i8o 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



How To realize how Chicago will be benefited 

 wm a Jte by the opening up of another rich and 

 Benefited, populous tributary section it is only nec- 

 essary to recall the forces that created her. Some 

 mighty impulse is responsible for the phenomenal 

 growth of the great, puissant city at the head of 

 Lake Michigan. What was itV It was the rapid 

 settlement of the Mississippi valley and the North- 

 west. Chicago was made by a country which sud- 

 denly grew into an enormous producer of wheat and 

 corn, cattle and hogs. Now, the seventeen States 

 and Territories that remain to be developed are far 

 superior in natural resources and in capacity to sus- 

 tain a dense and money-making population. Their 

 industries will be far more diversified and the aver- 

 age wealth of their people much larger. Their agri- 

 cultural and horticultural output will ultimately ex- 

 ceed that of the prairie States which now furnish the 

 bulk of Chicago's business, and to the products of 

 agriculture there will be added the products of 

 mines, factories and various other industries that 

 naturally grow up where nature's bounty is so liberal 

 and varied. While other distributing points to the 

 westward of Chicago, such as Omaha, Kansas City, 

 Denver, Salt Lake and large cities on the Pacific 

 coast, will be benefited by the development of the 

 Greater West, as they have already been, in a large 

 sense this country will all be directly tributary to Chi- 

 cago, which has ceased to be the capital of a section, 

 and has become one of the capitals of the world. 

 The growing cities to the west of her are really as- 

 sistant Chicagos. They and their surrounding terri- 

 tories all dram into the ample lap of Chicago, and 



the great transcontinental railways stretching out in 

 all directions, but centering at the eastern terminus 

 in the city by the lake, are the channels which bring 

 the traffic and travel to the natural center, just as the 

 snowflake falling on the highest mountain peak finds 

 its way by means of rivulet and river down to the sea 

 at last. 



Prominent During the past six months Chicago has 

 Cl Take S developed a very notable interest in this 



Interest, new field and become to a marked de- 

 gree the center of its operations. It is now perfectly 

 plain that Chicago is the starting point for the great 

 currents of colonization which will populate irrigated 

 lands. Every large enterprise of this sort now has 

 its headquarters here. While branch offices are main- 

 tained at points in the East, in the South and in Europe, 

 Chicago is the home office. Tons of advertising west- 

 ern matter are dumped into the Chicago post-office 

 each week. Here the plans of campaign are formu- 

 lated, and here excursions are organized. Even 

 more significant than the rapid opening up of enter- 

 prises of this kind is the fact that many of the most 

 prominent financiers of Chicago are studying the 

 subject of irrigation and colonization in particular 

 and the resources of western America in general. 

 Marshall Field, Robert Lincoln, N. K. Fairbanks, 

 Philip Armour, A. C. Bartlett, Otho Sprague and 

 many others of equal prominence have been on tours 

 of exploration through parts of the West during the 

 past winter. Some of these gentlemen have a very 

 clear idea of the advantages of irrigation, and it is 

 quite within the possibilities that something more 

 definite than this may be said concerning them before 



CHICAGO'S HAND REACHES OUT OVER ARID AMERICA. 



