White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1932-09-22

" at Chicago in 1888, the city
and the state of Illinois will
be hosts to thousands of visitors.
Not many decades ago all Illinois
was forest-clad; her roads were In
dian trails; her buildings tepees and
pioneer huts.
Then the pioneers and woodsmen
pushed from the east in growing num-
bers They came in f1atboats and COW
cred wagons. Later they came by
steamboat and railroad. Today the
old routes of the earliest pioneers echo
with the hum of airplanes.
Nature endowed the state with a
fertile soil to nourish mankind and
stored treasures of minerals beneath
to feed mans machines of travel and
industry. More than all, it blessed
the state with a rugged, healthful eli
mate. which plays so large part in
fixing the temperament and destiny of
peoples and nations What man has
made of these factors lis the story of
Illinois today.
Glimpse it for moment as from
an airplane winging northward, over
crisscrossed arteries Of concrete and
steel and water, with towns and vii
lagos knotting them into a network.
Forests and orchards Of fruit give way
to somber mines of coal. The earth
is carpeted for miles with waving corn.
Cities and tall stacks of mills become
thicker. There is broad belt of
green pastures alive with dairy herds.
Then comes great, throbbing city
under a pail of smoke, with humanity
smuggling closer and climbing higher.
Here acres of emerald parks inter.
sperse drab-roofed squares. and final
~ a burst of graceful towers edges
an inland sea.
Every village, every hamlet, has it's
story, some in the dim past, others
in the thriving present. Traces of
colonial days are few in Illinois. and
towns show true to type, as one rolls
over the smooth concrete highways.
But each adds it's mite of story. and
there is no easier way to see them
than by jogging north, over the aptly
named Meridian highway, through the
center of the state, 3S5 miles from
southern tip to northern border.
From South to North.
In the course of this journey the
traveller will see the aspect of nature
change as in few other states. In
"Egypt"-so named by the pioneers
because of it's fertility-pecans. cot
ton, tobacco. magnolias, bald cypress,
and lotus are growing: in the north
sugar beets. hickory, tamarack. and
forests of white pine brave the biting
winter. Most of Kentucky and Vir-
GINA are north of Cairo. while Boston
is farther south than Zion. In the
south the frost is usually gore by the
end of March; in the north it keeps
the farmer guessing until May.
The proposed trip will be an easy
one. for no other state has more miles
of concrete roads. The automobilist
who starts his car in New York. heads
across the continent to Seattle. down
the Pacific coast to Los Angeles, over
the wide open spaces to New Or
leans, and then back through Rich
mond and Washington. will have COW
cred less than 5000 miles that are
paved with cement concrete in Illinois.
In one year more paved highway was
added than the distance from Chicago
to Portland Maine. and $500 men and
10000 horses were employed at the
task.
Cairo is both the southern tip and
within few miles Of the lowest
spot in Illinois. only 279 feet above
sea level. 1t is city rich in men,
cries. There Gen. Ulysses s. Grant
had his headquarters from September.
1861, to April. 1862.
When the Illinois Central railroad
pushed across the state. Cairo. salts
fled that the Ohio river never could be
bridged, saw itself a metropolis where
trains and boats would always meet.
Charles Dickens was one who bought
a lot in the city of dreams Before he
crossed from England and made the
tourney west to see it. the tempera.
mental river had moved and it was far
beneath the water. He blamed Cairo,
and Cairo has never forgiven him for
what he wrote.
CaitS Transfer Point.
Few of the graceful old river steam
ers remain. both rivers have been
bridged. and Cairo lives in another
age. 1t is a transfer point between
water and rail for the government
barge line to New Orleans and. In
winter. the northern terminal. A sin
gle tow of long, squat barges with
powerful tug can carry the grain pro
dnced on $4,000 acres. They bring
up the products of the Southern states
and Of distant lands-sugar, coffee,
bauxite. sulphur, burlap, sisal-and
carry back the grain and manufactures
of the Middle West. Like the pirogues