The Denver _Republican_ recently contained this brief account of a
farmer working heroically on a one-man railroad, and remarked that it
is typical of the individual spirit that has achieved great things in
the West:
The story of the Kansas farmer, who, with a scraper and a pair
of mules, is building a fifty-mile railroad, would indicate that
the supply of courageous men is not entirely exhausted.
The farmer who is tackling this tremendous job alone and who is
serenely indifferent to all the jeers of his neighbors, scorned
to admit defeat when he could not interest any one with capital
in the road which he deemed necessary. He went to work with such
material as he had at hand and, somehow, even without seeing the
man or knowing aught of his project, one can not help sharing
the farmer’s belief that he is to “carry the thing through.”
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