Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1933-11-08

WASnlnRtOns IL. C.-WNO StTVlCcs
IL VEN one with the widest Inn
agination finds 1t difficult,
while strolling down San
Francisco's Market street, or Chi
cago's Michigan boulevard, to visu-
allze the former city as a sleepy
Mexican village and the latter as a
tiny frontier town around a stock
~ade-enclrcled fort a century ago.
Then the Mississippi was way
out West" 1t vas as late as 1892
that separate statehood made the
momentous first step west of the
Alleghenies, as Kentucky's lines
ran out In their own right (the area
had been a part of Virginia), the
first state to reach the once remote
river.
With the beginning of the Nine
teenth century, however, the Union
seriously took up the real estate
business in q large way.
Ohio's outlines had barely taken
map form In 1903 when a huge ter
ritory was pegged out for future
states, the Louisiana Purchase,
which more than doubled the area
of the original Union.
This taking over Of 909,130
square miles by the stroke of a
pen was probably the greatest real
estate transaction In all history.
For this potential empire the Unit
cd States paid France in all-prln-
clpal, interest. and debts assumed
$23.213,567.74. 1t works out at a lit
tie less than 4 cents an acre
The purchase was a happy acct
dent-a bit of high-handed patriot
ism that lawyers have said strained
the Constitution"
Robert L. Livingston was sent In
1901 by the United States as minis
ter to France to attempt to buy
the Island of New Orleans" on
both sides of the Mississippi, and so
to gain control of the mouth of the
river. He was authorized to offer
S2,000,000 and If necessary. as high
as $4,000, 900 for the patch of land.
Negotiations dragged on for two
years, when suddenly var was de-
clared on France by Great Britain.
| More to embarrass Great Britain
| than to accommodate the United
States, Napoleon decided to sell the
entire Louisiana territory. The his
torlc decision was reached while the
first consul was In his bath.
Napoleon Decides to Sell.
James Monroe had Joined Living
ston as a special commissioner, and
to them was made the proposal TO
sell. The French negotiators asked
SIS, 900, 000-an amount once and a
half as great as the highest author
ICED figure.
The two Americans were aghast
Cables and steamships did not ex-
list. To get word to America and
an answer back would require many
weeks. Napoleon was In a hurry. So
the two ENJOYS i%guratively threw
their instructions out the window
and signed the agreement.
Nobody knew enough about the
new domain west OF the Mississippi
to draw an ineligible map Of 1t.
They knew only that there were
prairies and deserts; that beyond
we're mountains of some sort; and
that somewhere farther on, may
be hundreds, maybe thousands of
leagues away, lay the half mythical
South sea.
Lewis and Clark. and soon after
them Capt. Zebulon Pike, struck
into the new country to see
what 1t was like, and as a result of
their explorations Americans began
to learn a few things about their
vast West.
When Powell led his party of ad-
venturers by boat down the Colo
RADIO river, In 1869. they were the
first to navigate the stream through
its long canyons. although the
early Spanish explorers had seen
the Grand canyon from above 800
years before.
The Florida Purchase, In 1919, In
volved a relatively small res That
acquisition really made the United
States smaller than II was before.
rhe treaty with Spain definitely
marked the eastern and northern
Spanish boundary all the way from
the southeast point of Texas to the
northwest point of California.
Parts of present Oklahoma, Kan
sas and Colorado. draining to the
Administrators which had been
thought to be In the Louisiana ter
rftory-were lost TO the United
States by the treaty and had to be
bought back from Texas later.
More territory came to the United
States In the decade 18491850 than
during any other ten years In It's
history. Texas was added In lS45;
the title to Oregon territory was es-