davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14
CARPENTER AT PANAMA-By Frark c. Carpenter

posted here when the ocean was ovei the tops of these mountains
 The rock of Gold Hill is of many col- ors. As we pass through it Is 1 O clock i'll the evening and the suns rays are bringing them out. Some of the rock is light red; other strata are blue and there are greater patches of yellow and of va riegated hues. Much of the wall is of the same color as the blue clay in the great diamond pipes of South Africa, and, like the latter 1t weathers upon exposure to air One of the workmen tells me he has picked up stones which are a beautiful crystal and which, when cut shine like moonstone. Would it not be strange to find diamonds here in' our canal bed?
 At Gold Hill
 But I despair of giving you the scenes of Culebra. The cut is indescribable and it's features change every moment We stop at last under Gold Hill, the top of which is more than 500 feet above sea level. We are now on the very level of the canal bed, just about 40 feet above the surface of the Caribbean and the Pa cifc ocean. We are in a rocky, ragged gorge of numerous levels, which rise like cliffs on each side of us, At places the rock is cracked as though an earthquake had shattered it. Right near here were the great slides when thousands upon thousands of tons rolled down into the cut. The cracks can be seen everywhere as we move. We climb the heights to Culebra and as we do so find ourselves wondering whether the whole mountain will slide. The engineers, however, know all the dangers. They have tested every part of the excavation and understand just how to handle the canal if any part of the mountain should move. It may be that the slope will have to be wid- ened. know it is mighty steep wall to the top. l went up on my hands and feet, panting and resting at every few steps. The eXertion was terrible in this tropical air, and 1t took me something like a quarter of an hour to make my way to the top
 Five O'Clock in the Cut
 I shall ask you to take seat with me there and look at the view. We are just back of the Y. M. c. A. building op- posite Gold Hill, and little above the peak known as Contractors Hill. We arc at the deepest part of the cut, which lies over 400 feet down in the gorge. We car
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

if the railroad station was on the Gree Hey property. He told of his visit to the railroad people and said he had
 the promise of the vice president that If pr. clendenin would give the land necessary the railroad would build an artistic structure at the Greeley farm, instead of the shabby old one a quar-
 ter of a mile away. Then he told how he proposed to have 6 fine road built down to the new station. this road to
 be lined with beautiful trees. He pro- posed, also, that charming little parks should be made on either side of this
 road near the station, and that no structures that would not harmonizq
 with the beauty of the grounds around
 the station would be permitted.
 l pr Clendenin thought the matter over. The more he thought of it 1 the more it appealed to his imagina- 1 ton. After due consideration he de-
 eided 1t would be to hr- benefit to give l the necessary land. It was given | The railroad built station on the
 new site that was delight. The main portion was of stone and the roof of
 the finest tling. There was porte cociere. The station was artistically
 decorated, handsomely furnished and
 had every convenience for travelling | If cost s20,o00 to build and furnish that new station.
 The work that MT. Turner did was | in keeping with the railroad improve nlent. A fine new road was built from the station to connect with Main street The little parks were estab- llshed on either side of the road near the station a forester looked after the work of having the road lined with trees. In q little while the commuters
 on the New York anu Harlem hardly could recognize Charpaqua. It no longer Was turning it's untdy back to the public, II was a charm to the eye. It boasted the prettiest station
 or the whole railroad. The village itself WAS mo longer blot on the landscape E It. harmonized with the
 beauty of the5 surrounding country.
 The loafers who used to so to tho old station did not go to the new. It didn't suit them. They felt out of place in such a delightful spot. They
 didn't feel comfortable if they expcc- torated on the floor. They did not
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14


 congregated there to gossip and settle the affairs of the nation.
 There was a saloon, also. That was the focal point for the gentlemen ad- dicted to liquor. A lady walking to or from the station was subjected to tho scrutiny of the crowd congregated about the livery stable or about the saloon. At train time a fair number of idlers were certain to gather at the station to see the people who came in or who went away and to talk about them. The dwellings in the neighbor- hood of the station were rather s--abbY.
 Maybe it was because of the saloon. or the livery stable. or the station itself, but at any rate the dwellings, near the railroad tracks turned their backs to the station. There was one thing characteristic about all those dwellings. Their back yards had clothes lines that were in constant use undergarments were always flying In the wind. A person looking out of train window at Chappaqua, after feasting his eyes on the shabby sta tion the tumble-down livery stable and the saloon with it's gang Of idlers, could inspect the gndergarments on half a dozen or dozen washlnes
 Mr- Turner was fnicky. He did not like that station. He did not like the saloon, and he did not like the livery stable to be so conspicuous. And he laid not like to be looking at the wash on the lines. Moreover, he did not like that main street road, with it's ruts or its mud or it's dust.
 Chappaoua was no different from the other towns along the line of the New York and Harlem railroad and 1t was no different from a majority of the thousa nds of villa ses and towns around New York that are beautiful in them selves, but make a wretched and mis- erable showing as viewed from rail- road train. He thought Chappaqua vas not doing it's duty to itself He thought a handsome new station would be lar better than that wretched one. He thought the saloon ought to go, and the livery stable ought to go, and the wash should not be so prominent. He talked with some of the village people.
 \ fair number of the old timers con sidered his ideas absurd. They were perfectly satisfied with ChappaQua as t Was- They had lived in Chappaqua q long time. They saw no necessity for change The liver9 stable was necessity, and there was no particular reason why Chappaqua shouldn't hare a saloon. As for the wash on the line people had to have their clothes washed and hang them out to dry. Regarding
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

saloon, its livery stable, it's outhouses,
 its loungers. it's undergarments out to
 dry. Everybody has been stimulated
 10 make Chappaqua stiil more beautt- ful. pr clendenlng has built beauti- ful church on the Greeley grounds
 near the station. It is a replica of the
 historic structure at Hadley, England
 One of its windows was brought over
 from the lIadley church. and 1t has,
 too, the Hadley sun dial. All the other towns along the New York and Harlem want to do what Chappaqua has done. White Plains is going 10 do 1t one or these fine days, but fl has delayed so long that it will cost S100, 900 to do at White Plains what has been done at lChappaqua. Probably the railroad
 would be perfectly willing to help the ctheU towns. just as il has Ghappaqua, for 1t has had proof that il made good investment a that place. That ! il Is good business for town or vil- lage to clean up and to turn it's front ! instead of its back to the station Is 1 evident. That beautiful hill country
 in and about Chappaqua is now much | in demand. Men of wealth have found | there just what they want II. F.
 Bishop has spent s25o,000 for a eoun- l try home there. John Mckesson mas
 spent s200, 900. Victor Guin2burg ir
 spending s250.O00 on an Italian palace
 and sl00000 on a trout pond that wifi!
 be wonder Morgan Cowperthwait II spending S4O-00n on a residence and George D. Mackay Is spending S2QO,Gja. These are only 2 few of the men cr wealth who have been attracted to what once was sleepy old Chappaqua.
 But that is not all
 The whole country in and around lChappaqua has been benefited. Land values have increased immensely. Plots that were worth from $50 to s200
 an acre not so long ago now sell for from $500 to s2500 ln acre. The awakening of Chappaqua has added many hundreds of thousands of dollars
 % it's real wealth, and Its new roads have brought into easy reach a large and beautiful section tl1at formerly was out of consideration. nut greater than all else is the value of the example to other towns
 Copyright. 1912. by Richard spillane~
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

umes of smoke, hut the stiff wind which is blowing keeps the air clear.
 These cars are Dldgerwood cars. which are unloaded with blows. There are more than 1900 of them now In use. and at the same time an equal mum Der of steel dump cars large and small. There are more than 1000 cars moving back and forth through the work and on the average there Is a train every four minutes all the day through.
 The Lidgerwood cars are among the wonders of modern excavation. There are twenty of them in each train, and each car is, l should judge. about thirty feet long. One train will measure over coo feet on the track, and eight or nine trains make mile. These cars are un- loaded with blows. They are flat, with a wall as high as your waist at one side, and are so connected by steel aprons that when loaded the earth and rock form a windrow or great bank from one end of the train to the other.
 When they shoot out on the dumps the engines have such machinery that they drag mighty steel blow over the train and it shovels the mass at one mo- tion far out from the side of the track. After a time the pile rSes, and then a gigantic spreader-another machine which runs on the track and does the work of a thousand men-smootiIs down the dump More rock is put on, and finally, even with the spreader, it is too high for un- loading.
 And then what do these engineers do? Do they seek a new dump? Not at all. They merely run out the track shifter, a mighty machine which picks up tracks. ties and all and lifts them over so that another dump can be made. This ma chine will throw more than a mile of track nine feet in eight hours, and 1t represents the work of 500 men. Never theless it is handled by three white men and six laborcrs. Single blows have un- loaded sixteen trains in eight hours, an amount so great that 1t would take 16,00l horses to haul it if piled upon wagons.
 A Look at the Rock
 But let us go on We have already travelled three miles and are pretty well along the cut See how the rock runs in lines on each side The strata vary and they are of different colors. As we pass one of the foremen hands me a piece of rock in which a seashell has been petrified, That shell must have been de-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

meansN desirable were beginning to ap- pear. They turned their backs on the railroad, showed their outhouses, the clothes poles and their wash on the line. MT. Turner made another trip to the office of the vice president of the rail- road. He told that official that .he railroad ought to do something to mend that state of affairs. The railroad of iicial was rather proud of what Chappa- qua and Mir. Turner had done an dhe said if Chappaqua and Mir. Turner would do their part the railroad woul do its share MT Turner thought he could buy that swamp and some other land near by that would wipe out everything in the nature of n nuisance for about 5000.
 "All right" said the vice president, If you can buy the land for S6o0O we Il take half and pay $900) for it."
 MT. Turner did some negotiating with d gentleman who is rather slow goihs and who sees no necessity for haste. The gentleman couldn't see any reason why anybody should buy that swamp and the land near by. but he was willing to let it go for $i00O, and he did. A little later he was shocked. The railroad filled in the swamp, The grounds near by were improved. a fine road was built through the new property, two pretty little parks were established to match those on the other side of the railroad, and after all the work had been done and the railroa had taken it's one-half of the land Mir. Turner and his father-in-law, John I. D. Bristol, had two fine plots left for resi- dental purposes.
 Now chappaqua has nothing more to fear; it Is perfect. People point to it's station as a model and to it's station sur .roundings as the finest in the state. One of the most enthusiastic of Its admirers is gentleman who. when he visited chappaqua some years ago. said he wouldn't live in such place if 1t were given to him.
 Everybody in and around Chappaqua is proud of Chappaqua. The Chappa ; qua Historical society Is restoring and preserving everything in that neigh 9 borbood that Is of revolutionary mem- ory.f The roads are no longer siX inches deep in mud or six inches deep In dust Sewers no longer run into the ditches. IL no longer shows its
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

upright 1912, by Frank G. Carpenter.) INULEBRA, Canal Zone. Panama.
 Come with me this horning for a |C trip through the Culebra cut. that |ighty nine-mile gash in the Andes which to bring the shipping of the two oceans .eether. It practically begins at Pedro ] ieuel where we shall start, and it |ns in a winding canyon through the fountains from there on until it is lost. in a great lake of Gatun. The ships will | |me through the lake and steam on full speed through the cut, and the ater of the cut and the lake will be the same level
 |The Culebra cut is at the lowest pass the Andes, those mighty mountains |hich in South America, rise more than bur miles above the sea, but bow down |lmbly as they reach the isthmus on heir way north to join hands with the Iockies. Right here at Panama, the fountains are on the average only about |he-third of a mile high and at Culebra he tallest peak, known as Gold Hill, is |0 feet above the sea. The lowest pass only 300 feet, and We have cut this |own so that ships can sail throughS it Ind the surface of the canal waters be |nly S5 feet above the level of the two |ceans.
 Through the Cut on Foot We shall start for our trip about nine hiles from the Pacific right under the highty lock of Pedro Miguel, into which he steamers will come when they have |assed through the cut. The lock is as hll as three-story house. and 1t Will |rop the ships to the level of the locks at |firaflores. where they have two more |igantic drops before they reach the level
 f the Pacific.
 We crawl down into the locks and go arefuny as we wind our way about through the network of steel wires and ables, so many in number that they ook like a thicket. We dodge to keep ut of the way of the concrete which 5 falling into the network and pick ut our path along the line of the rail- oad.
 We soon reach the beginning of the
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

dare lounge in place that was so evidently intended for ladies and gen. tlemen. They stayed around the livery stable and the smelly saloon But after a time even the livery stable and the saloon lost their attraction for them% The people no longer passed those structures on the way to or from the station. so the village loafers had not the incidental diversion of seeing the people go by and the gossip at tendant to their coming and going.
 The travellers on the New York and Harlem railroad began to get uneasy. They asked themselves how it was that Chappaqua was so favored. II looked so different from their towns that they became jealous. Their towns were beautiful, rust as beautiful almost as Chappaqua, out they turned their worst side to the railroad. They showed their outhouses. their saloons, their livery stables, their dirty roads. their wash on the line1 and their indo- lent, lazy class of men. The commut- CTS wanted to have their towns pattern after Chappaqua, but they didn't know just how to do 1t.
 MT Turner was not content with the new railroad station, the new tree bordered road, the little parks near the station. Chappaqua is in Newcas- tle lONnSnlD. lie anu ollleT DuDllc- spirited men got aftct the township authorities and impressed upon them the value of good roads the value of electric lights. the value of city water the value of all the accessories to goou living and easy communica lion. The state of New York Is entering upon period of generous outlays for good roads. At the present timo s210,000 is being spent in Newcastle township. Of this amount the state is spending S70,000 and Newcastle township s140,- 900. When this work is completed the Chappaqua neighborhood will have the finest automobile roads in the state.
 Ono swallow does not make a summer, or one good move, however radical, com plete a job. Across from the new rall- road station. on the opposite side to the pretty little parks and the tree bordered main road. there was q bit of swamp and then some rising ground. The new loca- tion of the station attracted some people and some structures that were by no
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

ready for an explosion. The men are testing them before they put in the candles. By and by they will go off with the noise of a battleship in action. Farther on Is another gang drilling in front of the steam shovels which are working on the explosions of yes terday night. That is the way the noun tain is cut down. The rock is first broken to, pieces, and then loaded ov steam shovels into the cars and car ried on the railroad out of the cut. Giants Which Have the Strength of
 Hundreds
 But let us move onward. Watch out for your feet. You may trip on the wires and an electric shock send you to heaven or the reverse. Don't you see that train coming? You must get far off the track. Those cars are loaded with rocks and earth and huge rocks fre- quently fall and men are killed by them The air is full of sharp dust, carried on by the motion. The train Is 600 feet long and every ear is loaded with that mighty blue rock
 But let us stop at this great steam shovel and watch it. See how it gouges out the rocks and earth exploded by dynamite. There are scores of other shovels at work in the cut, and each is accomplishing more than the labor of 500 men,
 There are altogether more than 100 shovels on the, isthmus and they equal a force half as large as the whole United States army. Fifty thousand Samsons could not do what they do.
 We take a seat on the stones on the level above the ditch where the shovel Is working. The huge monster makes one think of a giant on wheels with a mighty arm at the frons which ends in a mouth of steel as big as a hogshead. This mouth has four lorg, sharp, cruel, steel teeth on the edge of its lower lip, and it gouges out 10 tons of earth at a bite and. raising 1t, head in the air, it swings the bite on to the cars.
 See, it is taking a bite now. It has swallowed a rock which weighs three or four tons and has carried 1t with a mass of debris. There are eight tons inside it's square checks, but it 1t lifts the load as
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

ths road, it suited their fathers and 1T suited them.
 No one knows the narrowness or the prejudices of a village unless he has tried to bring about some radical changes that do not meet with the ap- proval of old-timers. Staid solemn persons who have lived in a community all their lives and whose fathers had lived there before them resent the sug- gestions of newcomers and consider ideas that are meant for tue general betterment in the light of personal criticism.
 IL takes man with lot of patience to arouse sleepy old place. MT. Tnr- ner has patience. He trayeed over that miry road and he passed by that tum- bledown livery stable and the smelly saloon and used that shabby station and gazed al the wash on the line for many a day without apparently mak- ing any headway toward changing con- aitiass. But he never lost an oppor- -''e recale understand what could be done in Chappaqua. Probably
 c.. or artting the resi- dents organized and buying the saloon and buying the livery stable and nov ing them or wipng them out. Possibly he had a notion of doing something toward making the wash on the lines less glaring. Possibly he had a notion or dofng something With that shabby old station If he had. it would have cost a lot of monew to complete the work. What he did was cheaper and better.
 One day an idea came to him. It seemed to meet all his reeds. lit- tie later he went to see the vice presi- dent of the New York and Harlem rail- road. IL didn't take him long 10 con vince that gentleman t would be good business for the railroad to join him in such improvements as he proposed mak- ing Before he went away ne had the assurance of the railroad man that the railroad would do it's part if chapraqua would do it's share Then Mir Turner got real busy. When chappaqua learned what he proposed doing t had the biggest sensation In it's history His proposition certainly waa radical.
 He went to Dr. Clendenin, who now has charge of the Greeley estate. and explained to hm how much the Gree ley acres would be enhanced in value
The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-04-14

)HAPPAQUA is Indian for running water. The town of Chappaqua Is 0 older than the nation. It is up in the Westchester hills. S2 miles from New York, in the heart of section that is much like the beautiful Berkshires. The hills are not so high as the Berkshires, but they are high enough to command a view of four states. From most of them you can see a portion of Massa- chusetts, a fair amount of Connecticut. a good bit of New Jersey, the majestic Hudson and the towers of mighty Man haitian.
 Albert Turner, an insurance man, went to Chappaqua 10 or F years ago to es- tablish home. The city has many de- lights, but many discomforts for the home loving man. It isn't a good place to raise children. It is too cramped Tor man who likes elbow room. It's roar and Us chatter are rather trying to person who needs rest and recreation after the nerve racking strain of active bushes.
 Mir. Turner bought 116 acres on a hill side mile from Chappaqua. It was an ideal spot. The air was pure; the view was magnificent The gentle winds brought the odor of the pines The whole neighborhood was rich in historic iore Over in the direction of White Plains was the spot where Washington and the French allies had their camp. Near by was the famous Pines Bridge road over which Washington had retreated That was not all. The old town had been the home of Horace Greeley. There the famous editor retired to his farms and got back to nature, Gladstone did tilling the soil, pruning his vines and chopping his trees.
 Nature had done much for Chappani,a. but the white man had done little The more Mir. Turner admired the beauties of nature, the more he despised the work Of man in that particular neighborhood The road 'by which he traveled from the station to his home was horrible. It was the same sort of road that the white men who went to Chappaqua in ieoo had travelled over. It was full of ruts. In wet weather 1t was dusty and disagreeable. Once or twice year. when the rains washed its surface down in places. the authorities put a few laborers at work throwing the washed out dirt back onto 1t, and let it go at that. The railroad sta tion was shabby, dirty and generally misera bic. The road near the station was typical Of the American village. There y-Ss livery stable that was tumble down, unpainted and unkeplpt Tobacco cheav- ing, unwashed and smelly gentlemen