenty odd years ago its advent was
hailed with great delight, and many
towns were laid out and plated along
its line. The presumption was that
the new railroad would develope the
country and give impetus to local in
t~erests. Gillespie was among these
towns that sprung up along it's line,
but after springing up and looking
around a little it set down again, and
when it saw the trains of the new road
20 sailing by without stopping, it sit
still a while then il laid down and
died, apparently, so far as its recent
; activities were concerned. It's bust
ness interests faded away like a song
/ that had been sung. The railroad com
pany paid no attention to 1T except
to allow it locomotives to- whistle as
they hurried by, and this seemed to
be begrudged and often forgotten. The
town had some latent business energy
left however and when it heard that
the Mckinley Interurban was heading
towards it, that long ~slumbering ener.
gy suddenly awoke, set up and took
notice. A committee of its best and
most active citizens, some who had
been sitting around and whiting the
edges Of dry goods boxes for years,
just to keep up their energy, got out,
secured the right of way for the new
interurban road and presented it free
of cost; and then the mayor and
council passed an ordinance giving the
interurban road the right Of way to
use the main street for its tracks.
Then the town raised a pretty good
sized bonus and presented that to the
interurban road. All of these favors
looked good to the interurban, SO it
concluded to put Gillespie on it's She
dule. About this time some of the
conservative" merchants. you always
find them everywhere, reasoned that
Carlinville the county seat, a town
ten times as big as Gillespie and only
twenty miles away, would draw all
the business, and Gillespie would Don
be as dead as a door nail. So these
little narrow fellows concluded to
scrap" a little and prevent this i'm
pending calamity from wiping Gillespie
off the map. But their efforts were
futile, and the impending calamity
came and in less than two years
Gilaspie had increased in size five
hundred per cent, the conservatives"
built bigger stores. sold ten times as
much goods as before the calamity"
struck them. Property increased many
times in value. Instead of a dead
town of three or four hundred people
Gillespie is now a small city Of sever
al thousand. Instead Of a half dozen
poor struggling stores it now has about
thirty-ive good paying ones. The far
mer instead Of sending to catalogue