ERNEST NICHOLSON TAKES A HAND
After completing the first survey, however, the surveyors returned, and
made another that struck Amro. This survey swerved off from the first
survey to the southwest between Colone and Amro and struck the valley of
a little stream known as Mud Creek, which empties into the Dog Ear at
Amro. But being a most illogical route, I felt confident the C. & R.W.
had no intention of following it, perhaps only making the survey out of
courtesy to the people in Amro, or possibly to show to the state
railroad commissioners, if they became insistent, why they could not
strike the town.
About this time Ernest Nicholson appeared on the scene, and purchased a
forty acre tract of land north of the town, for which he paid fifty-five
dollars an acre, later paying ten thousand dollars for a quarter,
joining the forty. Still later he purchased the entire section of
heirship land, belonging to a man named Jim Riggins, an Oristown city
justice, and a former squaw-man, whose deceased wife had owned the land.
For this section of land the Nicholsons paid thirty-five thousand
dollars. The price staggered the people of Amro, who declared Nicholson
had certainly gone crazy. They set up a terrible "howl." "What were the
d-- Nicholsons sticking their noses into Tipp county towns for? Were
they not satisfied with Calias, where they had grafted everybody out of
their money?" No, the trouble, they all agreed, was that Ernest wanted
to run the country and wanted to be the "big stick." But they consoled
themselves for awhile with the fact that Amro had the county seat and
was growing. The settlers were trading in Amro, for Amro had what they
needed. An indignation meeting was held, where with much feeling they
denounced the actions of Ernest Nicholson in buying land north of the
town and announcing that he would build a town such as the Little Crow
had never dreamed of, and that Amro should at once begin to move over to
the new townsite and save money; but they were hot. Old Dad Durpee, in
his shirt sleeves, corduroy and boots, his shaggy beard flowing,
declared that the low-down, stinking, lying cuss would not dare to ask
him to move to the town he had as yet not even named; but Ernest, at the
wheel of a big new sixty-horse power Packard, continued to buy land
along the railroad survey all the way to the west line of the county. In
fact he bought every piece of land that was purchasable.
I watched this fight from the beginning, with interest, for I had become
well enough acquainted with Ernest to feel that he knew what he was
about. When the surveyors had arrived in Calias, Ernest had gone to
Chicago. In declaring the road could not miss Amro the people were much
like inhabitants of Megory had been a few years before. While they
prattled and allowed their ego to rule, they should have been busy, and
when it was seen that the town might not get the railroad, they should
have gone to Chicago and seen Marvin Hewitt, putting the proposition
squarely before him, and requested that if he could not give them the
road, to give them a depot, if they moved to the line of the survey. By
that time it was a town with two solid blocks of business houses and
many good merchants and bankers. I often wondered how such men could be
so pinheaded, sitting back, declaring the great C. & R.W. railway could
not afford to miss a little burg like Amro, but from previous
observations and experience I felt sure they would wait until the last
dog was dead, before trying to see what they could do. And they did.
In the meantime the promoters, who were nearly all from Megory or
somewhere in Megory county, had learned that Ernest Nicholson was
nobody's fool. They hooted the Nicholsons, along with the rest of the
town, declaring Ernest to be anything but what he really was, until they
had roused enough excitement to make Amro seem like a "good thing." Then
they quietly sold their interest to the Amoureaux Brothers, who raked up
about all that was left of the fortune of a few years previous, and paid
six thousand, six hundred dollars for the interest of the promoters
which made the Amoureaux the sole owners of the townsite and placed them
in obvious control of the town's affairs, and again in the white society
they liked so well.
All the Calias lumber yards owned branch yards at Amro and everybody
continued to do a flourishing business. The Amroites paid little
attention to the platting of the townsite to the north, nor made a
single effort to ascertain which survey the railroad would follow, but
continued to boast that Amro would get the road. About this time Ernest
Nicholson called a meeting in Amro, inviting all the business men to be
present and hear a proposition that he had to make, stating he hoped the
citizens of the town and himself could get together without friction or
ill-feeling. The meeting was held in Durpee's hall and everybody
attended; some out of curiosity, some out of fear, and but few with any
expectation or intention of agreeing to move to the north townsite.
Ernest addressed the meeting, first thanking them for their presence,
then plunged headlong into the purpose of the meeting. He explained that
it was quite impossible for the road to go to Amro, this he had feared
before a survey was made, but that he had ascertained while in Chicago
that the road would not strike Amro. He then read a letter from Marvin
Hewitt, the "man of destiny," so far as the location of the railroad was
concerned, which stated that the road would be extended and the depot
would be located on section twenty, which was the section Ernest had
purchased. Then he brought up the matter of the distribution of lots
which was, that to every person who moved or began to move to the new
townsite within thirty days, one-half of the purchase price of the lot
would be refunded. The price of the business lots ranged from eight
hundred to two thousand dollars, while residence lots were from fifty to
three hundred. "Think it over," he said, in closing, and was gone.
Needless to say they paid little attention to the proposition. The Amro
Journal "roasted" and cartooned the Nicholson Brothers in the same way
Megory papers had done, on account of the town of Calias.
After thirty days had elapsed, the Nicholsons warned the people of Amro
that it was the last opportunity they would have to accept his
proposition, and when they paid no attention to his warning, he named
the new town. I shall not soon forget how the people outside of the town
of Amro laughed over the name applied to the new town, as its
application to the situation was so accurate and descriptive of later
events, that I regret I must substitute a name for the purposes of this
story, but which is the best I am able to find, "Victor."
Instead of moving to Victor, taking advantage of choice of location and
the purchase of a lot at half price, the Amroites began making
improvements in their town, putting down cement walks ten feet wide the
length of the two business blocks and walks on side streets as well. A
school election was called and as a result an eleven-thousand-dollar
school house was erected, a modern two-story building, with basement and
gymnasium. The building was large enough to hold all the population of
Amro if all the men, women and children were of school age, and still
have room for many more. This act brought a storm of criticism from the
settlers, and even many of the people of the town thought it quite a
needless extravagance; but Van Neter, who was strong for education and
for Amro, had put it through and figured he had won a point. He was the
county superintendent. Most of the people claimed the town would soon
grow large enough to require the building, and let it go at that.
People began drifting into Victor, buying lots and putting up good
buildings. Nicholsons announced a lot sale and preparations began for
much active boosting for the new town. In the election to be held a year
later, they hoped to wrest the county seat from Amro.
When Ernest Nicholson saw the improvements being made in Amro and no
sign of moving the town, he began to scheme, and I could see that if
Amro wasn't going to move peacefully he would help it along in some
other way. However, nothing was done before the lot sale, which was
advertised to take place in the lobby of the Nicholson Brothers' new
office building in Calias.
On the date advertised for the lot sale, crowds gathered and many who
had no intentions of investing, attended the sale out of curiosity. I
took a crowd to Calias from Megory, among whom was Joy Flackler, cashier
of the Megory National Bank, who stated that Frank Woodring had loaned
the Nicholsons fifty thousand dollars to buy the townsite. Megoryites
still held a grudge against the Nicholsons, and Flackler seemed to wish
they had asked the loan of him so he might have had the pleasure of
turning them down.
The second day of the lot sale, a bunch of bartenders, gamblers and
Amro's rougher class appeared on the scene and distributed handbills
which announced that Amro had contracted for a half section on the
survey north of the town and would move in a body if moving was
necessary. The crowd styled themselves "Amro knockers," whose purpose it
was to show prospective lot buyers that in purchasing Victor lots they
were buying "a pig in a poke." The knocking was done mostly in saloons,
where the knockers got drunk and were promptly arrested before the sale
started. The sale went along unhindered. The auctioneer, standing above
the crowds, waxed eloquent in pointing out the advantages, describing
Sioux City on the east and Deadwood and Lead on the west, and explaining
that eventually a city must spring up in that section of the country,
that would grow into a prairie metropolis of probably ten thousand
people, and whether the crowd before him took his eloquence seriously or
not, they at least had the chance at the choice of the lots and
locations, and eighty-four thousand dollars worth of lots were sold.
[Illustration: Bringing stock, household goods, and plenty of money.
(page 177.)]