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 transfer depot, 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bridge has already been replaced by one with two tracks.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 their streets 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
across near 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 the most 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 farmers in 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 should get
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 to that 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 quiet for some 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.