1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 79 



the mountain gorges, which could be so utilized for irriga- 

 tion as to make the husbandman independent of the fickle- 

 ness of the weather. They expatiated upon the generosity 

 of the government ; there was a homestead and a tree-plant- 

 ing law ; and they rang all possible changes on " free homes 

 in the West," " land for the landless," " Uncle Sam is rich 

 enough to give us all a farm," It was net only in the 

 Eastern States that these representations were made, but 

 they had their agents in every country and city of Europe. 

 Free transportation tickets were oftered to land buyers and 

 settlers ; and soon the boom was on, and on hard. There 

 was a rush westward, not only of the landless and those 

 seeking homes, but of the titled nabobs of Europe, ready to 

 take up whole counties, and of speculators and sharpers 

 from ever}' where ; and the last were first in the field. Semi- 

 oflacials of the railroads, and their friends who were in the 

 railroad ring, took the lead. They knew, or could deter- 

 mine, where the railroad centres were to be, and secured all 

 adjacent lands within the five-mile limit. By the time the 

 first construction trains reached those points, a town was 

 began. Stakes tipped with red flannel are set in squares in 

 the grass, indicating the line of proposed streets. Abutting 

 lots are marked on these, and at once tents or brush booths 

 are going up, and these signs adorn their fronts : '' Building 

 lots for sale;" "Land-Office;" "Real Estate Agency;" 

 "Money to loan;" " liobbie & Co., Brokers, money ex- 

 changed;" "Saloon, all kinds of the best of liquors;" 

 " Guns, rifles and ammunition ;" and, looking in at the open 

 door of one or a half-dozen of them, you would see a couple 

 of barrels covered with rough boards, and on these a dice- 

 box, a pack of cards, a faro bank, and a black bottle. 



Visit this locality a month or six months afterwards, and all 

 is still, and the ground is littered with all kinds of trash, but 

 empty bottles and old tin cans do most abound. It was found 

 that a mistake was made ; the projectors did not understand 

 "the tip," or were purposely deceived; and therefore the 

 " town" has moved on. Or else, at your second visit, you 

 will find frame houses on the streets, decorated with the 

 same signs ; stone and brick foundations going in for banks, 

 churches, school-houses and quite likely a theatre. Money 



