The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1919-09-12

much exertion; middle age played
euchre. There was theater, next
door to the Anderson hotel, and when
Edwin Booth came for night every
body who could afford to buy ticket
was there, and all the "hacks" in town
were hired. "The Black Crook" also
filled the theater, but the audience
then was almost entirely of men, who
looked, uneasy as they left for home
when the final curtain fell upon the
shocking girls dressed as fairies. But
the theater did not often do so well
the people of the town were still too
thrifty.
They were thrifty because they were
the sons or grandSonS of the "early
settlers" who had opened the wilder
ness and had reached it from the East
and the South with wagons and axes
and guns, but with no money at all.
The pioneers were thrifty or they
would have persisted: they had to
store away food for the winter, or
goods to trade for food, and they
often feared they had not stored
enough-they left traces Of that fear
in their sons and grandsons. In the
minds of most of these, indeed, their
thrift was next to their religion: to
save, even for the sake of saving, was
their earliest lesson and discipline. No
matter how prosperous they were they
could not spend money either upon
"art," or upon mere luxury and enter
tainment, without a sense of sin.
Against so homespun background
the magnificence of the Ambersons was
as conspicuous as a brass band at a
funeral. Major Anderson bought two
hundred acres Of land at the end of
National avenue; and through this
tract he built broad streets and cross
streets; paved them with cedar block,
and curbed them with stone. He set up
fountains, here and there, where the
streets intersected, and at symmetri-
cal intervals placed cast-iron statues,
painted white with their titles clear
upon the pedestals; Minerva, Mer-
peror Augustus, Fisher Boy, Stag
hound, Mastiff, Greyhound, Fawn,
Antelope, Wounded Doe and Wounded
Lion. Most of the forest trees had
been left to flourish still, and, at some
distance, or by moonlight, the place
was in truth beautiful; but the ardent
citizen, loving to see his city grow,
wanted neither distance nor moon
light. He had not seen Versailles,
but, standing before the fountain of
Neptune in Anderson addition, at
bright noon, and quoting the favorite
comparison of the local newspapers
he declared Versailles outdone. All
this Art showed a profit from the
start, for the lots sold well and there
was something like a rush to build
in the new Addition. Its main thor
oughfare, an oblique continuation of
National avenue, was called Amber
son boulevard, and here, at the juno
ture of the new boulevard and the
avenue, Major Anderson reserved
four acres for himself and built his
new house-the Anderson mansion, of
course.
This house was the pride of tile
town. Faced with stone as far back
as the dining-room windows, it was a
house of arches and turrets and Civ
ding stone porches: it had the first
porte cochere seen in that iowa.
There was a central front hall" with
great black-walnut stairway, ard
open to green glass skylight called
the "dome," three stories above the
ground floor. A ballroom occupied
most of the third story, and at one
end of it was carved walnut gallery
for the musicians. Citizens told stran-
gers that the cost Of all this black
walnut and wood carving was sixty
thousand dollars. "Sixty thousand
dollars for the woodwork alone! Yes,
sir, and hardwood floors all over the
house! Turkish rugs and no carpets
at all, except a Brussels carpet in the
front parlor-I hear they call it the
reception room Hot and cold water
upstairs and down, and stationary