Grand Rapids Herald-Review Newspaper, July 31, 1897, Page 1

Granp Rapips, Irasca County, Minn,, SaTuRDAY, JULY ‘31, 1897. Two Douears A YEAR 7 Bed Room Suites, st5tos35, . Wardbrobes, ‘ Folding Beds, Kitchen Cabinets, Carpets, Rugs, Couches, Folding Bed Lounges, FURNITURE DEPARTMENT. Cots, Mattresses, ‘ Pillows, Springs, Curtains, Matting, Carpet Sweepers. 6 ft. and 8 ft. Extension Tables, Extension Centre Tables, High Back Dining Chairs, Rockers and Easy Chairs, Folding Camp Chairs. One 4 1-2 ft. Oak Roller Top Office Desk at a Bargain. “The quality of our goods is remembered long after the price is forgotten.” Itasca Mercantile: Company, GENERAL SUPPLY HOUSE. Columbia Quality Differs from the quality in other wheels only in degree, notin kind. Every bicycle possesses good qual- ities; only some have more than others. The Columbia is the very essence of bicycle perfection, and leads ALL others by several laps. They are the oldest, strongest, easiest running and best all around bicycle that the world has yet produced, and no matter how good other wheels may get to be, the Columbia will always be kept in the lead. It costs a hundred dollars to start with, and there the expense stops. Hardy Hartfords Second only to the Columbia, itself, is the old reliable Hartford. A machine that’s built as substantial and solid as the Columbia, but is not so highly finished. It is a rough and ready road machine that will cost It is thoroughly reliable in every way, and can you $75—if you buy one. always be depended on. We carry a full line of bicycle sundries, and our repair department is fully equippéd for doing the most difficult kind of repairing. —__W. J. & H. D. POWERS. These are the lines to which we are giving special attention during this Prices are down so low that. all can reach them. Quality We’ll get your trade if prices count. season. high grade; prices low grade. Marr'sClothing & Dry Goods Store GRAND RAPIDS, MINN. . Clothing, Dry Goods, AND Furnishings. tt paper, etc., at REI RE a ae a a ae a ee HE EE RE ee ee ae Ea ee a ee a ee eae ee a a eae ae he a ae ae a ae ae a ae ae ate eae ae ae ae ae ae ae ae He New Stock Of Window Shades, Curtain Poles, Room Mouldings, wall Richardson & Stevens. (EA ee ge ee ae ee ae a ee ee eee ea a ee a a ee SRM he ee ae ae ae a ae a ae ae a a ae ae a Rea COUNTY ROAD WORK( Some Much Needed Repairs Now Well Under Way. BUILDING GOOD HIGHWAYS Commissioner Wilder [mproving Prai- rie Lake Road and Commissioiier Logan Has a Crew of Men on the Diamond Mine Road. ~ The condition of the county ex- chequer has necessitated the greatest economy on behalf of the county commissioners in the matter of road building during the past year. Peti- tions have been numerous from the different localities where a number of homesteaders have located for new roads, but the county legislatofs are pursuing a policy that existing ¢ondi- tions have made almost neck. While they realize that good ds are greatly to be desired and in this county are absolutely indispefisable, at the same time they are aware that the public debt will not stand a very liberal policy for the next two orthree years, and therefore in most cases these petitions have been laid aside tor the present. This course, as might be expected, does not receive entire approbation, but those who are sufficiently liberal to view the situa- tion from the broad standpoint of the entire county’s interests will readily understand that the board has adopt- ed the wisest policy and in the end their good judgment will be generally commended. Aside from some smal! repairs that the floods have neceéssitat- ed the only work that will be done this year is now well under way on the Diamond Mine and Shoal Lake roads. ‘The work on the latter high- way was made imperative by the action of land owners through whose property the old line had been laid out and used for a number of years as a matter of temporary econ omy and convenience. The board advertised for bids for the construction ofa mile and three-quarters. The lowest proposition received was for $1.75 a rod, the bids running as high as $6 per rod. Upon investigation the successful competitor found that he could not do the work at the figure named in his bid and refused to go on with the work. It was then decided to proceed with the improvement under the immediate supervision of {Commissioner Wilder. He has em- ployed homesteaders along the road as far as possible and has already com- pleted one mile and a quarter, begin- ning at Prairie lake about five and a half miles north of town. It is ‘esti- mated that the cost of construction under this plan will not exceed $2 per rod, and it is one of the finest pieces of road work done in Itasca county. Mr, Wilder is deserving of the highest praise for the excellent service which he has rendered in the construction of this road. Every stump has been en- tirely removed for a distance of four rods wide, and the,center of the road graded up and ditched on either side the entire distance. He proposes to seed down the right of way, thus _pre- venting the future growth of brush by the roadside and making a firm sur- face that heavy rains will not- wash away. ‘Traffic over this ine of road the year around 1s greater than over any other road leading to Grand Rapids. Supplies are hauled over 1t for settlers and loggers as far north as the Big Fork, and if it is not kept in a passable condition the people of Hib- bing will see that they are supplied from that town and would be pleased to make the necessary expenditure in return for the large trade to be se- cured, Commissioner Logan is doing a similiar service on the Diamond Mine road. He has a crew of seven men making repairs to the Arcturus pro- perty. The heavy rains of the pre- sent season have done a great deal of damage and to put the road in shape for safe travel an expenditure of about $500 will be required. ‘The bridge over Prairie river has been under water and the foundation is insecure. It 1s thought that the most economical thing to do will be the entire removal of the present bridge and the con- struction ot a new one. When Mr. Logan finishes his present work the Diamond Mine road will be in excel- lent condition. MANY INQUIRIES FOR LAND. State Auditor Dunn Finds Many People After Pine in Minnesota. State Auditor Robert C. Dunn, who was in/Duluth this week bound for a trip to Buffalo on the North West, said to the Herald that he was receiving many inquiries for state pine land, especially frum this county, and that at the annual saleto be held in St. Paulin October he expected about 25,000,000 feet would be offered. State estimators will be sent out in September to look up such pine as may be sold under the law. Last year no pine was sold by the state, there not being demand enough for it to warrant a sale. Mr. Dunn is con- vinced from his own observations that a great revival in the lumber business is about to be experienced in Minne- sota. Inquiries for stumpage are, more brisk than they have been for a} long time, and many large sales of lumber have been effected recently at different points in the state. The Holman Property. The fellow who imagines there is no gold on the American side should have seen the nch panning of gold from rock taken from the property of W. B. Holman, of Grand Rapids, this county, situated on lot 4, section 25- 71-22, two and a half miles’ east of town, says the Rainy Lake Journal. The piece of ore weighed about an ounce and showed no free, gold, yet there was a long string of yellow gold seen in the pan by the editor of the Journal. Mr. Holman is expecting some Winnipeg capitalists who are to take hold ot and develop the property, IT 1S A GIGANTIC FRAUD The Government Reservoirs on the Mis- sissippi Should Be Abandoned, RUIN THOUSANDS OF AGRES Of Valuable Hay and Agricultural Lands and Serve No Good Purpose Except Employment toa Few Place Holders. In the great political vortex of these United States there are many gigantic frauds drawn in as if by the very forces of gravitation and lost sight of in the whirpool of governmental ma- chinery, and which become a part of that endless dependency upon con- gressional appropriations from session to session for their perpetuity. Some of these frauds have the one redeeming feature of favoring the interests of some particular class or corporation; others are neutral except for the amount of public funds expended to create and carry them, while still others are a positive and perpetual public nuisance, absolutely posse: of no merit if we except alone the sal aries paid to those who are identified with the work created by their exist- ence. It is of this Jatter class that the Herald Review desires to call atten- tion, not with the hope of bringing about any immediate relief, but rather to give expression to the sentiment of those who have long suffered finan- cial losses through the existence in Itasca county of one of the most gi- gantic and worthless government frauds that has ever been sustained with public funds. About two years ago this paper commented editorially upon the utter uselessness of the gov- ernment reservoirs on the upper Mis- sissippi at Pokegama and Winnibigo- shish, and at the same time called at- tention to the immense amount of valuable lands that are annually de- stroyed thereby. ‘The article created considerable of a sur in certain quar- ters, but more especially was the sys- tem defended by Col. Jones, who de- rives a- handsome income as chief engineer of ___ this systematic fraud. The people of Itasca county and those residing along the niver from its head waters to St. Paul have long been cognizant of the fact that the holding of water in these reservoirs served no good purpose whatever, but on the contrary are a constant source of danger and a perpetual agent of destruction to the most valuable and necessary lands not only back of the dams but along the entre yalley. They are also aware, however, that their protests have been and are likely to go un- heeded. There appears to be no av- enue through which payment can be forced for'damages sustained on over- flowed lands, while the likelihood of the government’s disontinuing the sys- tem isso entirely remote that any hope ofreliet has almost been aban- doned. It is beyond the understand- ing ofthe average person how congress was ever hoodwinked into making the necessary appropriations for the ori- ginal constructions. No mortal man can show any valid reason for their present or past existence, There are certain seasons—during May and June—when the loggers might be ac- commodated with some needed ad- ditional water, but during the dozen years since the dams have been put in there never has been such a fayor granted, nor would there be, accord- -|ing to the policy of the engineer in charge, if there was not water enough in the river bed to float a toy canoe. In times when drives have been hung up for lack of water and loggers have applied for relief, they have invariab- ly been refused. During especially dry seasons the reservoirs hold back the water that should be allowed to flow uninterrupted for the benefit of log drivers in the early spring and summer, while seasons such as the present has been there is experienced no beneficial _re- sults inasmuch as they are in- sufficient to store any appreciable quantity of surplus precipitation. Consequently they serve as an injury to log drivers when they. cannot pos- sibly be of any benefit. There never has been and there never will be a single instance wherein the opening of ssed | the gates of these reservoirs has aided any industry in any ‘manner on the Mississippi river between Winnibigo- shish dain and St. Payl or below the latter point. When the project of es- tablishing these obstructions was first advanced it was strongly urged that they would be of immense service to the mill operators at Minneapolis, and it was also argued that during the low water periods—-September and Octo- ber—the river could be raised to the extent of six inches at St. Paul, thus assisting navigation as far north as the Saintly City. Whether this claim is correct or not has never yet been demonstrated. Navigation on the Mississippi even to St. Paul isa thing of the past, never to be revived. The total loss of valuable hay and agricul- tural lands in Itasca county alone ag- gregates a greater sum each year in dollars and cents than does the enure traffic on the river for five years, The mill men at Minneapolis no longer de- rive any assistance from the reservoir water turned loose each year in the fall. Experience has shown the utter fallacy of the early arguments ad- yanced by the interested projectors. But the uselessness of the system might be overlooked if it were not for the great loss of property which it en- tails and from which there seems to be no escape. The outrage and absurd- ity of it all becomes more conspicu- ously abhorrent when it is found upon investigation that, not even one “grinding monopoly” in any branch of aioe enriched or even its in- terests subserved through the main- tenance of these dams. At Pokega- ma and Wjnnibijgoshish there are em- ployed the year around not to exceed a half dozen men. They are salaries and therefore to that lined extent are benefitted. The biennial SEE A 55: AMES {Cantinged on page Elht] sanfpesarsecceesivessindaansassie inns ient