r 594 . B83 :opy l Chicago and the Sources of Her Past and Future Growth. A Paper Read before the Chicago Historical Society, Tuesday Evening January 20th, 1880. William Bross, A. M., Lieutenant Governor of Illinois. 186; CHICAGO : JANSEN, MoOI-URGS suit the purpose of this article, " I shall enter on no encomium upon Chicago. She needs none. Here she is and here she will remain forever. The past is at least secure, and of this every citizen of Chicago is justly proud: and what she is now and what she is likely to become as time rolls onward, can only he understood by a careful survey of the extent and the character of the country in which are the sources of her past and future growth. Her site was not selectedby somegreat conquerer, like that id' Constantinople. Palmyra, and Alexandria, with reference to the channels of commerce than existing, and which the capricious changes of the currents of trade have reduced to comparative insig- nificance. Instead id' being merely on one of those channels liable to he diverted bypolitical revulsions ami ever-changing natural causes, the channels of trade for the .North American Continent all point to and converge in a focus at Chicago. Her commanding commercial position at the head of the great lakes was known to the Indians cen- turies before the brave old French explorers found it. Nature, it is believed, or. to speak more reverently. He who is the Author of Na- ture, selected the site of this great city, not till next May forty-three years old", and hence her future will not be subject to those causes which have paralyzed or destroyed many of the cities of past ages. Let us trace some of the lines of her traffic, especially those from the westward, and note the character of the country from which and through which they come. N. B. — The latest and bcsi map of the United States should be before the reader while perusing this paper. In what follows reliance is had mainly Oil personal observation, and hence I trust I shall be forgiven for the frequent use of the personal pronoun. Whatever of the country 1 have aot seen myself 1 have seen through the eves of others who in the aggregate had explored almost every square mile of it. On the 28th of May last 1 started for a trip to the Northwest, and, after visiting Winnipeg, the Capital of the thrifty little Dominion Province of Manitoba, 1 arrived at Fort Benton, in Montana, on the 2<)<> miles. What is the character of the country contained within this vast triangle, and what are its relations to the prosperity and the growth of Chicago. FIRST, AS TO ITS EXTENT. In 1855, after carefully studying the map, I became convinced (here were about 700,000 square miles of territory between Lake Michigan and the Rocky Mountains, whose trade would surely come to Chicago. I so stated before the convention of delegates from the leading lake cities to promote the building of the Huron and On- tario Ship Canal, held in Toronto on the L3th of September, IS.")."). The estimate has never been disputed, and it agrees very nearly with the figures of the I ni i <<1 States Census. To be sure of my facts. I asked my friend, Prof. Colbert, to examine the problem, and. by tak- ing in Wisconsin and running west along the boundary between the United States and the British possessions to a point sa\ LOO miles west of Fori Benton, and thence south to Las Vegas, making instead of a triangle a trapezium or irregular geometrical figure. Prof. Col- bert found that it< area is undoubtedly the figures I first made. As no one, either in astronomical or sublunary calculations, has ever ques- tioned the Professor's accuracy, this matter maybe considered as settled. N'hw mark the magnificent results. As the State of Ohio eon- tains a little less than 40;000 square miles, here is space enough to form SEVENTEEN STATES as large as Ohio; and 1 am willing to risk my reputation for the future by predicting that before the parting knell shall ring <>ut the lasl hour of the year of grace 1976 they will, on an average, he far more populous, and vastly richer and mure productive. I have trav- eled through Ohio in various directions, and between Lake Michigan and the Lower Missouri River in certainly as many: and west of that Up the Valley of the .Missouri, the Platte, 'the Kansas, and the Ar- kansas, to the Rocky .Mountains, and. therefore, 1 assume to speak with some confidence upon this suhject. But let ns be more specific, though briefly so. and see what the climate, the soil, the topographical character, ami the resources of these states, or of the territory that might lie so divided, are now known to be. And first, what is most important as to their climate and agricultural resources. CLIMATE has much to do with the productiveness of any country, and there is scarcely any topic on which the great public are more at fault than in regard to the temperature of the northern sections of our country. No greater mistake can be made than to suppose that tin- lines of latitude indicate the degree of cold that prevails under them. The Gulf Stream carries a warm, delightful climate to England and to Western Europe, while Labrador, in the same latitude in North America, has an Artie atmosphere the year round. For the same reason, the winds from the warm Japan current in the Pacific Ocean, crossing the lower northern ranges of the Rocky Mountains, give an average temperature not much different from that of St. Paul to the great Valley of the Saskatchewan, from tOO to .">II0 miles north id' the American boundary. This fact was recently proved by incon- testable figures, taken for several years, at different stations, by the Hon. James W. Taylor, United States Consul at Winnipeg. Tine, they have blizzards there and intensely cold weather, and so they do at St. Paul. and. at times, so do we at Chicago. So much for the climate of the northern belt of our triangle, and south of it. of course it gradually hecomes warmer down to the Arkansas Valley. PARTICULARS. Let us examine this country by States and Territories. The great agricultural riches of Wisconsin and her immense mineral wealth are too well known to need extended notice here. The southern half of the State lias a very rich soil and produces most of the cereals and other farm products in the greatest abundance. The northern half has a lighter soil. Init is rich in minerals and lumber. Minnesota within the last twenty years has taken her place among the leading wheat-producing States of the Union. The southern half of the State has a soil of great depth and richness, and like the northern sections of Wisconsin, the same sections in Minnesota are very valuable for their forests of pine and other important woods. The State is splendidly watered hy rivers and beautiful lakes, and is too well known to need further remark. It will sustain a large and very pros- perous population, and is destined to occupy a leading place among the great and growing States of the Union. DAKOTA. lying directly west of .Minnesota and north of Nebraska (except the northeastern and southwestern section), is comparatively unknown. When 1 went down the Wed River Valley in 1871 to Winnipeg there were only three or four little hamlets north of Morris, the terminus of the railway, for some 200 miles or more, all the way to the British line. In little more than eight years the valley, both in Minnesota and Dakota, has been brought largely under cultivation. Scores id' the largest, besl managed, and most productive wheat farms in the United States are now to he found in this valley. It looked last .Tune like an old settled country. Small farms, as well as those of one, five, ten. and even fifty thousand acres, with good houses for the superin- tendents, large barns and outhouses for every thousand acres, dotted the landscape on every side. Teams, reapers, and thrashers by the score, with a small army of men. are required on these princely farms, and even the telegraph has been called into requisition to manage them. Take as an example the ( "ass-Cheney farm, for 1ST!*. It has been opened three years. Bach year new land is broken. This season 8,170 acres were cultivated, producing 139,823 bushels id' wheat, lo.sTT bushels of oats, 6,649 bushels id' barley. The wheat cost less than 40 cents per bushed to raise, and sold for 95 cents. The stock and implements used consisted of 158 mules, 81 wagons, 32 gang- plows, 55 harvesters, 9 separators, 40 seeders, and 104 harrows. These facts 1 have from Col. James B. Power, Land-Commis- sioner of the Northern Pacific Railway, who lias thousands of acres ■of equally good land left. He adds that the counties of Cass, Traill, Richland, Barnes, Stutsman, Kidder, and Bui'leigh, extending from .the Red to the Missouri River in Dakota Territory, show as follows: Population in L879 31,500 Number of farms in 1879 3,815 Tilled area in 1879, acres 178,020 New breaking in 1879, acres 117,000 Area in wheat in 1879, acres 142,000 Increase in 1ST!' over 1878: Population, 16,600; number of farms, 2,918: tilled area, 87,990 acres; area in wheat, 70,290. acres. Of the tilled area onlv 10.100 acres are on what are known as the ""big farms. The Government survey reports that Dakota Territory contains 157.000 square miles, from which nearly four of the seventeen States might very readily he carved out. D all lies in the great wheat-belt which extends from Iowa to the Peace River Valley in British America, some 3,000 miles. For the cultivation of this most valu- able cereal a large majority of the lands in the Territory is most admirably adapted, and the balance of it affords the finest of pas- turage. Even the Cmiteau o'clock id' the 11th— more than five days -to reach Fort Buford, at the mouth of the Yellowstone, and it required eleven days more of almost constant steaming to reach Fort Benton. The June rise gave us a fine Stage of water. and our delays were very few. These eleven days were all in .Montana, as the north and south boun- dary runs only a mile or two west of the mouth of the Yellowstone. And yet in all the SOI) miles above Bismarck, till near Fort Benton there is not a single town or hamlet along the entire, river: forts and wood-yards are all the marks of civilization one sees. and the latter cer- tainly do not furnish very encouraging specimens of Western civilization; bul they are probably quite as good as could be expected. A few miles — eleven by land — below Fort Benton, on the 20th of dune, the steamer stopped at the ranche of .Mr. Charles Rowe. His fields of wheat, potatoes, and other vegetables were in splendid condition. A week before he had new potatoes and gooseberyand pie-plant pies for dinner. <>n our return trip we took on board 170 .Montana cattle. whose large size and line condition would have at once stirred up active competition at our Stock- Yards, and which Government con- t factors took down below Bismarck to feed splendidly the worthless vaga- bond Indians in that fertile and beautiful section of Dakota. These cattle had never had a pound of hay to winter them. and. in fact, did not know what it is. for they would not eat it till after having been starved to it for two or three days on hoard the steamer. These fact- are commended to the special attention of those who think this a barren, inhospitable country. .Montana is also splendidly watered east of the mountains by the Powder, the Tongue, and the Big Horn run- ning north into the Yellowstone, by'that river and the Missouri, and from the North by the White Earth, the Milk, and the Marias. T have been thus particular in describing the topographical and the agricultural character of Dakota and Montana in order, as far as may be, to dissipate the false impression that they are ton far north for successful development. With the swelling tide of emigration now beginning to roll over them, the next decade will show the most mar- velous result. As to IOWA, and that portion of Illinois and Northern Missouri lying within our triangle, all the world now knows them to be the very garden of the Mississippi Valley. They are passed by. therefore, without further notice. NEBRASKA has rightly assumed the place of one of the most prosperous States in the Union within the last fifteen years. Her progress lias been a marvel of energy and success. When the Colfax party went up the Platte Valley in a stage-coach in 1865, there were a few scattered settlements and cities on paper along the Missouri River, and Fort Kearney, with a few houses sourrounding it. with stage stations at regular intervals, were all the signs of life we found to the west line of the. State, and. in fact all the way to Denver. For 200 miles or more there were new-made graves to mark the slaughter id' white men, and women, and children by the murderous redskins the year before. The Union Pacific Railway has changed all this, and now farms, and hamlets, and thriving towns dot the Valley of the Platte all the way to the mountains. And it should lie known that this great valley, prosperous and growing rapidly as it is. is by no means the best part of the State. The country on either side beyond the bluffs that bound it is richer by far than what the tourist sees as he dashes by on the cars in the Platte Valley. It is a rich, rolling prairie, well watered, and is still rapidly settling by an energetic thrifty pop- ulation. The Valleys of the Niobrara, the Klkhoru, and theLoup-Fork drain the northern half id' the State. The Platte sweeps nearly through its centre from west to east, while the Republican and other 10 streams drain the southern sections. Notice the figures of this year's census if ymi want to sot' how ignorant the old geographers were when they marked a Large portion of Nebraska and Kansas as the (ireat American Desert. KANSAS i> admitted to lie one the best and most prosperous States in the Union. Its rich rolling prairies were the battle-ground between slavery and its opponents in 1853 <>. Freedom won in the contest, and hence followed the War id' the Rebellion. Slavery was crushed out. and •• Liberty was proclaimed throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."' The rapid settlement of Kansas and its won- derful progress in population and wealth have amply proved that the State was well worth all the efforts each side made to win it. Per- haps more than half of the State is now well settled, and the next decade will bring the western half under cultivation. The Arkansas and the Kansas Rivers, with their scores id' tributaries, furnish abun- dant drainage. It is conceded already to be one of the leading States of the Mississippi Valley. The eastern corner of WYOMING and the half of Colorado and the corner (if New Mexico coming within our base line lie within what is called the "rainless belt:" but the soil of the high-rolling ridges is good, and is covered with an abundance of buffalo grass like nearly all of eastern .Montana. Ne- braska, and Kansas. They were the home of the buffalo for untold ages. Here they roamed by tens of millions, furnishing the Indians with plenty id' food, and where so large and so powerful an animal in such vast numbers can live, surely the most extensive herds of cattle can flourish ami grow fat. I wrote home in 1865, when I first saw this wonderful country, that it must become the great mcat-produciim section of the Union, but ' little expected to see this prediction veri- fied before the year of grace 1880. Now of this RAINLESS BELT this may be said. Whatever may be the cause, it is now generally admitted that the line of sufficient rainfall for ordinary farming pur- poses is steadily though gradually moving westward. Whether it be 11 the telegraph and railway lines, or the settlement of the country, or ;ill these, with perhaps other causes combined, the future scientist will probably be aide to determine. Certainly it rained one-third of the time last June when 1 was on the Upper .Missouri, and it was abundant for all farming purposes. The experience of 2.000 years in Italy and elsewhere lias shown that irrigation from mountain streams is a safer and a better reliance for successful husbandry than to de- pend u | ion the rains of Heaven ; and so it has Keen proved in Colorado. In winter the snow falls in vast quantities on the lofty mountain ranges : it melts in the spring and early summer, and tin' water comes down in abundance, charged with ammonia and various mineral stimu- lants just when they are most needed by the growing and maturing <-ro]is. Colorado now produces nearly all the food consumed in her mining districts. Her wheat is among the very finest grown upon the continent. A belt id' territory perhaps from twenty to forty miles wide east id' the mountains is now regarded as among the best farming districts in the country. Whatever territory lies between the irrigating belt and the line of sufficient rainfall is covered with buffalo grass, furnishing the most nutritious food for cattle know not the grazier. But within the last year a species of millet called HICK Oft EGYPTIAN CORN lias been introduced, which may materially assist to solve the pro- blem of this rainless licit. The facts in regard to it I learned on my trip to New Mexico last September, from James Hollingsworth, Esq., of this city. His ranche is situated near Kinsley. )>1<> miles west of Kansas City, in the dry belt. From the facts given me by him I wrote home to The Tribune as follows: "He had forty acres of sod turned over last spring, and. having procured several quarts of the seed, with an ordinary seed-planter he deposited two or three grains a foot or two apart in the sod. There had not been a drop of rain for the previous eight months, and it did not rain fur five weeks after the planting; yet the seed germinated. The corn came up and grew finely. After it got fairly started, the hot blasts came up from the Llano Estacado (Staked Plains). burning up the grass and every green thing in the gardens, scorching like the blasts from a furnace, yet it did not affect the new-comer from Egypt ;i particle. It grew right along in spite of the heat. Then the rains 12 came on, and the sturdy grain, was equally indifferent to that. It grew righl on, and ripened about the 1st of September, yielding, Mr. Hollingsworth thought, sonic sixty bushels to the acre, weighing sixty pounds to the bushel. From the top of the stalk a tuft some- thing like that of sorghum issues; this soon droops over, and the wholebunch is one mass (if the main. The Kernel isabout the sizeofa grain of wheat, perhaps a little smaller, and more nearly round. Each one is inclosed in a shuck or independent capsule. The grain can be ground into an excellent flour, from which bread and other food can lie made: it can be boiled and eaten as rice or cracked wheat, and in fact can he used for any purpose for which our ordinary cereals are employed. A neighbor of Mr. Hollingsworth, who raised a small crop last year, assured him that it fattened pigs faster than he had ever known common corn or any other feed to do it. "Now. the only thing about this story is that it seems almost too good to he true. Had not so reliable a gentleman as 1 know .James Hollingsworth to be, given me the above facts. I should not have dared to have given this account to the public/' •• And yet. Mr. 11. adds in a circular. " the article as written by (iov. Bross is substantially accurate. The stalk isabout the con- sistency of corn, and makes precisely as good fodder as the coin stalk. For sheep or cattle, and especially Iambs, no hotter feed can he raised. The yield is nearer 70 than 60 bushels to the acre, and, with proper culture. 1 am satisfied it will yield 1011 bushels. Indeed. 1 think I have some sections on my ranche that will yield KM) bushels." What millions on millions of value is in this cereal, new to us. if il only fulfills the promise made by .Mr. Hollingsworth's experience.* A general description of the topography of the country between the lakes and the Rocky Mountains would represent it as a vast PLATEAU extending from our northern boundary, and, in fact, from far north in the British Possessions, down to the Gulf of .Mexico. The little Rocky and the Bear Paw Mountains in Montana and the Black Hills. and the O/.arks of Missouri, are mere specks upon it. scarcely notice- able on its immensity. The land between the Bakes and the Mississippi, and between that * Sonic of the coin, witli one of (lie heads, were presented lo the Society. 13 river and the Missouri, rises to a very considerable hight, with a gen era] trend of its long sweeping ridges tn tlie south, and from the Rocky Mountains east and southeast to the .Missouri. Scarcely any of tins wonderful plateau is level. Nearly all id' it is drained by such gradual slopes that its immense rivers are navigable tor steamers for thousands of miles. On the Mississippi and the Missouri — taken to- gether the longest water-course in the world — steamers ply between the Grulf of Mexico and Fort Benton, near the base of the Rocky Mountains, a distance of 3,933 miles. Their navigable tributaries are told in scores and hundreds, and they branch off from the main arteries in all directions. Now. when it is remembered that in all this immense plateau there is probably not as much waste land by moun- tain and morass, all told, as there is in the single State of New York; when one bids his mind's eye range over these hundreds of thousands of square miles of rich, rolling prairie, with nothing to vex the plow as it glides onward and turns over the teeming mold, can he fail to see in the not distant future a hundred millions of intelligent, happy, prosperous freemen dwelling in peace and in wealth in this broad, God-blessed land? And does it need any doubtful stretch of fact or fancy to see its chief commercial capital, one of the largest and the richest and most powerful cities the sun has ever beheld in all his course ? So much for the agricultural resources of this great country, and now for a paragraph on its MINERAL RICHES. To meet the want of fuel on our prairies. Providence has kindly provided for the millions who are to live upon them an abundant sup- ply of coal for all domestic and manufacturing purposes. The de- posits are practically exhaustless in Illinois and Iowa, and it is safe to say that all along the base id' the Rocky Mountains, from the Sas- katchewan to Mexico, the country is underlaid with coal, the veins of which for scores of miles arc id' surprising depth and richness. No nation on earth is so well supplied with this essential element of our modern civilization. In it the political economist sees the possibili- ties of unlimited growth in wealth and all that is desirable in our modern prosperity and progress. This abundance of coal is supplemented by what is perhaps equally essential. — iron deposits of the very best quality and in unlimited 14 quantities. The mines along the southern shore of Lake Superior, both for richness and extent, cannot be excelled, and give promise of an unlimited supply. No bounds can be placed upon the output of copper from the Lake Superior mines, except the demand which the markets of the country may choose to make. Lead about Galena and elsewhere is found ill the greatest abundance. In regard to the precious metals, something like the language of fable must be used to give an adequate account of the richness of the country along our base line of 00(1 miles, for our triangle is all but- tressed with mountains whose rock-ribbed vaults are tilled with ores of surpassing extent and value. Only twenty yearsagogold was dis- covered on Clear Creek, in the district then eroneously called Pike > Peak, and now Colorado alone is fast approaching the best results that Nevada ever yielded. Last year she gave the country over $19,000,000 worth of silver, half the product id' the whole country, about $12,000,000 id' which was produced in the Leadville district. The Pacific coast still leads largely in the yield of gold; but Cali- fornia and the countries adjacent thereto must look to their laurels, or Montana. Colorado, and New .Mexico will distance them in the value ol the precious metals produced yearly before the next decade shall have passed away. What effect the pourittg down of such a vast amount of coin among the millions of people now and soon to dwell upon the rich agricultural States between Lake .Michigan and the Rocky Mountains let him estimate who has the ability and the cour- age to do so. COMMERCIAL FACILITIES. \\ ithout adequate means for the interchange of their industries and the export of their surplus products to foreign nations, the people of a country however rich cannot achieve an enlarged and a perma- nent prosperity. for this the enterprise, the wealth of the Nation, and the energy of our people have furnished the Central States with the most ample facilities. Besides the thousands of miles of steam- boat navigation on our rivers, scores of railways have gone trooping over the country in all directions, bridging the Mississippi and the Missouri as if it were a mere pastime, and still they go pressing on- ward to the mountains. Their dark, gloomy, and as it was supposed impassable canyons echo the wild scream of the locomotive, and the 15 saucy little baby engine, powerful as it is saucy, has leaped over their lofty passes more than nine and eleven thousand feet above the sea. The St. Paul and the Northwestern are running a race through Dakota to the Black Hills ; the Northern Pacific ami the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe are driving rapidly onward to the Pacific Ocean ; while the Central Pacific line lias for ten years been pouring the tea, the silks, and the spices of Asia into our warehouses for distribution all thi'ough the .Mississippi Valley. It is safe to say that no country in the world of equal extent is so abundantly supplied with facilities for transport and travel as that between Lake Michigan and the Rocky .Mountains. Parenthetically it may be here said that in the old Roman Empire not only upon the conqueror of nations, hut upon him who built the most roads and the best bridges, was conferred the highest honors. He was Pontifex Maxim us.— the greatest bridge- builder, — a title the Pope is proud to retain to the present day. What a noble monument should therefore be reared to the memory of John F. Tracy, who built the Mississippi bridge at Rock Island, and. first id' all others against the money and the power id' St. Louis and the entire river interest combined, fought the battle through the United States courts, and secured the right to keep it there. Hence every river in the Nation can now be bridged. And what a high posi- tion will history give to the names of William B. Ogden, .John B. Turner, Henry Farnum. and a score or more of their compeers, who directed and gave energy to that pablic opinion which has enabled their successors, (loy. Stanford and Thomas C. Durant, to push their lines oyer the mountains and entirely across the Continent! And now come Frederick Billings with H. E. Sargent, and William B. Strong with his Boston crowd, determined soon to give us two other lines to the Pacific Ocean. Has not each one of them ah*eady he- come in reality, on his own line, and not in mere name a Pontifex Maximus '! These lines to the westward are supplemented by water transit eastward through our magnificent lakes and the Erie and Canadian Canals. and by five or six great railway lines to the Atlantic seaboard. It may as well be added in this connection that the traffic of our mer- chants extends from the south side of our triangle, through Texas. along the Atlantic seaboard, all the way round to the Dominion of Canada. Immense shipments or grain and provisions are made on 16 through bills of lading to all the ports in Western Europe. Our wholesale merchants have buyers in all the Eastern States, and in all the leading cities and manufacturing districts of Europe, with cash in hand to buy at bottom prices whatever goods this market may re- quire, so that New York dealers — as Stewart & Co., and others, have Pound indispensabh — have been forced to establish branch houses in this city. Beyond a doubt the branch will, in a very few years, become the main central establishment. Chicago manufacturers of railway supplies and agricultural and other implements make frequent ship- ments to both sides of the continent : to Europe and to the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Hence while the country west of ns must be died on mainly for the growth of the city, it should be added that her lake and canal navigation, — the Illinois & Michigan must not be forgotten. — her Eastern railway system, and her Southern, Eastern, and European trade are all immense factors in determining the ele- ments of her past and future prosperity. STATISTICS. A paragraph on her past growth and present business is appropri- ate here. Let us take a period of twenty-five years. In 1838, one year after the city was organized, the first shipment of wheat, seventy- eight bushels, was made eastward by the lakes.* In 1854, twenty-five years ago, the receipts of wheat had risen to 3,038,955 bushels: last year they were 39,358,014, — a wonderful increase, surely. The re- ceipts of corn for 1 s.")4 were 7,490,753, last year they were 62,164,238 bushels. The total receipts of cereals for 1 S.")4 were 12,902,310 bushels; last year they were 137,624,833, and their value is told by * It should be known thai these historical 78 bushels of wheal were shipped in ban's lo Buffalo on board a steamer by the late Charles Walker, one of i he most far-seeing and best business men Chicago ever had. The history of the nexl shipment, in 1839, of B.678 bushels, on board the brig Osceola, is scarcely less interesting. It was made by New berry & Dole, whose warehouse was then on the North Side, imme- diately east of where Rush street bridge now stands. The wheal was bought from farmers' wagons and hoisted to the upper story by Irish power, with rope and pully. The problem of loading i1 on the brig was solved by fixing a spoul in one of the upper doors and making i1 gradual- ly narrower till it readied the deck, where the wheat was discharged into boxes holding four bushels, weighed, ami transferred to the bold of the vessel. From the bins holding the wheat in the upper story a row of men was formed who passed it in buckets, precisely similar to the means used to pass buckets of walcraf a lire before the introduction of engines. Sub- sequently the linn lmilt a warehouse on the South Side, immediately 17 $78,080,000. The number of hogs received in 1854 was 74.:5:i!i : last year the receipts were 6,488;935. ( >f cattle the statistics show 23,691 received in 1 So4 : last year the number was 1,215,672. and the total value of the live stock handled was $107,310,000. Total value of the produce trade $353,000,000 Wholesale trade 841.ooo.oihi Manufactures 236,500,000 Total $830,500,000 From this The Tribune's commercial editor deducts $66,500,000 for articles manufactured here and also sold at wholesale leasing the actual value of trade of the city for the last year $764,000,000. These results seem almost fabulous and could not he credited were they not gathered hy experts with the greatest care from authentic sources. The population of the city in 1 S.">4 was 65.872; everybody now believes that the census about to he taken will give us at least 450,000. As another index of Western growth it may he stated that Illinois was admitted into the (Jnion in ISIS, only sixty-two years ago. taking her place at the foot id' the States. Since then her march has been onward and upward, till the census of this year will place her ahead of Ohio and next to Pennsylvania, the third State in the [Jnion. Doubtless Wisconsin. Minnesota. Kansas. Nebraska, and Colorado would show equally marvelous results, were not this article already too long to present the statistics to prove it. west of Clark street bridge. Business increasing, a common horse-power arrangement was introduced to run an elevating belt and thus, raise the wheat to the top story. The endless treddle on which the horse traveled was in the way, and besides it made a great deal of noise. Hence his tramway was transferred to the upper story, and witli straps and pulleys a party of sailors soon transferred the faithful animal to the same local ity, where be lived and traveled seven years without ever setting foot on terra firma. All the warehouses along the river were operated in the same way when I wrote the commercial for our paper, then the Demo- cratic Press 1852-5. The brothers George P . and Julian S. Rumsey, nephews of Mr. Dole, were his clerks, and, with Ex-Alderman Granger, rigged out this machinery, then considered a great advance in the hand ling of grain. They are all still in the city, and the Rumseys are among our largest commission merchants. This tramping of the old horse al the to]) of the warehouse only forty years ago furnished the beginnings of our seventeen splendid elevators, with a capacity of 17,350,000 bushels. AM this in the short space of forty years. It may be added as a health item that Colonel G. 8. Hubbard, who came herein 1M1H, and who has lived at the West ever since, with <). F. Rumsey and a large number of our older citizens, were present al the meeting. IS But however great the extent, the salubrity, the agricultural ami the mineral resources of any country may he. a strong, an industrious, a free, an intellectual, and a moral people must live upon and develop it in order that it may take and hold a commanding position in the current affairs ami in the history of the world. Now. where else upon earth, it may he asked, can you find a people whose character is in all respects better fitted to work out all that is good and great and noble in our Christian civilization ? They are the men and the women sifted out. as it were, from the most enterprising sons and daughters of the old States and from nearly all the nations id' Europe. Among man- kind, as elsewhere in Nature, ''blood will tell. It is tlie mixture of the powerful races id' Western Europe that lias wrought out for the English the proud distinction of being the Romans of the nineteenth century. Now. where or when was there ever such a mingling of the blood of SO many powerful races as can he found among the dwellers of the country west id' and around Lake Michigan ? They act every- where on the g 1 old Puritan principle of planting churches and schools in every town and hamlet in the land, and colleges in suffi- cient number to give a liberal education to all who have the energy and the intelligence to seek it. It is believed that in these Central States the problem of what a whole people educated, industrious, and with the highest moral appliances can accomplish is to he wrought out for the first time in the history of the world. Let the philanthropist and the statesman estimate if they can the heneficient effect it will surely have upon the welfare id' the race. 1 have spoken id' the country and its character ami resources that is tributary to Chicago, and of the people who inhabit it. But St. Louis, Milwaukee, Omaha, Kansas City. Denver, and a hundred other growing cities may exclaim, Do you leave nothing for us? Certainly, all that your position and your energy can achieve : lint, hless you. friends, the more you prosper, the more you all will con- tribute to the wealth and the prosperity of Chicago. Shehas not a par- ticle of jealousy in her nature. Now. in regard to the country west of and surrounding Chicago, with such an energetic, intelligent, Christain people to develop it. ami also in regard to such progress as she has made in the past. I submit that I have stated only the facts. I have "entered on no encomium upon Chicago. She needs none. Her pas! is at least secure. Here she is. and here she, will remain, forever. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ii mi mi mil inn mil inn i 014 612 006 4 • LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 014 612 006 4 • Conservation Resources Lig-Free® Type I Ph 8.S. Buffered