USA > Indiana > Grant County > Centennial history of Grant County, Indiana, 1812 to 1912 : compiled from records of the Grant county historical society, archives of the county, data of personal interviews, and other authentic sources of local information > Part 19
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Like other trades and professions, real estate has had its ups and downs in Grant county, but since the dawn of the twentieth century there has been a continuous upward tendency. People talk about all advances having come within a generation, and people now living have
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witnessed the greatest changes in all history. The increase in popu- lation has had much to do with the advance in land values, and under improved methods of agriculture even the waste places are being made to blossom as the rose, and what was seemingly worthless land has come on to the market at fancy quotations. High grade Grant county farm land will always remain high priced, and the chomp of timber left about the cabin when the pioneer was "putting out his deaden- ing." has had its effect when speculators were looking for investments. People are willing to pay for beautiful surroundings, and when the hustling, aggressive real estate agent is showing prospective buyers, he always points out such advantages. The up-to-the-minnte real estate dealer is always wide awake and a booster. helping to build up the community.
It is said that real estate men always point out the churches and the schools as well as the city blocks and improved farm lands, although little is said about the cemeteries in showing the charms of a country. There is little question about land being operated at a profit as the intrinsic value is always regulated by what it will produce, and while $5 an aere used to be considered heavy rental when a house was in- eluded, tomato growers have already paid $10 where there are no improvements at all-simply the land. When there is prosperity land as an investment always pays, and again real estate values are like bubbles and sometimes they burst, and expenses consume the profits in any business unless good management prevails. It takes attention to details to make both ends meet in land as in other investments. The high cost of living, seareity of labor, and the tendency away from the farm and so many farms operated by tenants where there is division of profits arising from labor -- all these things have their effect -- high prices and scarcity of commodities. Coal is not found on top of the ground, and while the wild rose wears a beautiful tint of color, the acme of fragrance and resplendent coloring dwells with the Hower that has had attention from the husbandman.
While some say the rapid advance in realty in the last decade can- not be maintained another ten years-that the top will be knocked off' or the bottom knocked out, and the poor man cannot go on buying farms and homes and going wholly into debt for them with any rea- sonable prospect of paying out, paying an exorbitant rate of interest on delayed payments, others go right on demonstrating the fact that it can be done; and the men who have done it cannot be counted on one's fingers, either. Intensive agriculture and livestock seems to be the solu- tion of the problem of high priced farm land, and some who are already face to face with depleted, wornout land have found dairy farming their place of refuge, and some declare that high priced farm land can only be operated at a profit through the system of livestock agriculture. Farm land always seems to be a good investment when occupied by the owner himself, and good tenants soon become landowners in Grant connty. Old men tell about timber covered $1.25 land, but the twen- tieth century farmer is faring a different condition. The world does not care to hear about negative characters in history. but it does appre- ciate the aggressive type whose word is as good as its bond, and such men can still handle the land question.
Some successful men say they never would have accumulated had they not gone into debt on realty, and it is told of the late David Cretsinger who left an estate that as soon as one farm was paid for he always went into debt for another. People used to buy farms for their sons and daughters, but "Go West, young man," seems easier at prevailing prices. In 1895 the Joseph Winger estate embraced 500
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acres of realty valued at $50, but one decade later the heirs did not know what price to ask for it. While some families are land poor-have too many investments from which there are no returns,-when the con- ditions are favorable and they let go at the right time, real estate is a short eut to fortune. While some men negotiate their own deals, others cannot trade at all. Some trade quick or refuse just as quickly, and one man who always saves the agent's commission declared there is more in land trades than selling groceries, and the fact remains that while he does make his own deals, the real estate dealer worked up the price for him and ought to have his commission on general principles. Had he not created the market how would this grocer have sold his own property :
Time was when $50 was high for Grant county Farm land, but if foresight had been as reliable as hindsight. there would have been a good many land debts incurred when $60 and $75 still offered an oppor- tunity. The Dutchman's one per cent is one dollar invested where it makes another dollar, and it is foresight that piles up the bank account. While Robert MeGibbon of Sims is really the first new blood ou Grant county farm land, he paid $16.50 for Esperanza, and as the farm earned the money he has added to it at four different times in seven- teen years, paying $50, $80, $125 and in 1913, $230 an acre until now, an immigrant who landed in America in 1884 with ten cents in his pocket. he has 219 aeres, and in 1901 a certain farm newswriter in passing Esperanza was told that no one heralding Sims township farm land as worth $100 an aere need leave there without dinner and horse feed-and yet Esperanza has more than doubled the value mentioned in nine years. Of course improved highways and underdrainage have had part in this advance in values of realty. All this land could have been bought at the price paid for the first of it only that the land must earn the money with which to purchase the rest of it. There have been $250 land transactions in the same locality, the improvements taken into the consideration, and the end is not yet.
Land is certainly man's best friend, but at prevailing prices there is a fendeney toward intensive methods and smaller farm tracts. It is urged that common sense is most, uncommon, and that "oodles" of people are property poor and some have been redneed to the necessity of selling part rather than lose all of it, while others make it win and increase their acreage time and again. It imust be that accumulitis is not so fatal in some instances, and that money microbes do not take effeet in some natures. While some prefer high priced land at home where it has been tested to anything in the new countries, others go into the far country and would not come back under any consideration. Men who have seen it all say there is just as good farm land in Grant county as anywhere else in the world, although one hundred bushels of corn to the aere is not yet the rule, although there are well improved
farms as well as modern city property. When Zacheriah Hamblen bought the George W. Kuntz farm in Sims, September 30, 1899, paying $7,000 for one hundred acres, it was the beginning of higher prices for Grant county farm lands-a Warren county farmer the Adam of ad- vanced prices. C. O. Frantz, who purchased the R. D. Lentesty farm, February 22d, the Century year, was the first Ilinois farmer to invest in Grant county realty-the first "Sneker" to inflate local values, paying the same price a mile cast of Swayzee that Mr. Hamblen had paid two miles south. and the influx from Illinois was the result. D. L. Reynolds was the man who really gave western Grant county farm- ers the advance in prices by attracting outside capital to them.
Mr. Reynolds, who is a Grant county product, was then in the real
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HISTORY OF GRANT COUNTY
estate business at Converse, and before leaving the territory he had located Minois farmers from Swayzee to Logansport, through Grant, Howard and Miami counties, and before they realized its value some had sold their possessions and were unable to suit themselves again with the money. When Mr. Lenfesty sold his farm at $70 he thought it well sold, that he had caught a "sneker." but before the year was up when he was to give possession he offered Mr. Frantz $1.000 to release him from the bargain- had not realized the value of his hold ings until too late, the linois farmers all admitting that they were getting better land for less money, with improved roads in the bargain. In a short time came Fred Brown, John Reed, John Sterrenberg, Johu Toyne. F. S. Hoke. F. H. Weygandt, A. W. Knowlton, and western Grant county farmers were still playing with buyers-felt compara- tively safe behind certain stiff prices until II. N. Parks who sold his farm in Franklin, attracted attention to himself. Mr. Parks had flirted with prospective buyers, thinking $125 an aere would intimidate them. until A. W. Knowlton called his hand, and Mr. Parks and his wife will never again be as happy as where they had accumulated property to- gether for so many years. Mr. Parks had the crops for one year which really raised the land to $130 an aere, but he was "up against it" when in search of another place that would be like home, and has never been as well satisfied again.
When Rolla Ponce sold sixty acres in Franklin for $9,000 to Byron D. Bunker, people thought the land well sold, but a year later Mr. Bunker sold it to John Sterrenburg for $12,000-had cleared $3.000 and had the crops a year and a home there. When D. J. Kelly sold out at $105 in Sims he was satisfied, and yet the land changed within three years at $230, a clear profit of $125 an aere, although in the meantime Mr. Kelly had sold out again in Franklin at $171 and invested in land in Van Buren at $150, and thus western Grant county seems to range slightly higher in price than farm land in the eastern part of the county -- more transactions, because more Illinois farmers have located there. When the J. C. Carr Real Estate Agency was established in 1896. it listed the Ledbetter farm in Franklin at $60, but the farm sold to A. B. Coggeshall at $55, and after ten years he sold it to W. II. Philippi at $120, who in turn has refused $150, and it is said that in most locali- ties land trades are usually made at an advance of $10. and dealers
think it excellent. Within six years the Winters Real Estate Agency handled one small tract in Van Buren eight times, starting at $2 100 for thirty-nine aeres and making slight advances each time until frol he sold it again for $1,825, and it is a fact that small, well improv. 1 J'arms sell best. men of limited capital handling them. They invest their earnings and nothing turns them the same profit as realty.
When I. C. Creviston bought his homestead in Van Buren in 1850. he paid $28 an are for. it, and in 1913 he would not place a $150 valuation on it -- the farm not on the market at all. Mr. Creviston has improved the farm-yes, but there are other agencies. The Clover- leaf Railway and the M. B. and E. Electric line, and improved high- ways -- all have operated together in increasing values, and the man is fortunate who acted upon the Hoosier Schoolmaster suggestion. When Clarkson and W. E. Willents bought the D. B. Sweetser Farm in Van Buren for $30 it proved an excellent investment. It developed into oil producing territory and paid royalties all through the off boom days, and after it reverted to farm land again they refused an offer of $100 an aere advance over the purchase price, and there were no derricks on it. This half section of land cost them $9.600 and an ad- vance of $40,000 would tempt some folks.
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Looking backward, however, said John Flanagan, who in 1906 in- vested in land adjoining the Fairmount academy at $105, for which in 1913 he refused $225, a man could not have accepted a Grant county farm as a gracious gift and developed it from the virgin condition -- from the green woods to the cultivated fields, charging himself up with drainage, fencing and all other incumbent expenses and clear anything at $250 an aere, and it must be true since men who had their farms given them are asking equally high prices for them. In 1852 Bli Thomas paid $750 an aere for fand that in 1904, when he bought the rest of the same tract, he paid $$2.50, and in several instances he has bought triangular pieces along the Strawtown road at $50 and $55, which let him out to the road with farm land that cost him $21 on time and which he could have had at $20 cash, and after paying $50 for one of those triangles it would have taken a great deal of money to buy it back as it let all his farm land into another class, having an outlet to
GRANT COUNTY FARMSTEAD WITH INTERURBAN TRANSPORTATION
the improved highway, and it is all high priced fand now, Mr. Thomas having located his children all on well improved farms acquired when land was cheaper. Some urge a revision of the constitution of Indiana of 1851, saying that the state and nation are both operated purely in the interests of those who own the land.
Very few Grant county fartus have never changed hands, although some tracts are still controlled in the original family. The Marion Title and Loan Company has record of every real estate transaction from the beginning, and J. F. Carmichael onty remembers making one ab- stract for the man who entered the land -- strangers now being in pos- session of many old homesteads. 1. M. Miller of Millerton farm still carried his father's name on the tax duplicate for the land inherited by him until the centennial anniversary of his birth in 1908, although he had added to it until Millerton is one of the largest estates in Grant county. While farm land was cheaper when he bought it, corn and hogs were also cheaper. the rate of interest was higher and thus the ratio of value does not change with the years. Just across the Grant- Blackford line from Millerton is Renner farm, owned by Benjamin Johnson of Richmond, who sold railroad tie timber from it enough 10 pay for it, and the land cost him nothing yet it would rank with Mil-
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lerton as a high priced estate. The right man still goes into debt for his farm and pays out on it. Hired men always move better when the boss shadows around a little, and the man who lives on the farm oper- ates it at a profit.
If there is one man more than another who appreciates the value of improvements it is the dealer in realty. One good farm always helps him to locate other good farmers careful husbandry is contagious, and there are whole communities where there are better farmers, and the result is apparent in Jand values. A waving field of grain is an inspiration to the passerby, and then the improved highways have cer tainly added to the price of Indiana farm land, of which dealers say the best is in Grant county. Years ago there was an influx of Rush and Fayette county farmers into Grant county, men who had sold out well and could buy cheaper, better land in Grant county, and a generation later some of them find they could go back there and buy their old homes at the old prices, so there is a limit to land values in some local ities. One thing-Grant county farmers used to borrow wherein they now loan money, and there is no gainsaying the fact that pas and oil brought much outside revenue into Grant county. This money from natural resources has not been so Freely distributed in all Indiana connties, and local industries and prices have felt the stimmlus. ligh priced land in Grant county has resulted in many selling their farms and locating in nearby counties where conditions are practically the same, only the farm land has not been boosted as in Grant county.
Real estate men say there is usually more activity in city than in farm property, and that values are not quite as badly inflated the tendency toward Tarm property as an investment having caused the advance in farm prices. There would be no opportunity now to ex- change a silk dress pattern for a corner lot, a story told about the site of the Iroquois acquired From the White estate in 1898 by Philip Matter for $29.000-a Miss Branson buying the dress pattern for $50 from George White, who had paid that sum for the original property from the county agent. David Branson had reserved that lot in donating thirty arres to the town. At the present time property abutting the public square in Marion is quoted at $1,500 a front foot, and while some refuse that amount, others say it does not pay three per cent on the invest- ment. The MeClure property is the only bit of realty abutting the square that has never changed hands the senior Samnel MeClure having bought it from Nathan Branson, county agent, February 23, 1836, paying $71.50 for the quarter square, and the property has never been on the market. On August 3, 1842, Samuel MeClure, Jr., and the man known in history as the Indian trader, scoured a quitelaim from all the Branson and Boots heirs-this being the Branson side of the town, and there has never been a scratch against the property although February 9, 1886, it was transferred by will to Mrs. Susannah MeChire, and later through inheritance to E. T. MeClure, and there has never been a price placed on this property since its purchase from the county agent within five years from the organization of Grant county.
Jason Willson paid $1,600 to the Stebbins heirs for the Marion National Bank corner, and when Samuel Whisler bought the site of the Farmers' Trust Bank for $600 it is said he lay awake nights he- canse he had paid too much for it. Later he sold it to L. C. Beshore at $11,000, Mr. Beshore being willing to pay what he regarded as twice the worth of the corner rather than go on paying an annual rental of $1,000, and after a few years he sold it to J. Wood Wilson for $27,500. the Farmers' Bank corporation faking it over at that amount and real- izing $100 from the old wooden building that had been a landmark so
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long there. Mr. Beshore relates that when the Bennett block adjoin- ing the Farmers' Trust building was constructed, his unele, Sammel Whisler, thinking he was transferring two feet for stairway purposes. had conveyed the whole property to Join (Dad) Bennett, the consid- eration having been the partition wall between them, but by prompt action in Mr. Bennett's lifetime he saved himself from it. People will pay higher prices where property is desired for personal use that spee ulators will pay for it. and yet Mr. Beshore found it a gilt edge invest- ment. A. V. Custer owned the block bearing his name and with im- provements it stood him $15,000. but he soll it to P. M. Kiley for $26,500, and why should Mr. Custer operate a grocery when he can clean mp $11,500 on one real estate transaction ?
Fred Gephart paid Charles Reece $10,000 for the old drug store site and ten years later he refused $22,000 for it. W. C. Webster owns twenty-two feet on the corner of the public square and refuses $35,000 for it. His property occupied by the Marion Hardware Store at Wash- ington and Fifth streets cost about $1,000 originally and $30,000 would not touch it. It is said that Arthur Norton paid $150 for the lot How occupied by the 1. W. Kelly Furniture Store, and in eight years Mr. Kelly paid $20,000 for the use of the property. Mr. Kelly is a Socialist. and he says the present system develops the rich man in the com- unmity. The biggest real estate deal in the history of Marion and all Grant county orenered in 1912 when B. F. Burke sold the Glass block to 1. 1. Barley for $125,000, a cash transaction-and Mr. Barley ow ned a great deal of property not included in the deal - his homestead and the I. D. Thomas crane-pond land which he held as an investment. having bought it at $100 and it is in the neighborhood of high values in Franklin. The Sammel Barrier will provided for the distribution of a great deal of property without any price quotations, and jel it was in the crane pond vicinity where land is rated highest, and one by one the large farms are being divided-the Willents farm adjoining the Burrier land being another example. Town of country, Grant county people are inclined to place a high valuation on realty, and the wisdom of the philosophy of Mrs. Means about getting plenty is schiom questioned. Men who do not want to sell their property do not price it at all. There is a reaction against expensive homestead improve- monts that render it an impossibility for heirs to handle property when it goes on the market, and comparatively speaking there are fewer high prired dwellings erected on farmsteads than' a generation ago, before there was such a decided trend from the farm to the factory. Com modious houses are the thing when the family ocenpies them itself.
XXI. PUBLIC UTILITIES IN GRANT COUNTY
The noonday of the nineteenth century had been passed in the on- ward march long before the modern improvements that made of civili- zation a simplified problem had evolved from the brain of the genius, and the element of profit from the ownership of public conveniences had taken deep hold on the mind of the speculator. There always have been and no doubt always will be men who can promote the business interests of others better than for themselves, and under existing con- ditions combinations of capital-corporations-will continue to profit from their efforts.
When the Strawtown road, the Marion and Liberty pike, was built in the early seventies, and while it was still largely controlled by Grant
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county Quakers, it is said that no toll was collected on Sunday, but later day Grant county corporations have bravely overcome any such conscientions seruples, and commodities used by the publie are paid for no matter about the quality of service. The Pennsylvania Rail- road, which entered the county August 16, 1867, and reached Marion the next year, was the first public service ageney, but since that time such commodities have multiplied rapidly, and twentieth century citi- zens are inured to their exactions. Nathan Coggeshall and Moses Brad- ford were two pioneer citizens who spent much time and money in securing railroads and the community has benefited from it. The story of Noah Clodfelter, who sacrificed his all in promoting electric transportation, is known to the present day citizen, but like the in- ventor who seldom reaps the profits from his invention, promoters of public affairs have not always profited by them.
Just as the word conservation as an economie term causes the thought- ful mind to revert to Theodore Roosevelt, and away back in the James G. Blaine campaign days a Grant county admirer of the "plumed knight" declared that reciprocity had not been in the dictionary until such political measure was advocated by him, the twentieth century Grant county voter will think of a Grant county citizen, Senator Bernard Bobbs Shively, when he sees " public utilities" used as an economie term. The Shively-Spencer Utility Commission Aet, which is House Bill No. 361 of the 1913 Indiana legislature, is an act concerning publie utili- ties, and the use of the term as applied to economies is too recent for the Century dictionary-the edition in the Marion library. While government control of public utilities may be inconsistent with pri- vate ownership, there are men who advocate it and the postal system is a strong socialist argument. While on the face of things it seems that publie necessities should be publie trusts, private ownership of public utilities is the prevailing condition.
The Marion water system is a municipal plant and some other towns own the water system, and because it has been a profitable investment in Marion, there has been frequent agitation of municipal ownership of all such commodities-public utilities deemed necessi- ties. Utilities shared or participated in by all are public, and while the Bible says, "God made man in His own image," Disraeli deelared. "But the public is made by the newspapers," and there are those who deny the freedom of the press wherein private ownership of publie utilities is concerned, saying the truth is not known to the masses at all. Perhaps the first corporation to operate in Grant county to which patrons paid direet tribute was the Atlantic & Pacific Tele- graph Company, which later became part of the Western Union, and Monroe Hill was the first representative in charge of the company's business in Marion, and today the Marion office controls the business at Jonesboro and Gas City while at all other Grant county points the railroad agent is in charge of the telegraph interests. The company is nonresident capital, and the local superintendent makes reports to three cities, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and St. Louis, as to local opera- tions.
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