Chapter IX.At the Base of the Rockies.Omaha is booming as it never was before. Twenty years ago, when Congress granted a charter to the Union Pacific Railroad Company, the charter stated that the east bank of the Missouri River should be the eastern terminus of the road, but as there was no bridge over the river, the work of building the road naturally commenced on the west side of the river, and this gave Omaha a start that it has improved upon ever since. Council Bluffs, situated on the east side, about three miles from the river, has always keenly felt the remarkable success of its rival, and has used all its power to compel the Union Pacific road to make the east side of the river the terminus; but Omaha has thus far been, and the chances now are more strongly in favor than ever of its always being, the practical terminus of the road. When the bridge was built the Union Pacific trains were still made up on the west side, until Council Bluffs threatened to apply to Congress for the repeal of the charter, when a large transfer depot was built on the east side, but, mark it, as far away from “the Bluffs” and as near the river as possible. Now the stock-yards, which were first built near the transferdepot, are being removed to Omaha, wholesale firms are moving from the Bluffs over to the other side, and, altogether, Council Bluffs is to be pitied; for, since it was a good sized place itself, it has jealously seen its rival start from nothing until now it is four times as large as itself.The bridge, which was built soon after the road was finished, is now found to be wholly inadequate, and a new double track bridge is soon to take the place of the old one,—one not so very old either. It seems a pity that so much labor should be rendered useless. The iron piers were driven down, section by section, into the shifting bed of the river, until men were working at the peril of their lives down seventy or eighty feet below the water, and these piers rise sixty feet above the river, and support an immense iron bridge; and yet all this labor and much of the material will soon be dead property, for part of the bridge has already been replaced by one with two tracks. The piers of the new bridge are of stone and two of them are finished, having been sunk to the same depth as the iron ones were. Probably the old bridge being in position helps to facilitate the building of the new one, but the old one will be all removed excepting the piers. The old ferry-boats are gone now, and all teams are driven into the rear end of a train of large box cars and thus taken across, leaving the train at the opposite end from which they entered it. There is soon to be a new Union depot at Omaha, built on an immense scale. The smelting works, already the largest in the country, are being extended. The stock-yards and packing houses are beginning to affect the Chicago business in that line of trade; the wholesale houses are drawing business clear from the Pacific coast; a new Board of Trade Building is being built, besides many other fine blocks, and, altogether, things were never booming more in Omaha than now. Most of theirstreets are of asphalt, and a cable line of street cars is under contract.I heard a fire alarm one day and expected to see fire engines go tearing by, but not one did I see. They have no use for them in case of fire. Their reservoirs are situated on so high a hill that the force of the water is sufficient to throw a stream over the tallest building. Only hose carriages and hook and ladder companies are needed. The city water, pumped from the muddy Missouri, is really the purest in the world. It comes two thousand miles from the Rocky Mountains, and passes no city that can possibly defile the purity of its immense volume. The fine sand is filtered from it, and the supply will be never failing.But the river itself has changed even more in its appearance than the city, although that has grown from eighteen thousand to seventy thousand in sixteen years; but these changes are much more noticeable to me after an absence from the city of that length of time than to residents. Then the river ran south along the bluff on the east side of the valley, turned sharply to the northwest, and soon again turned south close to Omaha; but ten years ago, during a high flood, the river, in a single night, cut across this ox-bow of four miles in length and only a mile wide, and commenced eating into the banks near the Union Pacific railroad shops and smelting works. All the bags in the country, for miles around, were brought to Omaha, filled with sand and dumped into the river at this point, and engines, flat cars, and hundreds of men were employed day and night, trying to hold the river in check with immense rocks and broken stones. It was a hard fight, but the sand bags and rocks finally conquered, and now the river is roughly rip-rapped to a depth of nearly fifty feet and for a mile in length. Sixteen years ago there was danger the river would cut acrossnear Council Bluffs, and leave Omaha high and dry three miles to the west of it; but now there is more probability of its cutting across six miles above, and coming down into the bend of the ox-bow again. As it is now, this ox-bow is “Cut-off Lake,” a clear body of water that is much appreciated by boatmen and bathers. Even nature seems to work on the side of Omaha.There is a peculiarity of the clay soil here, very remarkable. In the lowering and grading of streets incident to such a growing city, many houses are left twenty and even twenty-five feet above the grade, and yet when the soil is dug perpendicularly down within a foot of the foundation of these houses, brick ones as well as frame, they remain perfectly firm and secure for months and even years, a few little creases only being worn, by the rains and frosts, down the face of these walls of clay. The clay bluffs across the river, one or two hundred feet high, are nearly perpendicular now in some places, and yet they have been exposed to the weather for centuries, perhaps, long before the pale-faced white settler knew of them at least.After riding six hundred miles through the States of Illinois and Iowa, over the prairies, both level and rolling, I am frank to acknowledge that the prospect of five hundred miles more of the same kind of scenery did not make me over enthusiastic to travel it on my wheel. The riding, so far, has not been monotonous, and I did not want it to become so. The object of the trip was not to make or break records, and thus far, whenever I have found it desirable to take a train, I have done so. But the ride through Nebraska would be so very similar to what I had already experienced in Iowa, that I thought a day’s ride on the cars would do me no harm and the time saved could be very profitably used in the mountains. The object of my trip is to see themost of the country in the best possible way, and thus far I think I have been fairly successful. The distance to Omaha traveled by rail has been about 250 miles, and by wheel 2,000 miles, and the total expense, including about eight dollars car fare, has been not quite forty dollars. This includes all repairs to wheel, clothes, and every expense whatsoever. I probably have stopped over night at farm-houses half the time, which has been the chief aid in making the expense so light, but the accommodations have many times been better than at some of the hotels. I have ridden till nearly dark and then taken a hotel or farm-house, just as it happened. Much of the time, seventy days, since leaving home has been spent in visiting friends, but one can travel over the same route, in the same manner, without a friend to visit on the way for less than a dollar a day.Thus far I have been very lucky in not getting caught out in many showers, and it really has rained very little where I have been. A heavy rain at Omaha prevented further progress on the wheel, at least for a few days, and decided me to take the train. Partly through the influence of Mr. Charles M. Woodman, a wheelman, employed in the Union Pacific office, I secured a ticket to Denver at reduced rates. A cap has been the only thing I have worn on my head; the skin on my nose has peeled off several times, and of course, my face and hands are as brown as my seal-brown trousers. Even corduroy breeches could not stand the pressure of those lumpy clay roads, and I have been obliged to have them reseated with thick buckskin, dyed to match. My weight has been reduced from fifteen to eighteen pounds, but a ravenous appetite soon makes up for that reduction whenever I stop riding. The weight of the knapsack is hardly noticed now.I have written sometimes of the ignorance of the farmersin certain sections of the West, and perhaps now it will be no more than fair to refer to the utter lack of knowledge of their country of some persons in Connecticut. Many thought snow drifts and mud would prevent any wheeling outside of Connecticut for weeks after I started, but, as far as I could see, the roads settle in “York State” as early as in Connecticut. At any rate, I saw no snow or mud, unless it was up in the mountains. Another thing that troubled some folks was how I shouldget across the streams and rivers out West. The idea that occasionally I might find a real bridge did not seem to enter their minds. The fact is, not yet have I come to the smallest creek or pond of water but which I crossed dry shod. Bridges are built here wherever they are needed, just as they are in the East. Some Connecticut people went so far as to doubt whether they had any roads out here at all. Many a one asked me how I could ride across the prairie, and they seemed to take it for granted I should ride upon the railroads, bumping along over the half-covered ties. But strange as it may seem to those persons, the people out here have horses and wagons, and ride over public highways and bridges, very much the same as we do in the East. They have churches and school-houses, Sunday-schools and revivals, morning prayers and a blessing before meals, just as they do in staid old New England. They are just as civilized and decidedly more open and free hearted than in any part of Connecticut, only perhaps they are not quite so refined; that is all the difference. To those who have seen the Western people this talk may seem superfluous, but there are many people in Connecticut, intelligent on every other subject, who show supreme ignorance in regard to the manners and customs of the people of their own country. And as for its being thinly settled, any one can judge as tothat when I say I have not been over half a mile from a house at any time, unless it was up in the Highlands of New York. There has been no more danger or difficulty in making the trip than there is in traveling through New England. Thus far the need of a revolver has never presented itself, neither has the idea of getting one.Well, I took the train at Omaha and was soon gliding swiftly through the same rolling prairie that I had seen so much of in Iowa. But these waves of green soon began to subside as the ocean does after a storm, and the sun went down on a country as level and smooth as the ocean itself. From the car window I could see the roads were excellent—a mixture of sand and clay—but I did not regret that I was on twelve wheels instead of two. The newsboys on the trains out here are newsmen, full grown men. The one on the up train worked steadily all the afternoon with his papers, books, oranges, bananas, etc., and finally, when every one was tired of the very sight of him, he brought in a basket of toys, and, sitting down on the arms of the seats, amused the children in the car with snakes and jumping-jacks for half an hour or more. Great liberty is allowed passengers traveling such long distances, and little boys play leap-frog and perform all sorts of gymnastic exercises in the aisle.Along toward midnight the passengers had begun to thin out, and almost every one had found a whole seat for himself, and had lain down with his head or heels sticking out into the aisle. The conductor came through occasionally, but was careful not to disturb any one, and in picking his way along down this gauntlet of bare heads and big feet, he would only hold up his lantern and peer into a face whenever that head hung over into the aisle where a pair of boots projected half an hour before. Everything had been quietforsome time, and the train at midnight was running rapidly, when a low, plaintive moan issued forth from the seat just ahead of me. The voice was rather low, at first, and the sound was rather mournful. A head hung over into the aisle in a very reckless manner, and the mouth was wide open, and yet there was no complaint. The poor sufferer gradually raised his voice, and one after another in the car had risen up and looked around till the car once more seemed to be well filled with passengers. The somnorganist ran up the scale, pulled out all the stops, and, doubled up as he was, the knee-swell was used with powerful effect. It was soon becoming evident that either the head would drop clear off and roll down the aisle or that the bellows would burst, for the sound, loud as it was, came out under great pressure, when a long suffering but very patient passenger in a seat opposite jumped up and grabbing the poor fellow by the shoulder almost yelled in his ear, “Look here, stranger, do you know you have got the nightmare like a horse?” The roars of laughter that followed were not diminished by the fact that the man opposite did not realize he had said anything to cause it. I soon found four seats together, and taking the cushions out and placing them lengthwise of the car, made a very good bed, for I am so short I could lie at full length.The sun rose next morning over very much the same kind of a level country, but snow-capped mountains were easily seen in the distance, and a few hours later the train rolled into the station at Denver.
Chapter IX.At the Base of the Rockies.Omaha is booming as it never was before. Twenty years ago, when Congress granted a charter to the Union Pacific Railroad Company, the charter stated that the east bank of the Missouri River should be the eastern terminus of the road, but as there was no bridge over the river, the work of building the road naturally commenced on the west side of the river, and this gave Omaha a start that it has improved upon ever since. Council Bluffs, situated on the east side, about three miles from the river, has always keenly felt the remarkable success of its rival, and has used all its power to compel the Union Pacific road to make the east side of the river the terminus; but Omaha has thus far been, and the chances now are more strongly in favor than ever of its always being, the practical terminus of the road. When the bridge was built the Union Pacific trains were still made up on the west side, until Council Bluffs threatened to apply to Congress for the repeal of the charter, when a large transfer depot was built on the east side, but, mark it, as far away from “the Bluffs” and as near the river as possible. Now the stock-yards, which were first built near the transferdepot, are being removed to Omaha, wholesale firms are moving from the Bluffs over to the other side, and, altogether, Council Bluffs is to be pitied; for, since it was a good sized place itself, it has jealously seen its rival start from nothing until now it is four times as large as itself.The bridge, which was built soon after the road was finished, is now found to be wholly inadequate, and a new double track bridge is soon to take the place of the old one,—one not so very old either. It seems a pity that so much labor should be rendered useless. The iron piers were driven down, section by section, into the shifting bed of the river, until men were working at the peril of their lives down seventy or eighty feet below the water, and these piers rise sixty feet above the river, and support an immense iron bridge; and yet all this labor and much of the material will soon be dead property, for part of the bridge has already been replaced by one with two tracks. The piers of the new bridge are of stone and two of them are finished, having been sunk to the same depth as the iron ones were. Probably the old bridge being in position helps to facilitate the building of the new one, but the old one will be all removed excepting the piers. The old ferry-boats are gone now, and all teams are driven into the rear end of a train of large box cars and thus taken across, leaving the train at the opposite end from which they entered it. There is soon to be a new Union depot at Omaha, built on an immense scale. The smelting works, already the largest in the country, are being extended. The stock-yards and packing houses are beginning to affect the Chicago business in that line of trade; the wholesale houses are drawing business clear from the Pacific coast; a new Board of Trade Building is being built, besides many other fine blocks, and, altogether, things were never booming more in Omaha than now. Most of theirstreets are of asphalt, and a cable line of street cars is under contract.I heard a fire alarm one day and expected to see fire engines go tearing by, but not one did I see. They have no use for them in case of fire. Their reservoirs are situated on so high a hill that the force of the water is sufficient to throw a stream over the tallest building. Only hose carriages and hook and ladder companies are needed. The city water, pumped from the muddy Missouri, is really the purest in the world. It comes two thousand miles from the Rocky Mountains, and passes no city that can possibly defile the purity of its immense volume. The fine sand is filtered from it, and the supply will be never failing.But the river itself has changed even more in its appearance than the city, although that has grown from eighteen thousand to seventy thousand in sixteen years; but these changes are much more noticeable to me after an absence from the city of that length of time than to residents. Then the river ran south along the bluff on the east side of the valley, turned sharply to the northwest, and soon again turned south close to Omaha; but ten years ago, during a high flood, the river, in a single night, cut across this ox-bow of four miles in length and only a mile wide, and commenced eating into the banks near the Union Pacific railroad shops and smelting works. All the bags in the country, for miles around, were brought to Omaha, filled with sand and dumped into the river at this point, and engines, flat cars, and hundreds of men were employed day and night, trying to hold the river in check with immense rocks and broken stones. It was a hard fight, but the sand bags and rocks finally conquered, and now the river is roughly rip-rapped to a depth of nearly fifty feet and for a mile in length. Sixteen years ago there was danger the river would cut acrossnear Council Bluffs, and leave Omaha high and dry three miles to the west of it; but now there is more probability of its cutting across six miles above, and coming down into the bend of the ox-bow again. As it is now, this ox-bow is “Cut-off Lake,” a clear body of water that is much appreciated by boatmen and bathers. Even nature seems to work on the side of Omaha.There is a peculiarity of the clay soil here, very remarkable. In the lowering and grading of streets incident to such a growing city, many houses are left twenty and even twenty-five feet above the grade, and yet when the soil is dug perpendicularly down within a foot of the foundation of these houses, brick ones as well as frame, they remain perfectly firm and secure for months and even years, a few little creases only being worn, by the rains and frosts, down the face of these walls of clay. The clay bluffs across the river, one or two hundred feet high, are nearly perpendicular now in some places, and yet they have been exposed to the weather for centuries, perhaps, long before the pale-faced white settler knew of them at least.After riding six hundred miles through the States of Illinois and Iowa, over the prairies, both level and rolling, I am frank to acknowledge that the prospect of five hundred miles more of the same kind of scenery did not make me over enthusiastic to travel it on my wheel. The riding, so far, has not been monotonous, and I did not want it to become so. The object of the trip was not to make or break records, and thus far, whenever I have found it desirable to take a train, I have done so. But the ride through Nebraska would be so very similar to what I had already experienced in Iowa, that I thought a day’s ride on the cars would do me no harm and the time saved could be very profitably used in the mountains. The object of my trip is to see themost of the country in the best possible way, and thus far I think I have been fairly successful. The distance to Omaha traveled by rail has been about 250 miles, and by wheel 2,000 miles, and the total expense, including about eight dollars car fare, has been not quite forty dollars. This includes all repairs to wheel, clothes, and every expense whatsoever. I probably have stopped over night at farm-houses half the time, which has been the chief aid in making the expense so light, but the accommodations have many times been better than at some of the hotels. I have ridden till nearly dark and then taken a hotel or farm-house, just as it happened. Much of the time, seventy days, since leaving home has been spent in visiting friends, but one can travel over the same route, in the same manner, without a friend to visit on the way for less than a dollar a day.Thus far I have been very lucky in not getting caught out in many showers, and it really has rained very little where I have been. A heavy rain at Omaha prevented further progress on the wheel, at least for a few days, and decided me to take the train. Partly through the influence of Mr. Charles M. Woodman, a wheelman, employed in the Union Pacific office, I secured a ticket to Denver at reduced rates. A cap has been the only thing I have worn on my head; the skin on my nose has peeled off several times, and of course, my face and hands are as brown as my seal-brown trousers. Even corduroy breeches could not stand the pressure of those lumpy clay roads, and I have been obliged to have them reseated with thick buckskin, dyed to match. My weight has been reduced from fifteen to eighteen pounds, but a ravenous appetite soon makes up for that reduction whenever I stop riding. The weight of the knapsack is hardly noticed now.I have written sometimes of the ignorance of the farmersin certain sections of the West, and perhaps now it will be no more than fair to refer to the utter lack of knowledge of their country of some persons in Connecticut. Many thought snow drifts and mud would prevent any wheeling outside of Connecticut for weeks after I started, but, as far as I could see, the roads settle in “York State” as early as in Connecticut. At any rate, I saw no snow or mud, unless it was up in the mountains. Another thing that troubled some folks was how I shouldget across the streams and rivers out West. The idea that occasionally I might find a real bridge did not seem to enter their minds. The fact is, not yet have I come to the smallest creek or pond of water but which I crossed dry shod. Bridges are built here wherever they are needed, just as they are in the East. Some Connecticut people went so far as to doubt whether they had any roads out here at all. Many a one asked me how I could ride across the prairie, and they seemed to take it for granted I should ride upon the railroads, bumping along over the half-covered ties. But strange as it may seem to those persons, the people out here have horses and wagons, and ride over public highways and bridges, very much the same as we do in the East. They have churches and school-houses, Sunday-schools and revivals, morning prayers and a blessing before meals, just as they do in staid old New England. They are just as civilized and decidedly more open and free hearted than in any part of Connecticut, only perhaps they are not quite so refined; that is all the difference. To those who have seen the Western people this talk may seem superfluous, but there are many people in Connecticut, intelligent on every other subject, who show supreme ignorance in regard to the manners and customs of the people of their own country. And as for its being thinly settled, any one can judge as tothat when I say I have not been over half a mile from a house at any time, unless it was up in the Highlands of New York. There has been no more danger or difficulty in making the trip than there is in traveling through New England. Thus far the need of a revolver has never presented itself, neither has the idea of getting one.Well, I took the train at Omaha and was soon gliding swiftly through the same rolling prairie that I had seen so much of in Iowa. But these waves of green soon began to subside as the ocean does after a storm, and the sun went down on a country as level and smooth as the ocean itself. From the car window I could see the roads were excellent—a mixture of sand and clay—but I did not regret that I was on twelve wheels instead of two. The newsboys on the trains out here are newsmen, full grown men. The one on the up train worked steadily all the afternoon with his papers, books, oranges, bananas, etc., and finally, when every one was tired of the very sight of him, he brought in a basket of toys, and, sitting down on the arms of the seats, amused the children in the car with snakes and jumping-jacks for half an hour or more. Great liberty is allowed passengers traveling such long distances, and little boys play leap-frog and perform all sorts of gymnastic exercises in the aisle.Along toward midnight the passengers had begun to thin out, and almost every one had found a whole seat for himself, and had lain down with his head or heels sticking out into the aisle. The conductor came through occasionally, but was careful not to disturb any one, and in picking his way along down this gauntlet of bare heads and big feet, he would only hold up his lantern and peer into a face whenever that head hung over into the aisle where a pair of boots projected half an hour before. Everything had been quietforsome time, and the train at midnight was running rapidly, when a low, plaintive moan issued forth from the seat just ahead of me. The voice was rather low, at first, and the sound was rather mournful. A head hung over into the aisle in a very reckless manner, and the mouth was wide open, and yet there was no complaint. The poor sufferer gradually raised his voice, and one after another in the car had risen up and looked around till the car once more seemed to be well filled with passengers. The somnorganist ran up the scale, pulled out all the stops, and, doubled up as he was, the knee-swell was used with powerful effect. It was soon becoming evident that either the head would drop clear off and roll down the aisle or that the bellows would burst, for the sound, loud as it was, came out under great pressure, when a long suffering but very patient passenger in a seat opposite jumped up and grabbing the poor fellow by the shoulder almost yelled in his ear, “Look here, stranger, do you know you have got the nightmare like a horse?” The roars of laughter that followed were not diminished by the fact that the man opposite did not realize he had said anything to cause it. I soon found four seats together, and taking the cushions out and placing them lengthwise of the car, made a very good bed, for I am so short I could lie at full length.The sun rose next morning over very much the same kind of a level country, but snow-capped mountains were easily seen in the distance, and a few hours later the train rolled into the station at Denver.
Chapter IX.At the Base of the Rockies.
Omaha is booming as it never was before. Twenty years ago, when Congress granted a charter to the Union Pacific Railroad Company, the charter stated that the east bank of the Missouri River should be the eastern terminus of the road, but as there was no bridge over the river, the work of building the road naturally commenced on the west side of the river, and this gave Omaha a start that it has improved upon ever since. Council Bluffs, situated on the east side, about three miles from the river, has always keenly felt the remarkable success of its rival, and has used all its power to compel the Union Pacific road to make the east side of the river the terminus; but Omaha has thus far been, and the chances now are more strongly in favor than ever of its always being, the practical terminus of the road. When the bridge was built the Union Pacific trains were still made up on the west side, until Council Bluffs threatened to apply to Congress for the repeal of the charter, when a large transfer depot was built on the east side, but, mark it, as far away from “the Bluffs” and as near the river as possible. Now the stock-yards, which were first built near the transferdepot, are being removed to Omaha, wholesale firms are moving from the Bluffs over to the other side, and, altogether, Council Bluffs is to be pitied; for, since it was a good sized place itself, it has jealously seen its rival start from nothing until now it is four times as large as itself.The bridge, which was built soon after the road was finished, is now found to be wholly inadequate, and a new double track bridge is soon to take the place of the old one,—one not so very old either. It seems a pity that so much labor should be rendered useless. The iron piers were driven down, section by section, into the shifting bed of the river, until men were working at the peril of their lives down seventy or eighty feet below the water, and these piers rise sixty feet above the river, and support an immense iron bridge; and yet all this labor and much of the material will soon be dead property, for part of the bridge has already been replaced by one with two tracks. The piers of the new bridge are of stone and two of them are finished, having been sunk to the same depth as the iron ones were. Probably the old bridge being in position helps to facilitate the building of the new one, but the old one will be all removed excepting the piers. The old ferry-boats are gone now, and all teams are driven into the rear end of a train of large box cars and thus taken across, leaving the train at the opposite end from which they entered it. There is soon to be a new Union depot at Omaha, built on an immense scale. The smelting works, already the largest in the country, are being extended. The stock-yards and packing houses are beginning to affect the Chicago business in that line of trade; the wholesale houses are drawing business clear from the Pacific coast; a new Board of Trade Building is being built, besides many other fine blocks, and, altogether, things were never booming more in Omaha than now. Most of theirstreets are of asphalt, and a cable line of street cars is under contract.I heard a fire alarm one day and expected to see fire engines go tearing by, but not one did I see. They have no use for them in case of fire. Their reservoirs are situated on so high a hill that the force of the water is sufficient to throw a stream over the tallest building. Only hose carriages and hook and ladder companies are needed. The city water, pumped from the muddy Missouri, is really the purest in the world. It comes two thousand miles from the Rocky Mountains, and passes no city that can possibly defile the purity of its immense volume. The fine sand is filtered from it, and the supply will be never failing.But the river itself has changed even more in its appearance than the city, although that has grown from eighteen thousand to seventy thousand in sixteen years; but these changes are much more noticeable to me after an absence from the city of that length of time than to residents. Then the river ran south along the bluff on the east side of the valley, turned sharply to the northwest, and soon again turned south close to Omaha; but ten years ago, during a high flood, the river, in a single night, cut across this ox-bow of four miles in length and only a mile wide, and commenced eating into the banks near the Union Pacific railroad shops and smelting works. All the bags in the country, for miles around, were brought to Omaha, filled with sand and dumped into the river at this point, and engines, flat cars, and hundreds of men were employed day and night, trying to hold the river in check with immense rocks and broken stones. It was a hard fight, but the sand bags and rocks finally conquered, and now the river is roughly rip-rapped to a depth of nearly fifty feet and for a mile in length. Sixteen years ago there was danger the river would cut acrossnear Council Bluffs, and leave Omaha high and dry three miles to the west of it; but now there is more probability of its cutting across six miles above, and coming down into the bend of the ox-bow again. As it is now, this ox-bow is “Cut-off Lake,” a clear body of water that is much appreciated by boatmen and bathers. Even nature seems to work on the side of Omaha.There is a peculiarity of the clay soil here, very remarkable. In the lowering and grading of streets incident to such a growing city, many houses are left twenty and even twenty-five feet above the grade, and yet when the soil is dug perpendicularly down within a foot of the foundation of these houses, brick ones as well as frame, they remain perfectly firm and secure for months and even years, a few little creases only being worn, by the rains and frosts, down the face of these walls of clay. The clay bluffs across the river, one or two hundred feet high, are nearly perpendicular now in some places, and yet they have been exposed to the weather for centuries, perhaps, long before the pale-faced white settler knew of them at least.After riding six hundred miles through the States of Illinois and Iowa, over the prairies, both level and rolling, I am frank to acknowledge that the prospect of five hundred miles more of the same kind of scenery did not make me over enthusiastic to travel it on my wheel. The riding, so far, has not been monotonous, and I did not want it to become so. The object of the trip was not to make or break records, and thus far, whenever I have found it desirable to take a train, I have done so. But the ride through Nebraska would be so very similar to what I had already experienced in Iowa, that I thought a day’s ride on the cars would do me no harm and the time saved could be very profitably used in the mountains. The object of my trip is to see themost of the country in the best possible way, and thus far I think I have been fairly successful. The distance to Omaha traveled by rail has been about 250 miles, and by wheel 2,000 miles, and the total expense, including about eight dollars car fare, has been not quite forty dollars. This includes all repairs to wheel, clothes, and every expense whatsoever. I probably have stopped over night at farm-houses half the time, which has been the chief aid in making the expense so light, but the accommodations have many times been better than at some of the hotels. I have ridden till nearly dark and then taken a hotel or farm-house, just as it happened. Much of the time, seventy days, since leaving home has been spent in visiting friends, but one can travel over the same route, in the same manner, without a friend to visit on the way for less than a dollar a day.Thus far I have been very lucky in not getting caught out in many showers, and it really has rained very little where I have been. A heavy rain at Omaha prevented further progress on the wheel, at least for a few days, and decided me to take the train. Partly through the influence of Mr. Charles M. Woodman, a wheelman, employed in the Union Pacific office, I secured a ticket to Denver at reduced rates. A cap has been the only thing I have worn on my head; the skin on my nose has peeled off several times, and of course, my face and hands are as brown as my seal-brown trousers. Even corduroy breeches could not stand the pressure of those lumpy clay roads, and I have been obliged to have them reseated with thick buckskin, dyed to match. My weight has been reduced from fifteen to eighteen pounds, but a ravenous appetite soon makes up for that reduction whenever I stop riding. The weight of the knapsack is hardly noticed now.I have written sometimes of the ignorance of the farmersin certain sections of the West, and perhaps now it will be no more than fair to refer to the utter lack of knowledge of their country of some persons in Connecticut. Many thought snow drifts and mud would prevent any wheeling outside of Connecticut for weeks after I started, but, as far as I could see, the roads settle in “York State” as early as in Connecticut. At any rate, I saw no snow or mud, unless it was up in the mountains. Another thing that troubled some folks was how I shouldget across the streams and rivers out West. The idea that occasionally I might find a real bridge did not seem to enter their minds. The fact is, not yet have I come to the smallest creek or pond of water but which I crossed dry shod. Bridges are built here wherever they are needed, just as they are in the East. Some Connecticut people went so far as to doubt whether they had any roads out here at all. Many a one asked me how I could ride across the prairie, and they seemed to take it for granted I should ride upon the railroads, bumping along over the half-covered ties. But strange as it may seem to those persons, the people out here have horses and wagons, and ride over public highways and bridges, very much the same as we do in the East. They have churches and school-houses, Sunday-schools and revivals, morning prayers and a blessing before meals, just as they do in staid old New England. They are just as civilized and decidedly more open and free hearted than in any part of Connecticut, only perhaps they are not quite so refined; that is all the difference. To those who have seen the Western people this talk may seem superfluous, but there are many people in Connecticut, intelligent on every other subject, who show supreme ignorance in regard to the manners and customs of the people of their own country. And as for its being thinly settled, any one can judge as tothat when I say I have not been over half a mile from a house at any time, unless it was up in the Highlands of New York. There has been no more danger or difficulty in making the trip than there is in traveling through New England. Thus far the need of a revolver has never presented itself, neither has the idea of getting one.Well, I took the train at Omaha and was soon gliding swiftly through the same rolling prairie that I had seen so much of in Iowa. But these waves of green soon began to subside as the ocean does after a storm, and the sun went down on a country as level and smooth as the ocean itself. From the car window I could see the roads were excellent—a mixture of sand and clay—but I did not regret that I was on twelve wheels instead of two. The newsboys on the trains out here are newsmen, full grown men. The one on the up train worked steadily all the afternoon with his papers, books, oranges, bananas, etc., and finally, when every one was tired of the very sight of him, he brought in a basket of toys, and, sitting down on the arms of the seats, amused the children in the car with snakes and jumping-jacks for half an hour or more. Great liberty is allowed passengers traveling such long distances, and little boys play leap-frog and perform all sorts of gymnastic exercises in the aisle.Along toward midnight the passengers had begun to thin out, and almost every one had found a whole seat for himself, and had lain down with his head or heels sticking out into the aisle. The conductor came through occasionally, but was careful not to disturb any one, and in picking his way along down this gauntlet of bare heads and big feet, he would only hold up his lantern and peer into a face whenever that head hung over into the aisle where a pair of boots projected half an hour before. Everything had been quietforsome time, and the train at midnight was running rapidly, when a low, plaintive moan issued forth from the seat just ahead of me. The voice was rather low, at first, and the sound was rather mournful. A head hung over into the aisle in a very reckless manner, and the mouth was wide open, and yet there was no complaint. The poor sufferer gradually raised his voice, and one after another in the car had risen up and looked around till the car once more seemed to be well filled with passengers. The somnorganist ran up the scale, pulled out all the stops, and, doubled up as he was, the knee-swell was used with powerful effect. It was soon becoming evident that either the head would drop clear off and roll down the aisle or that the bellows would burst, for the sound, loud as it was, came out under great pressure, when a long suffering but very patient passenger in a seat opposite jumped up and grabbing the poor fellow by the shoulder almost yelled in his ear, “Look here, stranger, do you know you have got the nightmare like a horse?” The roars of laughter that followed were not diminished by the fact that the man opposite did not realize he had said anything to cause it. I soon found four seats together, and taking the cushions out and placing them lengthwise of the car, made a very good bed, for I am so short I could lie at full length.The sun rose next morning over very much the same kind of a level country, but snow-capped mountains were easily seen in the distance, and a few hours later the train rolled into the station at Denver.
Omaha is booming as it never was before. Twenty years ago, when Congress granted a charter to the Union Pacific Railroad Company, the charter stated that the east bank of the Missouri River should be the eastern terminus of the road, but as there was no bridge over the river, the work of building the road naturally commenced on the west side of the river, and this gave Omaha a start that it has improved upon ever since. Council Bluffs, situated on the east side, about three miles from the river, has always keenly felt the remarkable success of its rival, and has used all its power to compel the Union Pacific road to make the east side of the river the terminus; but Omaha has thus far been, and the chances now are more strongly in favor than ever of its always being, the practical terminus of the road. When the bridge was built the Union Pacific trains were still made up on the west side, until Council Bluffs threatened to apply to Congress for the repeal of the charter, when a large transfer depot was built on the east side, but, mark it, as far away from “the Bluffs” and as near the river as possible. Now the stock-yards, which were first built near the transferdepot, are being removed to Omaha, wholesale firms are moving from the Bluffs over to the other side, and, altogether, Council Bluffs is to be pitied; for, since it was a good sized place itself, it has jealously seen its rival start from nothing until now it is four times as large as itself.
The bridge, which was built soon after the road was finished, is now found to be wholly inadequate, and a new double track bridge is soon to take the place of the old one,—one not so very old either. It seems a pity that so much labor should be rendered useless. The iron piers were driven down, section by section, into the shifting bed of the river, until men were working at the peril of their lives down seventy or eighty feet below the water, and these piers rise sixty feet above the river, and support an immense iron bridge; and yet all this labor and much of the material will soon be dead property, for part of the bridge has already been replaced by one with two tracks. The piers of the new bridge are of stone and two of them are finished, having been sunk to the same depth as the iron ones were. Probably the old bridge being in position helps to facilitate the building of the new one, but the old one will be all removed excepting the piers. The old ferry-boats are gone now, and all teams are driven into the rear end of a train of large box cars and thus taken across, leaving the train at the opposite end from which they entered it. There is soon to be a new Union depot at Omaha, built on an immense scale. The smelting works, already the largest in the country, are being extended. The stock-yards and packing houses are beginning to affect the Chicago business in that line of trade; the wholesale houses are drawing business clear from the Pacific coast; a new Board of Trade Building is being built, besides many other fine blocks, and, altogether, things were never booming more in Omaha than now. Most of theirstreets are of asphalt, and a cable line of street cars is under contract.
I heard a fire alarm one day and expected to see fire engines go tearing by, but not one did I see. They have no use for them in case of fire. Their reservoirs are situated on so high a hill that the force of the water is sufficient to throw a stream over the tallest building. Only hose carriages and hook and ladder companies are needed. The city water, pumped from the muddy Missouri, is really the purest in the world. It comes two thousand miles from the Rocky Mountains, and passes no city that can possibly defile the purity of its immense volume. The fine sand is filtered from it, and the supply will be never failing.
But the river itself has changed even more in its appearance than the city, although that has grown from eighteen thousand to seventy thousand in sixteen years; but these changes are much more noticeable to me after an absence from the city of that length of time than to residents. Then the river ran south along the bluff on the east side of the valley, turned sharply to the northwest, and soon again turned south close to Omaha; but ten years ago, during a high flood, the river, in a single night, cut across this ox-bow of four miles in length and only a mile wide, and commenced eating into the banks near the Union Pacific railroad shops and smelting works. All the bags in the country, for miles around, were brought to Omaha, filled with sand and dumped into the river at this point, and engines, flat cars, and hundreds of men were employed day and night, trying to hold the river in check with immense rocks and broken stones. It was a hard fight, but the sand bags and rocks finally conquered, and now the river is roughly rip-rapped to a depth of nearly fifty feet and for a mile in length. Sixteen years ago there was danger the river would cut acrossnear Council Bluffs, and leave Omaha high and dry three miles to the west of it; but now there is more probability of its cutting across six miles above, and coming down into the bend of the ox-bow again. As it is now, this ox-bow is “Cut-off Lake,” a clear body of water that is much appreciated by boatmen and bathers. Even nature seems to work on the side of Omaha.
There is a peculiarity of the clay soil here, very remarkable. In the lowering and grading of streets incident to such a growing city, many houses are left twenty and even twenty-five feet above the grade, and yet when the soil is dug perpendicularly down within a foot of the foundation of these houses, brick ones as well as frame, they remain perfectly firm and secure for months and even years, a few little creases only being worn, by the rains and frosts, down the face of these walls of clay. The clay bluffs across the river, one or two hundred feet high, are nearly perpendicular now in some places, and yet they have been exposed to the weather for centuries, perhaps, long before the pale-faced white settler knew of them at least.
After riding six hundred miles through the States of Illinois and Iowa, over the prairies, both level and rolling, I am frank to acknowledge that the prospect of five hundred miles more of the same kind of scenery did not make me over enthusiastic to travel it on my wheel. The riding, so far, has not been monotonous, and I did not want it to become so. The object of the trip was not to make or break records, and thus far, whenever I have found it desirable to take a train, I have done so. But the ride through Nebraska would be so very similar to what I had already experienced in Iowa, that I thought a day’s ride on the cars would do me no harm and the time saved could be very profitably used in the mountains. The object of my trip is to see themost of the country in the best possible way, and thus far I think I have been fairly successful. The distance to Omaha traveled by rail has been about 250 miles, and by wheel 2,000 miles, and the total expense, including about eight dollars car fare, has been not quite forty dollars. This includes all repairs to wheel, clothes, and every expense whatsoever. I probably have stopped over night at farm-houses half the time, which has been the chief aid in making the expense so light, but the accommodations have many times been better than at some of the hotels. I have ridden till nearly dark and then taken a hotel or farm-house, just as it happened. Much of the time, seventy days, since leaving home has been spent in visiting friends, but one can travel over the same route, in the same manner, without a friend to visit on the way for less than a dollar a day.
Thus far I have been very lucky in not getting caught out in many showers, and it really has rained very little where I have been. A heavy rain at Omaha prevented further progress on the wheel, at least for a few days, and decided me to take the train. Partly through the influence of Mr. Charles M. Woodman, a wheelman, employed in the Union Pacific office, I secured a ticket to Denver at reduced rates. A cap has been the only thing I have worn on my head; the skin on my nose has peeled off several times, and of course, my face and hands are as brown as my seal-brown trousers. Even corduroy breeches could not stand the pressure of those lumpy clay roads, and I have been obliged to have them reseated with thick buckskin, dyed to match. My weight has been reduced from fifteen to eighteen pounds, but a ravenous appetite soon makes up for that reduction whenever I stop riding. The weight of the knapsack is hardly noticed now.
I have written sometimes of the ignorance of the farmersin certain sections of the West, and perhaps now it will be no more than fair to refer to the utter lack of knowledge of their country of some persons in Connecticut. Many thought snow drifts and mud would prevent any wheeling outside of Connecticut for weeks after I started, but, as far as I could see, the roads settle in “York State” as early as in Connecticut. At any rate, I saw no snow or mud, unless it was up in the mountains. Another thing that troubled some folks was how I shouldget across the streams and rivers out West. The idea that occasionally I might find a real bridge did not seem to enter their minds. The fact is, not yet have I come to the smallest creek or pond of water but which I crossed dry shod. Bridges are built here wherever they are needed, just as they are in the East. Some Connecticut people went so far as to doubt whether they had any roads out here at all. Many a one asked me how I could ride across the prairie, and they seemed to take it for granted I should ride upon the railroads, bumping along over the half-covered ties. But strange as it may seem to those persons, the people out here have horses and wagons, and ride over public highways and bridges, very much the same as we do in the East. They have churches and school-houses, Sunday-schools and revivals, morning prayers and a blessing before meals, just as they do in staid old New England. They are just as civilized and decidedly more open and free hearted than in any part of Connecticut, only perhaps they are not quite so refined; that is all the difference. To those who have seen the Western people this talk may seem superfluous, but there are many people in Connecticut, intelligent on every other subject, who show supreme ignorance in regard to the manners and customs of the people of their own country. And as for its being thinly settled, any one can judge as tothat when I say I have not been over half a mile from a house at any time, unless it was up in the Highlands of New York. There has been no more danger or difficulty in making the trip than there is in traveling through New England. Thus far the need of a revolver has never presented itself, neither has the idea of getting one.
Well, I took the train at Omaha and was soon gliding swiftly through the same rolling prairie that I had seen so much of in Iowa. But these waves of green soon began to subside as the ocean does after a storm, and the sun went down on a country as level and smooth as the ocean itself. From the car window I could see the roads were excellent—a mixture of sand and clay—but I did not regret that I was on twelve wheels instead of two. The newsboys on the trains out here are newsmen, full grown men. The one on the up train worked steadily all the afternoon with his papers, books, oranges, bananas, etc., and finally, when every one was tired of the very sight of him, he brought in a basket of toys, and, sitting down on the arms of the seats, amused the children in the car with snakes and jumping-jacks for half an hour or more. Great liberty is allowed passengers traveling such long distances, and little boys play leap-frog and perform all sorts of gymnastic exercises in the aisle.
Along toward midnight the passengers had begun to thin out, and almost every one had found a whole seat for himself, and had lain down with his head or heels sticking out into the aisle. The conductor came through occasionally, but was careful not to disturb any one, and in picking his way along down this gauntlet of bare heads and big feet, he would only hold up his lantern and peer into a face whenever that head hung over into the aisle where a pair of boots projected half an hour before. Everything had been quietforsome time, and the train at midnight was running rapidly, when a low, plaintive moan issued forth from the seat just ahead of me. The voice was rather low, at first, and the sound was rather mournful. A head hung over into the aisle in a very reckless manner, and the mouth was wide open, and yet there was no complaint. The poor sufferer gradually raised his voice, and one after another in the car had risen up and looked around till the car once more seemed to be well filled with passengers. The somnorganist ran up the scale, pulled out all the stops, and, doubled up as he was, the knee-swell was used with powerful effect. It was soon becoming evident that either the head would drop clear off and roll down the aisle or that the bellows would burst, for the sound, loud as it was, came out under great pressure, when a long suffering but very patient passenger in a seat opposite jumped up and grabbing the poor fellow by the shoulder almost yelled in his ear, “Look here, stranger, do you know you have got the nightmare like a horse?” The roars of laughter that followed were not diminished by the fact that the man opposite did not realize he had said anything to cause it. I soon found four seats together, and taking the cushions out and placing them lengthwise of the car, made a very good bed, for I am so short I could lie at full length.
The sun rose next morning over very much the same kind of a level country, but snow-capped mountains were easily seen in the distance, and a few hours later the train rolled into the station at Denver.