Our great West : a study of the present conditions and future possibilities of the new commonwealths and capitals of the United States

Front matter

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A. Dean and Jean M. Larsen Yellowstone Park Collection

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

Preface

If the territory described in the following pages was part of any other region than our West, it might be said of this book that it is a description of certain new States at the close of the nineteenth century. That is what it was intended that it should be, but the inpouring of population, and the rapid and bewildering changes which accompany the phenomenal progress in that part of our country make it certain that, during the seven years before the actual close of the century, present description will gain the character of history or reminiscence.

However, another and dominant characteristic of these studies may fix upon them a value not to be so speedily lost. That feature is the part of each chapter wherein I have tried to point out the future possibilities of these imperial reaches of plains and mountain country — and of the cities that distinguish them — between the Great Lakes and the Pacific coast. Many of the possibilities here pointed out are sure of fulfilment, yet will not be realized until the newer part of our country is more populous than the older part.

This is, perhaps, the first comprehensive book upon these regions (made most famous in literature by Parkman, Irving, and Lewis and Clarke) that has little to say of the Indians who are now kept apart from the whites, on reservations, and cut no important figure anywhere. It is perhaps the first book upon the great West which makes no account of the hunting of wild game, so difficult to indulge in and of so little account now, in the experiences and resources of the present population. Furthermore, the vanishing cowboy — once a great as well as a picturesque factor in several of these States — gets little notice, yet all that he deserves. In a word, in place of a work upon the once wild West, the reader will here find a series of chapters upon a noble group of commonwealths under complete government, well administered. It will be found that these States are joined by swift railroads, equipped nearly like our own in New York and Pennsylvania; that they are peopled by practical, sober, nineteenth-century folk, who, where their already numerous cities have sprung up, are supplied with modern hotels, fine churches, extraordinary schools, beautiful theatres, and all the modern conveniences of street travel, electric lighting, elevators, and the rest that goes with what we are not to be blamed for characterizing as " civilization."

Standing between us of the East and these new States are certain midland capitals which are growing as never cities grew before — in population, size, manufactures, commerce, and wealth. Since they are the great trading posts of the people beyond, descriptions of them and explanations of the sources of their greatness belong in such a book as this.

The more important of these chapters have appeared in Harper's Magazine. Others have been published in Harper's Weekly. It has been remarked of them that they betray none of that feeling of superiority to the alleged crudeness and newness of the western people which, with or without reason, it seems to have been expected that an eastern writer would exhibit. I hope that is true. Certainly, in travelling in the West and in writing these chapters, I was conscious of no feeling stronger than one of admiration for the energy and boldness of the people except it was of a sense of pride in the heartiness of that spirit of equality and democracy which dominates them, and the like of which I had not known anywhere else.

As to the statements of fact herein made, it has not surprised me that they have escaped challenge and correction even after such wide and brilliant publicity as Harper's Magazine gives to its contents. I say I was not surprised, because the statements are not my own, but are those of the best informed and shrewdest men in the cities and States under discussion. Had I attempted to study every valley, every sample of quartz, every colony of Swedes or Hollanders, every tendency of commerce, every development of cities and the details of every business of which I have written, I would have found myself sentenced for life to the task of writing one article, with a certainty that even that one would contain errors. As an alter-

vi native, I chose to become a chronicler for those who were giving or had given their lives to the study of the different branches of knowledge herein treated. If mistakes are yet to be found here they will be, none the less, my own mistakes, for they will betray a failure to verify as many times as possible each bit of information I obtained. This I tried to do, and, with the hope that the result will be found of value as well as of interest, I intrust it and myself to the public.

The Author.

AsBURY Park, N. J., 1893.

Contents

CHAP. PACK

I. THE CITY OF CHICAGO 1

II. CHICAGO'S GENTLE SIDE 80