Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1913-06-05
F FORMER PASTOR
TELLS Of IOWA
Rev. L. A. Goddard Says
Land Values are
Advancing.
GOLLMAR SHOW THERE
are of the Same
Metal as Those in
Baraboo.
GOLLMAR SHOW THERE
Algona. Iowa. Nav 26. 1913.


Fulfilling promise to you before 1
left Baraboo, [ am writing q letter
telling you something of our new
home here in western Iowa. If you
publish this letter / shall claim to my
friends who read it that it is also q
letter TO them and shall hold Il have
hereby discharged an obligation to
them also. How is that for two birds
at one heave?
Algona is growing; too fast for sta
tistical reports to keep up with. When
Algona realizes that she must wait
seven and half years more ere the
census will tell her population, she
signs, for she has five hundred moie
now than the last census records
There are contracted for in the city at
the present time ninty-two houses TO
be built this summer. You can't rent
q house in town. Three years ago the
boom struck town and it is still or.
The ministers were driven from pillar
to post in search of a home SO the
churches cut the gordian knot by build
ing fine manses for them. Ours is
dream. 7 would not ask for anything
better even if I were a nabob. The
other homes are nearly as nice.
The land values in the city and
country have increased rapidly. in
three years. Property that changed
hands in the city two years ago has
actually been sold within six months
double the former price. Farm pro-
perty has advanced nearly at the same
ratio. The land here is heavy soil,
black and rich, with a subsoil of clay.
In digging they use peculiar looking
implement with an open blade. A
shovel is of little use here as the soil
is so heavy.
The rainfall is large and with heavy
soil the land is apt to be very wet. In
recent years the county has put in
bitches with tiles and taxed the ex-
pense up to the property owners. This
has boosted the land values and makes
possible big crops. Spring has been
very damp one here. The farmers
plant their grain in last years corn
field without plowing. 1t looks funny
to see the grain coming up midst the
corn stubble.
Algona is the largest town, in the
largest county, in the most cultivated
state, in the greatest country in the
world. How is that for superlatives2
The people here are all booster-there
are no knockers In the town. Mer-
chants are all public spirited men and
ready to do anything to help the town.
Their courtesy to customers is proven
bial. The people are very largely
American, little foreign element.
What there is, is of the best type
Swedes mostly. There is fine
culture here. Many of its young men
and women go to college, quite q
good many to the eastern colleges.
When L returned from here in Febru-
ary told you fellows that Alonga
was a city without saloon. That
seemed a unique characteristic to a
Badger but if that surprised you feI-
lows let me tell you something. We
are living in zone as dry and as big
as Sahara itself. There is not saloon
within 100 miles to the east of US,
miles to the west of us, so miles to the
south and il is thirty miles to the Min
nesota border; what they have across
the line L don't know but in that
thirty miles there is not booze shop.
I used to read il history that it was
said that after Sheridan raid in the
Shenandoah Valley if crow wanted
to fly down the valley he must carry
his rations with him. If booze
fighter wants to cross this "Desert of
Sahara" he had better carry his jug
with him. There are no cases in this
desert. If the preacher wants a little
alcohol for his stiff joints he can't get
it at a drug store even on a DOCTORS
prescription.
They have a fine system of schools
here. They have just made an addi-
tion TO the high school costing some
SAC, 1000. The grade, judging from the
work of my little girl, is higher here
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