USA > Missouri > Livingston County > Past and present of Livingston County, Missouri : a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 12
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The county obtained the road on very liberal terms. The railroad company merely asked for the right-of-way through the county, with the depot grounds at Chillicothe, and even this was not insisted upon as a condition precedent to the loca-
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tion of the road. Upon the citizens of Chillicothe mainly fell the burden of defraying the expenses. Not until the first of March did they set fairly to work, but in a short time they had subscribed the sum of $18,000 and a committee had gone over the route surveyed and bargained with the owners for the right-of-way. The latter, as a rule, were selfish and ex- horbitant, asked the very highest prices for their lands and were unwilling to make any concessions to the enterprise or to their fellow citizens. The citizens of Dawn subscribed $2,500, although their town was more than a mile from the proposed depot.
A few of the owners of the land through which the road runs generously donated the right-of-way-notably Mr. P. H. Minor and Joseph Slagle, of Chillicothe township, who gave several acres in all of valuable land. The right-of-way com- mittee, who did the most and best work were H. C. Ireland, J. W. Butner, W. H. Mansur, and C. W. Asper.
A division of the road was established in Chillicothe and for a number of years train crews worked both ways out of the city, which naturally resulted in a boom for the county cap- ital. The town took on new life and the eastern portion of the city soon began to improve; many fine modern resi- dences were erected by employees of the road and others. A decade ago, however, the railroad company decided to move the division to a more central point and it was soon after located in the village of Laredo, which is midway be- tween Ottumwa and Kansas City, and sixteen miles northeast of Chillicothe. The citizens regretted the loss of the divi- sion, but with their spirit of enterprise and push they were not "cast down" and today the city is the most prosperous and livliest burg in all North Missouri and acknowledged the best town between the rivers.
Several other railroads were projected to run through this county, namely the Chicago & Southwestern, now known as the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific. In February, 1870, by a vote of 1,733 to 726 the people authorized the county court to subscribe $200,000 to the stock on condition that it should be built through the county, making Chillicothe a point on
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the route. Fair promises were made to our people only to be broken when the line was located, not through but near Galla- tin. In July of the same year, the vote was rescinded and at the same time a like amount was authorized to be sub- scribed to the Ottumwa, Chillicothe & Lexington Railroad. This proved to be an air bubble for the town and county, for the road was never built. Still another railroad project, known as the Utica & Lexington road, fizzled the next year, but the people were crazy and ready to vote bonds for any projected railroad. An effort was also made in the early '8os to secure an extension of the Burlington, which eventually was built through Laclede and on down to Bogard and Car- rollton. The people worked hard to secure this road, but it was afterwards learned that the company had no intention of building through this county.
CHILLICOTHE AND DES MOINES ROAD
Another railroad enterprise was projected a year or two after the line was completed from Chillicothe to Brunswick, known as the Chillicothe & Des Moines Railroad, the con- templated line extending north to Trenton, a distance of twenty-six miles, and thence to the capital of Iowa. The grad- ing to Trenton was finished in 1869, many of the culverts and bridges having been built. The enterprise, however, was later abandoned, although many attempts have been made since to repair the old grade and equip the line, but each ef- fort resulted in a failure. The discovery and development of extensive coal areas in and around Cainesville, Missouri, has resulted in reviving the project and at the present time (1913) capitalists are only waiting for the local managers to secure the right-of-way, after which construction work will begin.
MISSOURI ROADS
Our state highway engineer, the Hon. Curtis Hill, fur- nishes our history with the following brief report on Missouri roads :
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"The State of Missouri has approximately 108,000 miles of public wagon roads, 100,000 culverts and 20,000 bridges. Mileage enough to reach across the state four hundred times or for forty roads across the United States. The bridges, if continuous, would make 240 miles of bridging, enough to span the state. Upon all these roads, bridges and culverts there has been expended not less than one hundred million dollars. During the last five years we have expended about three mil- lion dollars annually in road, culvert and bridge work.
"The state has a total of between 4,000 and 5,000 miles of improved roads, good, bad and indifferent. The greatest mile- age of permanent roads is in the counties of St. Louis, Jackson and Jasper. If to these we add Pike, St. Charles, Lincoln, Franklin, Jefferson, St. Francois, Gasconade, Cole, Cape Girardeau, Buchanan, Greene, Lawrence, Boone, Moniteau, Marion and Pettis, we have almost covered the mileage of permanent roads. The rest are scattered over the state, a few miles to the county.
"The road drag is used quite generally throughout the state. Here and there will be found a community, a district or a township which has the dragging work well organized and systematized. Fifty per cent of the road mileage of the state is adaptable to the use of the drag-the best maintenance tool known for earth roads. This is especially true in the rich lands of western, central and northern Missouri. Hard sur- facing material is scarce in parts of the north, north central and northwest portions of the state, but in many of these parts paving brick material is found. Gravel and crushed lime- stone roads are built in the central, western, eastern, north- eastern and most all of the southern counties; in the south- west, limestone, flint-boulders, mining chats, gravel and chert are used ; in the central southeastern part, mining chats, gravel and decomposed granite; in the southeast, crushed limestone, gravel, decomposed limestone and sand-gumbo. Oil is used on the roads of Jasper, Jackson and St. Louis counties.
"It is no longer so much a question of the advantages of good roads as it is how to obtain the means with which to build them and how best to expend these means. Thought and
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action are turning to special district organizations followed by bond issues to pay the cost of construction and to township and county bonds. About one hundred and forty of these special districts are now in operation in the state with several more likely to be formed in the near future."
OLD TRAILS
This subject embraces a large amount of history which has become so thoroughly crystallized that the American peo- ple are more or less familiar with the location and route of these trails. The Trans-continental Old Trails Road from our present national capital to San Francisco is perhaps better known than any highway in the country. There are, however, several links in this old trail. The Braddock Road, the Cumberland Pike and the National Highway, extending westward to St. Louis, Missouri, are embraced in the chain that go to make up the trail from the extreme east to the Pacific coast. The Old Boone's Lick Road in this state and the Santa Fe Trail between Booneville, Missouri, and the capital of New Mexico, a distance of one thousand miles, has been marked by the devoted Daughters of the American Revo- lution, while a bill was recently introduced in Congress at the suggestion of these good colonial women, soliciting aid for the purpose of improving, as national highways, the old his- toric trails from the eastern to the western extremes of the continent.
The bill, as introduced in the House, thus designates the various branches or links of the trail and includes the Brad- dock or Washington Road from the seaboard to Cumberland, Maryland; the Cumberland Road, or National Pike, from Cumberland, Maryland, to the Mississippi river; the Boone's Lick Road from thence to Franklin in the central part of Mis- souri; the celebrated Santa Fe Trail from there to Santa Fe, New Mexico; the route of General Kearney's march from Santa Fe westward to the Pacific coast. Added to this is the Oregon Trail, which diverged from the Santa Fe Trail near Gardner, Kansas, and ran from thence northwest to the Pacific ocean at the Valley of the Columbia.
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The Braddock's Road really began at Portsmouth, Vir- ginia, and extended into the Valley of the Ohio. Although it is popularly known as Braddock's Road, it is more properly, in every sense, Washington's Road. It was the first pathway across the Allegheny mountains and into the Valley of the Ohio at the time when the entire western slope of the moun- tains was in the actual possession of the French.
Elbert Gallatin, a Swiss emigrant, was believed to have been the father of the Cumberland Road, although Henry Clay identified himself with the project and later with its construction. The road was begun in 1806 by an act of Con- gress approved and signed by Thomas Jefferson. Its construc- tion was under national authority, Congress appropriating funds for the work from time to time until it reached a point in Indiana. The survey was by way of Vandalia, Illinois, to Jefferson City, Missouri. Approximately, about seven million dollars of the public funds was spent in building the road. A portion of this sum was realized by the sale of public lands in Ohio, Illinois and Indiana.
The development of the country through which this road passed was largely due to its construction and was worth many times its cost commercially and politically. In an address re- cently delivered in this state the author claims that it was the entering wedge of commerce, travel and advancing civili- zation. About 1834 it was turned over to the states through which it ran and has been preserved after a fashion as state highways.
At the Mississippi river the Cumberland Road would have met the celebrated Boone's Lick Road, the first highway to penetrate the wilderness west of the great stream. In 1797, while Louisiana was still Spanish territory, Daniel Boone, under a concession from the Spanish governor, settled a small colony of Americans about twenty miles west of the Mis- sissippi river in what is now Warren county, Missouri. This was the first invasion of American settlers into the great Trans- Mississippi territory. In 1804, the same year that the Ameri- can government took possession of Upper Louisiana, Daniel Boone's two sons established themselves at a salt lick more
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than two hundred miles to the westward. They were engaged in the manufacture of salt, which was floated down the Mis- sissippi river in rawhide canoes. The richness of the ter- ritory in which they were located attracted a large number of enterprising pioneers, mainly Kentuckians. The country be- came known as Boone's Lick country. In 1815 a roadway was surveyed and built from St. Charles, Missouri, to Old Franklin on the Boone's Lick Road, and was the highway over which the advancing army of pioneers entered the territory beyond the American civilization.
It was from the vigorous and enterprising community of Boone's Lick that the start was made to open up the com- merce of the great Southwest. Captain William Becknell started from that point in 1821 on what is now believed to be the first successful trip on a trading expedition to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Soon after the headquarters of the Santa Fe trade were moved westward to Independence, Missouri, and from thence onward for more than a quarter of a century, until New Mexico became American territory, this great historic highway, known as the Santa Fe Trail, led from the last outlying trading point in the Missouri valley to the first great center of Spanish civilization in the Southwest. In 1824 Senator Benton had passed an act of Congress by which a sur- vey was made of the Santa Fe Trail from Fort Osage, in Jackson county, Missouri, to Santa Fe, New Mexico.
It was down this celebrated highway that General Kearney and Colonel Doniphan led their celebrated expedition in 1846, at the outbreak of the war with Mexico. This expedition re- sulted in the annexing to the United States not only the New Mexican valley but all of the vast golden land of California. As soon as American supremacy was established at Santa Fe, General Kearney started westward for the Pacific coast and the last great link in the historic highways which takes the American people across the continent is the route over which General Kearney marched from Santa Fe to Monterey and California.
At a very early date, a road, probably following an Indian trail, was established, which crossed Medicine creek at Col-
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lier's old mill, thence on through the Cox neighborhood to what is known at McGee's ford near the mouth of Honey creek; thence northwest to Council Bluffs, Iowa. This route was much traveled by immigrants coming into Jackson town- ship and thence to Daviess and Harrison counties until some time after the year 1840. Previous to 1840 the mail was car- ried on horseback over this route by James Cobb. From 1840 to 1847 the mail from Chillicothe to Bethany in Harrison county, via Springhill, was carried on horseback by David Girdner, Sr., father of David and J. M. Girdner, now resi- dents of Chillicothe.
The eastern and southern sections of Jackson and Sampsell townships were heavily timbered, with numerous small lakes along the lowlands adjacent to the river, therefore this region of the country was the hunter's paradise. The Indians from the north and also from the Platte country, continued to visit this locality on their hunting expeditions up to about 1845.
THE CROSS STATE HIGHWAY
The Cross State Highway Association was organized at Brookfield, Missouri, on the 28th day of February, 1912, at which time the following officers were chosen :
Frank Adams, president, Chillicothe, Missouri.
M. L. Stallard, vice-president, St. Joseph, Missouri.
Sydney J. Roy, secretary and treasurer, Hannibal, Mis- souri.
At the same meeting an executive committee, consisting - of one member from each county through which the proposed road was to run, were named as follows :
Buchanan .- John L. Zeidler, St. Joseph.
Caldwell .- Chet. Martin, Hamilton.
Clinton .- W. N. Darby, Cameron.
DeKalb .- A. J. Culbertson, Stewartsville. Linn .- J. O. Van Osdol, Bucklin.
Livingston .- F. K. Thompson, Chillicothe.
Macon .- John W. Riley, Macon City. Marion .- G. W. Pine, Hannibal.
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Monroe .- Thomas J. Boulware, Monroe City.
Ralls .- Wm. B. Fahy, Huntington.
Shelby .- J. S. Hardy, Shelbina.
The purposes of the organization of the land owners, farm- ers and the business men along the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad is to effect an efficient working force for building a cross state highway from Hannibal to St. Joseph, a dis- tance of 208 miles. It is also the purpose of the organization to stimulate and create a sentiment favorable to the construc- tion of permanent rock roads, so that in a short time a reliable pike road will stretch across North Missouri from Hannibal to St. Joseph.
For the present the association aims to secure the coop- eration of the various cities, towns and villages, the county courts and farmers along the route in opening up a "through dirt road," with all bridges and approaches thereto properly and substantially constructed and the road from one end to the other dragged and graded.
Already the road is assured and at the beginning of the year 1913, $51,762.40 has been expended in marking the route, which parallels the Burlington railroad from one terminal to the other. The population of the several counties through which the road passes, according to the census of 1910, is 305,285 and the actual valuation of the lands as per last assess- ments, is $405,209,244. The cities, towns and villages through which the road passes are Hannibal, Bear Creek, Withers Mill, Barkley, Palmyra, Woodland, Ely, Monroe, Hunne- well, Lakenan, Shelbina, Lentner, Clarence, Anabel, Macon, Bevier, Callao, Kern, New Cambria, Bucklin, Brookfield, Laclede, Meadville, Wheeling, Cream Ridge, Chillicothe, Utica, Mooresville, Breckenridge, Nettleton, Hamilton, Kid- der, Cameron, Osborn, Stewartsville, Hemple, Easton and St. Joseph.
MISSOURI, THE QUALITY QUEEN
It is good to be a farmer in Missouri. No other state grows so many crops so well. In diversity and quantity of
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crops and in number and quality of farm animals Missouri's position among the leading combined agricultural and live stock states of the Union is secure. With this true today, how splendid and commanding will be Missouri's place when more millions of her fertile acres are brought under the plow and more pure-bred animals are in her bluegrass pastures.
No other state has within easy reach of great markets so much valuable land as yet almost untouched. These mil- lions of acres are in neither an arid or frigid belt, but in the very center of the agricultural universe, in a district where there is abundant rainfall, genial sunshine, soil of unsurpassed fertility, and where crops are as diversified, as sure and as superior as anywhere in the United States. Well may the few other states that today excel Missouri in this one crop or that "point with pride" and congratulate themselves on their great- ness-a greatness that is of the present, and passing. Why passing? Let the official figures of the United States Depart- ment of Agriculture answer.
Comparing the wheat yield of the last year, 1911, with that of ten years ago, 1901, these are the figures: Kansas, 99,079,304 bushels in 1901, with 51,387,000 bushels in 1911; Iowa, 21,048,101 bushels in 1901, with 10,622,000 bushels in 1911; Nebraska, 42,006,885 bushels in 1901, with 41,574,000 bushels in 1911; Missouri, 31,137,097 bushels in 1901, with 36,110,000 bushels in 1911. Kansas loss, almost 50 per cent; Iowa loss, approximately 50 per cent; Nebraska loss, slight; Missouri gain, 15 per cent.
Comparing corn production in the same states and for the same years, 1901 and 1911, the official figures show, in round numbers, gains as follows: Iowa, 35 per cent; Nebraska, 40 per cent; Kansas, 100 per cent; Missouri, 200 per cent. Gains, mark you !
Need one be a prophet to say that Missouri, eighteenth state in land area and seventh in population, is first in possi- bilities !
Yet performances, not promises nor prophecies, proclaim Missouri's paramount place in agricultural possibilities and permanency.
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In corn production last year Missouri was excelled by but two of the forty-eight states-Illinois and Iowa. It should be remembered, also, that the season of 1911 was one of the worst, especially for corn growing, that Missouri has ever experi- enced. However, for 1912 the production of nearly all farm crops average twenty-six per cent greater for 1911. To grow more corn than any one of forty-five other states is not a bad showing. But keep in mind the increase in ten years' time- Iowa 35 per cent; Illinois, 40 per cent; Missouri, 200 per cent!
Think of the hundreds of thousands of acres-lands "drip- ping in fatness"-soon to come into cultivation in all portions of the state, in the river bottoms and elsewhere; measure the increase of the next ten years by the increase of the last ten years; then figure, if you can, among the corn states, any place for Missouri, save first.
Even now, the Missouri corn crop for an average season would, if shipped in the ear, load a train of cars filling a track from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Unfavorable as was the year 1911 for corn growing in Missouri, our corn crop was larger than that of Argentina and all other countries of South America combined.
The Missouri corn crop of last year equaled one-sixth of all the corn grown in the world, outside of the United States.
The combined corn production of two Missouri counties in 1911 was greater than the combined output of twelve states -Montana, Wyoming, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, and New Mexico. These two counties-there are 114 coun- ties in Missouri-grew one-fourteenth as much corn as the total output of Kansas for the same year, one-tenth that of Texas, and one-fifth of that of Oklahoma.
In the production of winter wheat Missouri ranks fifth among the states. Kansas is first, with Illinois second, Ne- braska third, and Ohio fourth. In 1911 the average yield per acre in Missouri, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, was 15.7 bushels, while in Kansas it was only 10.8 bushels. Missouri's wheat crop was harvested from
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2,300,000 acres, but in order to get only 14,920,000 more bushels of wheat than was grown in Missouri, Kansas farm- ers seeded 2,425,000 more acres. The cost of growing an acre of wheat in this section of the United States is placed at $9.74.
Had all the wheat grown in Missouri last year been made into flour and the flour converted into loaves of bread of standard size the output would have been enough loaves, if placed end to end in a single row, to have extended from the earth to the moon. A pretty long and satisfactory "bread line"-more than 240,000 miles! One Missouri county alone produced enough wheat to have provided one loaf of bread for each of the 93,402, 151 inhabitants of the United States.
Canada is everywhere looked upon as a wonderful wheat country. Gratifying, then, it is to know that Missouri grows one-sixth as much wheat as all that vast northern country. Hundreds of Missourians, wearing "far glasses," have, during the last decade, gone to Alberta in order to be in "a great wheat country." It is true that Alberta grew 36, 143,000 bush- els of wheat in 1911-and Missouri, land of balmy days and bluegrass, grew 36, 110,000 bushels!
Missouri is not a leading cotton state, yet no other state growing as much corn or wheat as is grown in Missouri also grows as much cotton. And Missouri cotton is of the finest quality.
Tobacco is another crop more extensively grown in Mis- souri than in any other leading corn or wheat state. Missouri tobacco, like Missouri cotton, is also a quality product. On December Ist the value of a pound of Missouri tobacco was given as 12 cents, with Virginia "weed" worth 9.6 cents, and the Kentucky product valued at 7.7 cents.
Missouri is a great live stock state, marketing most of her crops "on foot" instead of "mining and marketing" the fer- tility of her farms.
In number of horses, Missouri ranks fifth, among all of the states of the Union. With her 1,095,000 head of horses she is outnumbered by Iowa, Illinois, Kansas and Texas only.
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But the average Missouri horse is valued at $8.00 more than the Kansas horse, and $28.00 more than the Texas horse.
In Missouri are 333,000 mules. Texas alone has more, but while the Texas mule is valued at but $104, the Missouri mule is rated at $115.
Milch cows in Missouri number 822,000 head-including the wonderful Missouri Chief Josephine. Eight states now have more milch cows, but when the southern section of Mis- souri becomes the great dairy region that nature designed it to be no other state will own more "milk machines."
Cattle, other than milch cows, number 1,504,000 head in Missouri, the state ranking sixth. Whatever is lacking in mere numbers is fully made up by the pure bred animals, especially of the beef breeds. In Missouri are no plains and no "long horns."
As a sheep state Missouri ranks eleventh, being credited with 1,755,000 head. Here again Missouri quality counts. A Missouri sheep is valued at more than a Montana, Wyo- ming, Ohio, New Mexico, Idaho, California, Michigan, Texas, or Oregon sheep. These states, with Utah, lead in num- bers, in order named. Of the states mainly bordering Missouri, Illinois has 1,068,000 sheep, Iowa 1,201,000, Kansas 326,000 and Arkansas 134,000.
Of the forty-eight states of the Union but two-Iowa and Illinois-lead Missouri in number of hogs. Missouri is credited with 4,491,000 head of swine. Kansas has 2,808,000 head, and Arkansas 1,738,000.
In poultry production Missouri is generally conceded to be first, among all the states. The value of Missouri's surplus poultry products marketed last year is placed at more than $45,000,000.
"Poor old Missouri" is not, never was, and never will be, but a Missouri rich in material resources and in men is more than in the making; this Missouri is on the map.
Attracted by lurid land literature, time was when Mis- souri farmers, unmindful of the advantages offered by their own state, sometimes mistook a mirage in the desert for the promised land. Worst of all, they too often failed to discover
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