Norwich bulletin., 1918-06-01

At the time of the Civil war. the traveller seeking a home in the North west found 1t long and tedious jour ney Until 1883, there was not mile of railroad in Minnecota. The traveller to places in that state and Wiscon- sin came by train to Dunleith, Iowa, now known as East Dubuque, and there took a steamboat on the Mississippi river. He would land at the point nearest his journeys end, and would probably finish it in lumber wagon with a canvass cover, often drawn by oxen.
 In the fall of 1863 a railroad was graded and partially built, and in. the spring of the following year a train went up on the Burlington road to St Paul. high bluff came down al- i most to the rivers edge below the city, leaving just room for the wagon | road. So the rails were laid up to the foot of the bluff, and the train came | up in the morning, was reversed on the l turntable, and went back down the
 river in the afternoon.
 St. Paul was then city of about 5000 inhabitants, and, standing on the wagon bridge across the Mississippi,
 one could look up the river to St. An 1 thony's Falls, where stood a flour. ng l mill, and cluster of houses occupied l by its workmen. The next spring. the bluff was blasted away, and the rail- | road went up on the river At that l time, St. Paul occupied a small valley and only a few farms bordered on the
 road rp to St. Anthony.
 St. Paul soon enlarged it's bounds bluff after bluff disappeared, and now it is city of nearly 300,0O0 people: St. Anthony mill was the beginning ot l nT1rti Nsk, 300,0G0. Hamline University lies about
 midway between the two cities, on the
 St. Paul side of the river, and there is a continuous city on both sides unti | Minneapolis is passed. St. Paul is
 a commercial city, with miles of com pactly built blocks of business houses
 Minneapolis has the more beautiful To.
 cation, and has utilized it's chain O.
 lakes as ornaments of its series O
 lovely parks. A recent newspaper
 writer from New York, declares tha
 the eastern city has no finer parks
 and that the streets of sky scrapper
 in Mirnea polls can only be matched il
 New York. And these cities hav
 grown from small villages within fit. years. Many not yet remember then
 when they were only country tradini l points.
 A friend from Connecticut visited m ) several years ago and we visited sev eral small western cities together. Sh } could hardly believe that they wer only farms ten years before. She wa : astonished to find that each had cleo l tric lights and city water service, an
 all the modern conveniences, and re ) marked that they were more up-to . date than many large eastern citie; : This is true all through the Northwes ] all along the rivers and railroads
 there are countless towns where on ; may find all the comforts of the old ] est eastern towns And every tow 3 has it's garage, where motor cars ma be found to transport the travele y across the places where railroads al l not.
 But the country still retains it's ,ol characteristics. It is beautiful in th
 summer, with it's wide, green prairie
 covered with flowers, and it's healthfu
 free sweeping winds. The days al | long-I have written an entire. let's after nine o'clock by daylight and $ seems hardly worth while to go to be $ the day comes so soon. And there al = few rainy days But the winter Il Il long, and many of it's days are terr u ble. Only those who have seen ca U realize what it means when a sixty ID seventy miles an hour wind sweel Il Il without a breetl for three hundre u miles, with snow falling and the me
 cury at from thirty to fifty below z' Il TO. No human being can live but :. very short time without fire aT :e shelter, and where even the building A' fifty feet away are inviSi ble no o1 r dares to go out upon the unfenct 1 roads
 II The people of the east objected, la s winter, when the west was given co