USA > Indiana > An illustrated history of the state of Indiana: being a full and authentic civil and political history of the state from its first exploration down to 1875 > Part 43
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First among these auxiliary influences may be noticed the
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character of the country in and about the city. It is a vast plain, occupying a large portion of the central section of the State, diversified, but not broken by undulations, sometimes rising into moderate hills and profusely watered by small streams, but nowhere so abrupt or swampy as to prevent easy reduction or filling. The inequalities facilitate drainage with- out affecting ready and cheap improvement and occupancy. The room for expansion is practically illimitable. A city of ten millions would not, in any direction, be inconveniently divided or crowded by impassable barriers. Every foot, for twenty miles about the present boundaries, can be easily and as cheaply converted into city lots as the portion within them. To this cause is due the facility with which mechanics, rail- road hands, men of moderate means of all occupations, have been able to make themselves owners of their homes. It is the source from which Indianapolis derives the boast it may .justly make, that " there is no city in the Union or the world where so large a proportion of the residences are owned by their occupants." There are many tenement houses, certainly, but the ease with which cheap lots may be obtained in the constantly widening suburbs, is a standing inducement to labor to make itself a proprietor instead of a tenant. A few yards further walk from business to residence, makes all the difference between the cheap lot of this year and the cheap lot of last year. The latter rise steadily in value, but illimitable room adds others as cheap, or cheaper, all the time. This uni- form ease of expansion shows its effect, also, in the location or removal of manufactories requiring large space, to the suburbs. The radiation of railways in all directions makes all points of the spreading circumference equally accessible, and uniformity of surface makes locations equally cheap. This tendency to equalize the exterior with the interior will be much assisted by the completion of the belt railway, now in progress, which circles the whole city at a short distance from its boundaries. Its primary, object is to facilitate the transfer of railroad freights, but it must operate directly to enhance the value of outlying property, and create small centers of settlement about the remote manufactories, which will spread inward as the
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city spreads outward. The obvious advantages of these exte- rior locations for manufactories have caused several to be removed from more central points, and more will go as the interior rises in value and the exterior becomes nearly or quite as convenient for them. In the older portions, where coming business crowds upon existing business, lots are costly, of course, but cheapen as they advance toward the suburbs, which are daily advancing upon the farms and forests abou. them.
Another of these auxiliary influences is the nearness of the city to an inexhaustible coal field. The coal field of Indi- ana covers nearly 7,000 square miles of the southwestern sec- tion, capable of yielding 70,000,000,000 (seventy billions) tons, and is traversed by five western railways diverging from the city. They strike its eastern limit where the beds rise close to and even above the surface, at an average distance of fifty miles. The coal being of uniform quality, this abundance of means of transportation is ample security against oppressive freights. All qualities of coal are found in this field, from the "block "-a mineral charcoal, free from sulphur and phosphorus-to the strong steam and gas making bituminous. Within fifteen years it has almost wholly supplanted wood as fuel for all purposes, though much of the country is densely timbered, and wood is still cheap, comparatively. The "block" coal is the chief element of the city's success as a manufacturing point. While good for steam purposes, it is especially good for iron-working in all its stages. It requires no coking to smelt, or puddle, or roll iron. It burns like charcoal. or wood, freely, and without running together or agglutinating. Its blocks burn as they lie, like sticks of hickory. It seems made purposely for smelting furnaces, rolling mills, and steel making. And there can be no better place found than Indianapolis for either. Two rolling mills have been in operation for years-one for rails and the other for bar and rod iron-and the quality of product in both is unsurpassed. The best rails in this country are those re-rolled in the rail mill; and Pittsburg often sends to the bar mill for the toughest and best metal used in the finer manufactories.
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Blast furnaces have been much talked of, but the general depression in the iron market has delayed more positive effort.
The iron industry is now the third in value of products, and second in number of men employed. Until 1848, or after the completion of the first railroad, it was, though sedulously nursed by some few citizens of more ardor than capital, a very feeble and uncertain industry. A foundry was established in 1832 west of the river, and maintained for a few years, but failed finally. Others followed, with little more success. But with the advent of railway facilities a change came, and some machine shops and foundries were started then that would not know themselves in their present huge proportions. The coal, though known and used to some extent as early as 1850, or 1851, was not understood as it is now. Its peculiar fitness for iron work was still a secret. And it has come into general use within little more than a decade. But the city was the center of a great and rich agricultural region, and needed engines and mill gearing, and threshing machines, and other implements, and came here for them. This was the first impulse. The manufacture of iron followed the manufacture of implements from iron. The development was rapid and is increasing steadily, enlarging old establishments, creating new ones, and bringing her successful ones long established in neighboring cities. Now the city makes all kinds of stoves and hollow-ware, gas-posts, house fronts, railings, rails, jails, bars, rods, engines, mill-work, saws, files, edge tools, malleable iron, and the like, to the amount, in 1873, of $3,800,000, employing $2,200,000 of capital, and 1,500 men, representing a population of six thousand. The city's situation, its con- nection with the " block " coal field, its railway facilities, and its success of its iron enterprise, attested by their steady growth in spite of the general depression, are very sufficient indications that it is the right place for the manufacture of Bessemer steel and the smelting of iron.
A fourth auxiliary influence in the development of the city, is the advantage it possesses in the hard wood and lumber trade. The "bottoms " of the Wabash, White river, and Blue river, with the intervening uplands, contain the best black
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walnut growths in this country. They also contain the bulk of all that is produced in the country. Indiana is the black walnut State, and Indianapolis lies in the center both of the State and of this productive region. Naturally the trade in this valuable lumber turns to this city. Though the growth of the last ten years, mainly, it is now one of our most important interests, and is to the "hard wood " trade of the whole country what Chicago is to the grain trade, or more, for it does a larger proportion of the whole business of the country. Last year there were fifty millions feet of walnut sold here, at an aggregate cost of $2,500,000. The capital employed amounted to nearly $1,000,000, and twelve or fifteen mills, with five to six hundred hands, were engaged in its produc- tion. In the production and sale of "white wood," or poplar lumber, and of oak, hickory, beech, elm, and other timber used in building and wood manufactures, Indianapolis enjoys, from its favorable situation, unequalled advantages, and con- trols the bulk of the whole business. So, too, in coopers' stock, staves and hoop-poles. This is brought here in the rough from all parts of the State, and manufactured by seven establishments, handling thirty millions of staves annually, worth $1,000,000. Some of it is made into barrels here, but more is shipped to other points when ready for "hooping." Of pine lumber about fifty million feet are sold yearly, at an aggregate cost of $1,200,000; of shingles and laths, thirty millions are sold, worth $120,000. There are thirty-four lum- ber yards in the city, of which about half deal more or less exclusively in black walnut. The manufactures of wood in various forms, as by planing mills, agricultural implement works, wagon and carriage factories, sewing machines, boxes, furniture, cars, cooperage, and the like, exclusive of lumber, amounted, in 1873, to $5,800,000, employing $2,793,000 of capital, and 2,178 hands. The aggregate of lumber and wood manufactures is about $10,500,000, employing very nearly $3,000,000 of capital, and 2,700 hands, representing a popula- tion of about 11,000.
Indianapolis is not less the center of the "pork," than the "hard wood " region of the West. The most productive hog
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country is that where the black walnut is most abundant. With adequate facilities for transportation, this would have been the chief pork packing center of the Union. Forty years ago the first attempt to pack pork here was made. The slaughtered hogs were bought of farmers, and only cut and cured by the packers. The product was sent off by flatboats down the river. The enterprise failed, but was renewed in 1839, or 1840, in much the same fashion, but succeeded better, and for some years carcasses were bought of farmers for "goods " or cash, packed, and shipped by flatboats on the spring freshet on the river. After the completion of the Madison railroad, slaughtering, as well as packing, was done largely, and from that day the pork interest has grown, and until recently, has been the leading industry of the city in value of product. Now it is second only to lumber and wood manufactures. Three large establishments for slaughtering and packing were erected in 1873, each capable of disposing of fifteen hundred to two thousand hogs per day. There are now five of these huge pork houses here, and one (Kingan's,) is the largest in the world. The aggregate product in 1873, was $6,614,000, or 549,100 hogs, a meagre showing, because three of the five packing houses were barely ready to begin with the season, and this, with the effect of the panic, greatly reduced the business confidently anticipated. Yet it still stood next to that of St. Louis. For 1874, it stood next to that of Cincinnati. There is no reason why it should not be the first in the country. The natural business and produce drainage of Indianapolis extends, (as estimated by the National Crop Reporter, and as the map shows plainly enough,) to thirty-four counties in Indiana and eighteen in Illinois, pro- ducing 2,345,602 hogs, with about 800,000 of surplus. This belongs here, and once directed to its natural reservoir, it will bring with it twice as much, or more, that now goes else- where, for " business makes business." The pork business of 1874 will not fall short of 700,000 hogs, and is likely to reach 800,000. Besides the large hog product of the region natur- ally tributary to the city, and the great advance in the cen- tralization and manufacture of it, two causes co-operate to
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assure both its permanence and expansion. 1st. The climate here, as attested by the most experienced packers, is that medium between extremes of heat and cold which produces the best condition of the carcass for cutting and curing. It is not so cold as to freeze the meat externally, and thus confine the animal heat to the interior and around the bone, tending to decomposition, and apt, in any case, to produce an unpleas- ant smell and taste; and it is not so warm as to retard cooling long enough to allow decomposition to set in. 2d. The com- mand, from home sources, and by means of railroad transpor- tation, of an unlimited supply enables packers to prosecute their business all the year round, thus relieving the market of the annual rush during the early part of the winter, and providing farmers with a constant market and a ready means of converting their crops into cash, when the demand for them, in their natural form, falls off. The considerations that determine the value of Indianapolis as a pork center apply with equal force to cattle. The value of stock in the region of the city's natural produce drainage is almost exactly that of the hog crop, nearly 24,000,000, while a much larger surplus remains after home use, being 319,000 head, worth $12,770,000. Of sheep the number is 800,000, with 267,000 surplus, and 2,800,000 pounds of wool. Of horses, mules, and jacks, 520,000, worth $25,000,000. Here are all the elements of supply, transportation, central location, abundant food, and a wide market to make one of the largest and most profitable stock yards in the country. And measures have already been taken to establish one equal to any demand.
Still another of the influences that have contributed to the extraordinary growth and prosperity of Indianapolis, and are certain to continue their operation, is the advantage of a wide command of one of the richest grain sections of the continent. This has only within a few years been improved with much energy, but the effect of that few years of effort is such as to show that the grain trade may rival any interest here. The region naturally tributary to the city produces 118,000,000 bushels of corn, 15,000,000 bushels of wheat, 18,000,000 bushels of oats, 600,000 bushels of rye, 333,000 bushels of
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barley, with an aggregate value of $31,540,510, of which 7,000,000 of bushels of wheat, 70,000,000 of corn, 540,000 of rye, and 300,000 of barley are in excess of home consumption, worth, in the aggregate, $39,575,000. The mill product of grain for 1873 amounted to $2,000,000, with $635,000 of cap- ital. The trade in grain itself amounted to $3,000,000. It has grown so rapidly that the private elevators could not manage it, and a large one, west of the river, was erected in 1873. The extension of means at once showed itself in an expansion of business, and now this large elevator is totally unable to meet the demands upon it, and large amounts of grain are forced to be sold from the cars without adequate inspection. This necessitates a second and larger elevator, which will be begun at once. It is not unlikely that two will be added, so unprecedented and unexpected .has been the growth of the grain trade. It is estimated that of the grain product prop- erly belonging to this market, and needing only capital and proper energy to concentrate entirely here, is, at a moderate estimate on the surplus, 50,000,000 bushels of corn and 7,000,000 bushels of wheat; 14,000,000 bushels of corn, and 3,000,000 bushels of wheat were received here, or sent through here by two railroads. This trade is so young yet, and so imperfectly provided with records and statistics, that it is difficult to give more than an estimate of its amount. But its enormous growth is evident. No interest has sprung so suddenly from insignificance to indispensable importance as this, amounting, as it did last year, to an aggregate, of grain "handled " and ground, of about $5,000,000.
Besides these four main sources of the prosperity and pres- ent enviable bulk of business of the city, there are numerous minor ones, amounting in all to seventy-three, producing an aggregate-including that portion of the four chief inter- ests, which may be properly classed as " manufactures " - of $28,000,000 in 1873, to which, but for the monetary panic, a large addition would have been made. As it was, the aggre- gate of 1873 exceeded that of 1872 nearly $9,000,000. Capital to the amount of $11,006,000 was employed, and 8,200 hands. This force of hands must be increased by the carpenters, brick
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layers, stone masons, brick makers, house painters, plasterers and other skilled workmen engaged in building, whose labors are represented in the amount of building done during the year-nearly $5,000,000. This addition would raise the num- ber of skilled workmen to about ten thousand, representing a population of forty thousand. Among these minor manufac- turing interests are starch, amounting to $1,000,000 in 1872, but reduced in 1873 by the removal of the principal manufac- tory to a new location, and the consequent arrest of business; tanning and currying, $260,000; publishing and binding, $1,250,000; oils, (linseed, lard and lubricating) $550,000; tin- ning, $260,000; tombstones, $178,000; paper, $325,000; cot- ton, $300,000; woolen, $650,000; glass, $250,000; confection- ery, $317,000; clothing, $737,000; cigars, $400,000 in 1872, reduced to $177,000 in 1873; harness, $184,000.
The amount of building in 1873, as estimated in the city " permits," was $2,562,000, but the actual cost was nearly $5,000,000. Of this amount a proportion larger than can be found in any other city in the United States, or the world, was expended by workingmen upon their homes, a class of build- ings significant of the most thrifty and firmly settled popula- tion a city can have. This is one result of the city's capability of expansion, making cheap building lots always accessible and abundant. An evidence of this tendency is seen in the fact that one-half of all the sales of real estate in 1873 was made up of lots at a cost of $1,500 and under, the obvious purchase of men of moderate means, who either buy to build, or buy small houses ready built.
The wholesale trade is but little more than ten years old, and obtained its first permanent establishment during the war, though several abortive attempts were made at it at different times in the ten years before. In 1873 the whole amount of this business, in all branches, was $51,830,000, against $49,- 174,000 in 1872. The panic caused a large reduction in this business, which would otherwise have reached $60,000,000. But the catastrophe had the effect to put the trade in the best possible condition, and it never promised better than now.
What has already been said of the character of the country
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in which Indianapolis is situated, the opportunities for exten- sion in all directions, and always with railroads handy, the proportional amount of cheap lots sold, and the proportion of proprietary residents, is enough to indicate that the trade in real estate is one of the most important interests of the city. The "outlots " of the original "donation," constituting four times the area of the original plat, and making in all an area of four square miles, are built up all over with continuous lines of houses, mainly of business, the residences moving further off toward the boundaries. To these, "additions" from adjacent farms and pastures and forests have been made, to an amount equalling the "donation." The demand of central lots for business has, as before remarked, forced residences outward, increasing the demand for exterior lots, and the rapid influx of a population of skilled workmen, who aim, almost from the start, to own their homes, has so strengthened this impulse as to create something very like a real estate fever. But what speculation there may be in it- and speculation is, of course, inevitable, where demand is great and growing-is very sol- idly based, as is attested by the fact that within a very few weeks after the panic sales rose to nearly the former average, both in number and value, and with the same proportion of cheap lots ($1,500 and under) that is, one-half of all sold. This solidity is further illustrated by the fact that there was almost no decline in prices, even in the midst of the panic, and in a month there was an advance in several directions. Before the close of the year several "additions," or portions of them, were sold at fifty to seventy-five per cent. more than would have been taken in the preceding summer. In the. spring of 1874, though sales were less numerous, prices are tending constantly upward, with the effect, of course, to bring in new additions of cheaper ground. This influence has spread even west of the the river, which, ever since the town existed. until within two or three years, has been regarded as beyond all reach of city influences or improvement. Hundreds of acres have been "platted " there, one large iron manufactory -the main building seven hundred feet long-is in full operation there, and several have secured locations to which
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the owners invite them by liberal donations of the necessary ground, or part of it. Streets are being graded and graveled, and bridges built to accommodate the increasing pressure of settlement and business there.
Some idea of the effect of the rapid and solid growth of the population and business of the city may be obtained from a few instances of the advance in real estate. Forty-two years ago a farm near the city and several town lots were sold for one thousand dollars for the whole. That property is worth now twice as much as the one thousand dollars would have produced at compound interest at ten per cent. There are plenty of similar instances of the enormous yield of early real estate investments. But few samples of a later date will prob- ably be nearer to the purpose of exhibiting the rapid devel- opment of the city. In 1865 nine acres southeast of the original town plat, but in the "donation," were bought for ten thousand dollars. A short time afterward they were divided into seventy-two lots, which have been sold, or are now held at two thousand dollars each, or in the aggregate, one hundred and forty-four thousand dollars, more than four- teen times as much as they cost. The purchaser in 1865 sold five acres for twenty-seven thousand dollars, and then sold enough of the lots remaining to cover his original outlay, within a few years, and now holds lots enough to make his clear profit nearly one hundred thousand dollars without counting that upon the five acres first sold. In another more recent instance, a lot of ground on the west, or "tabooed " side of the river, was bought three years ago for seven thou- sand one hundred dollars, and platted into fifty-eight lots. Five have been sold within the year for three thousand nine hundred and seventy dollars, or more than half of the cost of the whole fifty-eight. In December, 1872, a lot east of the city limits was bought for nine thousand dollars on five years' time, with six per cent. on the deferred payments. The owner has refused fifty thousand dollars for it, though the panic has come between the purchaser and the proposition to buy. A tract in the same vicinity was bought at the same time for six thousand dollars, and has since been sold for sixty thousand
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dollars. In the fall of 1870 a farm four miles east of the city was sold for one hundred and twenty-three dollars an acre. Within the past few weeks four thousand five hundred dollars an acre have been refused for it. These are but samples of thousands of cases. The amount of real estate sales in 1873 was $32,579,256, against $19,326,450 in 1872, and $7,997,503 in 1871. These figures tell their own story.
The influences which have made Indianapolis a city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, and a taxable property of ยท $65,000,000, and the first inland city of the Union, as set forth in this exposition, must of course continue to operate with equal, if not greater force for a well placed city, with all advantages for manufactures and commerce, when once it gets fairly started in growth is apt to grow like a snowball, the big- ger the further it goes. But besides these main or primary influences, the effect of which has already been imperfectly indicated, there are others of by no means slight importance. 1st. Health. In the first settlement of the town chills and fever, and most malarious diseases prevailed, as they will in any country where vegetable decomposition is constant and extensive, but with the clearing of the woods the swamps dried up and malaria disappeared. Now, no city in the Union is less affected by endemic or local diseases. The death rate is but one in seventy, a fact that tells the story of health in a word. 2nd. Schools. A free-school system, supported partly by the State's fund and general taxes, but mainly by a city school tax, has been in successful operation for twenty years, with one brief interruption, caused by an adverse decision of the supreme court, and now has schools in every one of the thirteen wards, with a high school and training school for teachers. There are twenty school houses, of which ten cost from $35,000 to $45,000 each, and can accommodate seven hundred and fifty pupils each. The advance of ten years may be judged by the following comparison: Number of children entitled to tuition in the public schools in 1864, 6,863; num- ber in attendance, 1,050; value of school property in that year, $88,500. Number of children in 1874, 19,000; number in attendance, 10,000; value of school property in 1874, $691,256
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