Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1909-08-21
PEOPLES PULPIT


Ed. Courier again stop to think
Of you. When laid down my pen
away back yonder at Glendive, Mont.
thought l would within a week re-
sumo my writings, but the hurly burly
of this western country completely
sidetracks any tendencies to write
On leaving Glendive we go spin
ming through eastern Montana among
beautiful valleys and bad land hills.
All the use there is for them Is to
climb up and up until you think some
mysterious providence is moving
them up" further and further away.
You look over the country Off yonder
and inquire: how far?''
Some young man will tell you that
it is 90 miles to the hill you are look
ing at When he said that took an.
liother look and then / told him, "my
lad. with a short postgraduate course
you will make thoroughbred"
After an all-night ride, shut I'D like
four-bladed knife, we landed in Mis-
soula. This Is the place of registering
for the Flathead land drawing. You
have no doubt tried to be the first one
to reach the circus ticket wagon.
Well, that was very mild affair COM
pared with the rush for F1athead
lands. If the people who draw these
lands will work as hard after they get
them as they did to register their
names, they will make a success of it.
Missoula Is fine city with many
beautiful buildings. If she could have
a perpetual land drawing her fortune
would be made. We stopped here IL
hours. Our travelling companion has
gone on to Sand Point where we find
still another wonder. 1t is big saw
mill, cutting 100000 feet per day.
The mill owners state that they have
enough timber in sight to run at that
rate for so years, so do not get scared
over the lumber supply. There is a
beautiful lake here that the railroad
is going to cross to shorten it's track
The engineers surveyed the line UP
| to the edge Of the water and then
started in to see how far they would
have to go to set the piers for the
bridge. The piece of lead that they
tied on to the end of the line went
down 1000 feet without touching bot
tom. BY that time they had run out OF
rope, so they gave it up and are still
running around the lake.
At Spokane is another land registry
point. This Is one of the most beauti
full cities ON the trip. There Is a great
real estate boom here. A piece of prop
erty sells today for $4,000, next weel
| $4,000 and in month, 100000. No
body gets down to hundreds here; Il
Is all thousands. Here we found FREQ
Callister in the banking business ant
Frank Walker in the real estate bust
ness. Both of them are old Agency
boys. At Occur d'Alene is another LAND
grab This is the biggest one yet
Here are 100000 people after little
batch of land, small part of which
is good and big part Of which Ii
worthless. Bill Foster and /, with G
L. Nye's soldier application, filed IL
among the crowd.
Nothing stands in the way of Sc
attic or it's people when they start tt
move there. They do things out there
The shipping by salt water there i.
immense. measured a boat at the
landing $50 feet long. Do you thinl
that when the Des Moines river gets
navigable, this boat will ever show w
in Ottumwa
The Yukon fair is very fine and il
4 Illustrative of the west Gov. Hughes
and Gov Johnson were both out II
that part of the country and were Of
the same boat with us on part of thu
trip. Yours truly,
Web. Clements.