The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1916-01-20
BOISE man SAYS
". N. A NECESSITY

OulOHel Eldce mas lOCdbtu III the
new offices of the Winnemucca North
ern, at the corner of Third and Baud
streets, and will probably remain in
town until after the storm has settled.
When seen this morning by a Silver
State representative and asked if there
was anything new, Col. Place replied:
"There will be nothing new in rail
road matters, so far as the Winnemuc-
ca Northern is concerned, until after
the fifteenth of next month. There will
be a road built from this vicinity to
Boise, Idaho, we hope from Winnie
mucca and by the Western Pacific. In
fact, there will be no other company in
position to construct the line, and an
Independent road is out of the ques-
tion. While personally / favor build
ing out of Winnemucca, there is no GER
tainty that this will be done, and it
might be well for the citizens here to
take steps to secure the southern ter
minal of the line when built.
"The bondholders of the several
roads, commonly known as the Gould
lines, have been given until February
Is by the reorganization committee to
meet their assessment of $32 per share
and in case they do not do so some
other plan of reorganization win no
doubt be devised. As an indication or
the sentiment in the Boise valley re-
garding the Winnemucca Northern,
you may quote the letter I recently re-
ceived from C. R. Shaw, the prominent
Boise business man,
The letter referred to by Col. Place
is as follows:
ct came to Idaho thirty years ago as
terminal agent for the Oregon Shorv
Line railroad, which was being con-
strueted at that time from Granger,
Wyoming, to Huntington, Oregon.
"When I came to the road, it was
completed, and in operation, to within
twenty miles of Caldwell, or rather to
within twenty miles of where Caldwell
is now located.
"When / travelled for the first time
over the line from Granger, Wyoming,
to Kuna, Idaho, fifteen miles from
Boise, where | was located, I thought,
that the road would never be perma-
nently operated; as the road did not
actually pass through a single settle
ment of any kind, with the exception
of Pocatello, where the road crossed
what was then known as the Utah
Northern Narrow Gauge. The road did
ret pass through one acre of cultivated
land from one end of the line to the
other.
"It was generally understood that
the road was being built to make
connection with the old Oregon Rail
road & Navigation company's line to
Portland, Oregon, evidently without
much thought or hope of local bust
ness.
"The promoters were certainly
building better than they knew; the
country along the entire line of the
Oregon Short Line from Granger to
Huntington has developed beyond the
widest dream of the most optimistic
railroad builder, and today it would be
difficult to look out of the ear window
at any point along the line without
seeing cultivated fields either under
irrigation or dry farming.
"There is no doubt but that the
greatest development in the way of ir-
rigation in the entire world has been
along the Oregon Short Line within the
past twenty years. 1t is not reckoned
by acres, nor by thousands of acres,
but by hundreds of thousands of acres,
and in fact by millions of acres, the
greatest part of which is under water
and producing enormous crops of hay,
grain, vegetables and fruit. Thousands
os cattle, sheep, horses and swine, to
say nothing of thousands and thous-
ands of acres of producing orchards,
such as apples, prunes, pears, peaches,
cherries and other fruits.
"I wish to make the broad state
ment that the Snake and its tributary
valleys, being the Boise, Payette, Wei
ser. Malheur, Owyhee and Bruneau
valleys, all of which are included In
the Snake River valley, will, in ten
wears from today, be the most produc
tive irrigated section on the globe, with
the most diversified farming
''We dom t have to depend upon or
anges and lemons, but we can raise the
best apples and prunes in the world,
and have proved it. We can raise the
lest wool, sheep, cattle, hogs, wheat,
oats, hay and potatoes in the United
States and more of it per acre.
''We have not only put hundreds or
thousands of acres of land under irri-
cation, but we have several thousand
more to put under irrigation. We have
not only built canals from twenty-five
to seventy-fve miles long, large enough
to float an ordinary ship, but we are
using our hmitless water power for
pumping water to a height of three
hundred feet for irrigation, and irriga-
tion purposes 1t might be well to
state at this point that we have more
water power than any other state in
the Union, and on several of our tracts
| watered hy electric mower, our farmers
are doing their cooking, heating their
houses and running their machinery
hy electricity. / think you will admit
that this is advancing some in the short
space of twenty years.
BUT WE ARE SHORT OF RAIL
ROADS.
''Don Z YOU think it would pay some
one to built another railroad into this
great empiref There has not been a
wear for the past eight years that the
Oregon Short Line has been able to
handle the traffic in and out of this
| aar+ain caacnnS ~ the war