140 



CITIES, AMERICAN. (OuEAY.) 



The outout of the county in coal for 1887 was total value of school property being $127,000; 

 2T> 072 tons In 1889 10 counties of Iowa, in- 40 teachers are employed, and there is a high 

 elusive of Wapello, mined 3,500,000 tons of coal, school. There is also a normal school, estab- 

 t an expense for labor of $2,000,000, paid to hshed in 1872. In 1885 47 out ot 51 religious 

 .u^ unnn n ,on Thp Comities in 1890 organizations owned their buildings. Two dailv 



organizations owned their buildings. Two daily 

 and 5 weekly newspapers are published, one of 

 ^ ne l ast being in the German language. The 

 pavements are of brick, and there is an electric 



of "hewed blocks of coal laid in red mortar and and steam street railway. The city has a fine 

 veneered with a solid sheeting of plank. The depot and a new Government building. 



more than 8,000 men. These counties in 1890 

 entered into a league for the erection of a coal 

 palace, built by the citizens of Ottumwa in that 

 ritv. the massive walls of which were composed 



-. 



THE COAL PALACE AT OTTUMWA. 



palace covered nearly a block, and was two 

 stories in height, the highest central tower being 

 200 feet in the clear. The cost of the structure 

 was nearly $30,000. A stage in one of the tow- 

 ers, 30 by 36 feet, contained a waterfall of 40 

 feet, lighted by 700 party-colored electric lights, 

 and using 1,600.000 gallons of water daily. The 

 auditorium of the main hall, with balconies as- 

 cending direct from the stage, afforded seating 

 capacity of from 4,000 to 5,000. Exhibits were 

 also made of machinery, mineral and agricult- 

 ural products, etc. Unique features of the pal- 

 ace were the sunken garden (the building hav- 

 ing been erected on 300 piles above the Sunken 

 Park of the city) and a miniature coal mine, 

 with shaft leading from the main tower, over 

 150 feet in depth. The palace was opened Sept. 

 16, and closed Oct. 11. 1890. The assessed valua- 

 tion of the city in 1887 was $2,959,892, the cash 

 value being $5,919,784. There are 5 public- 

 school buildings with enrollment of 2,457, the 



Ouray, the county seat of Ouray County, 

 Col., called the "Gem of the Rockies," in the 

 southwestern part of the State, in the bowl- 

 shaped valley of Uncompahgre river, at an ele- 

 vation of 7,200 feet. It was settled in 1875. and 

 named in honor of a chief of the Ute Indians. 

 The first newspaper was published in 1878. In 

 the summer of 1887 a branch of the Denver and 

 Rio Grande Railroad was built to the city. 1 

 1876 the mineral output of Ouray was $800: in 

 1887 it was $1,497,892; in 1888 it was $ 1,609 

 208.79: and in 1889 it was estimated at $U>->0.- 

 000, of which $1,320,000 was silver. Ouray paid 

 for the grading of the railroad into the city, and 

 has expended in the construction of wagon roads 

 a sum aggregating $170,000. Two miles of one 

 road, cut through the solid rock of a precipitous 

 mountain side from 600 to 800 feet above tt 

 river, cost $52,000. There are water works 

 electric lights, telephones, sampling mills, v 

 daily papers, 4 churches, and excellent school 



