CHAPTER XLVI. PRINCIPAL CITIES OF NEBRASKA. Lincoln- Omaha-Nebraska City. LINCOLN is the capital of Nebraska and the county seat of Lancaster, fifty seven miles from Nebraska City, in a very fertile district, which is becoming populated by a very enterprising class of farmers. Nebraska was a part of the territory which was purchased from Napoleon in 1803, known as the Louisiana purchase. There may be said to have been no emigration into Nebraska until the territory was thrown open to the competitive efforts of north and south by the Nebraska-Kansas act of 1854, and at that time the main attention of both parties having been concentrated on Kansas, Nebraska escaped the pestilent operations of the ruffians over the border. Emigration became very rapid after the struggle in Kansas turned attention from the region more favored by nature, until the financial crisis of 1857, the result of over speculation in land and in everything that offered chances for legitimate gambling, when Nebraska was severely checked, but in the year 1864, the act enabling the citizens to form a state government was passed, and a constitution having been formed before June 1866, and ratified in due course, the state was admitted to the union in February, 1867. Lincoln city sprang up very rapidly in the summer of 1867, and towards the end of the following year, the seat of government was transferred from Omaha, which, until then, had been the capital, to the fair and promising young rival, eighty miles to the southwest. The elegant residences and business premises of Lincoln sprang up with wondrous speed, and the location of the city is certainly very advantageous. The legislature first met in Lincoln in January, 1869, but the present state house was not erected until later. The capitol cost $100,000, and is a very fine structure. The university in Lincoln promises well, and the state agricul tural college is also located here. There are several manufac tories, and very extensive salines, the salt works being very successful in procuring an article of commerce from the salt springs in this neighborhood. There are eight newspapers published in Lincoln, the churches are already ornamental to the city, the schools are well organized, and when the census was taken in 1870, the population was two thousand four hundred and fortyone; the present population is nearly four thousand. OMAIA has been well advertised all over the world as the city which was located, or invented, or liberally endowed, or otherwise benefited by the celebrated George Francis Train, but the city is a flourishing place notwithstanding, and it appears that the property of its benefactor in Omaha has been sold for unpaid taxes. Such is the gratitude of republics; they won't thank any one for doing nothing. Omaha is the county seat of Douglas, standing on the western bank of the Missouri river, opposite Council Bluffs, and it is the eastern terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad. The city contains other termini: the Omaha and Northwestern, the Omaha and Southwestern, and by the bridge which spans the river at this point it may be said also to possess a terminal station for the railroads which center at Council Bluffs. When the river is high, Omaha has steady communication with St. Louis, 820 miles below, and with various cities en route. The city stands on a plateau fifty feet above the Missouri level and is well built. In the year 1860, its population was 1,861; before the next census, in 1871, it numbered 16,083, and the population still increases rapidly. Its commerce and its manufacturing interests are being developed with great success; the schools are excellent, its churches well attended, and its fourteen newspapers remarkably well supported. At some seasons of the year the Missouri can be navigated far above Omaha. The city is fourteen miles from the mouth of Platte river. The bluffs rising beyond the business area will, in course of time, become the sites of innumerable handsome residences, adding considerably to the beauty of the scene which is now presented. The trade from this point to the mines, frontier posts. and across the plains, is large. The city was first settled in 1851, after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska act, and its name is borrowed from an Indian tribe. NEBRASKA CITY is the second city in the state of Nebraska, and is the seat of justice for Otoe county. It is placed on the right or western bank of the river Missouri, twenty-eight miles below the mouth of river Platte. The city is built on ground which rises as it recedes from the river, and is thus well situated for drainage. Most of the buildings are of wood, but the general aspect of the place is decidedly fine, and better materials will come into use as the present structures require renewal. The county buildings are commodious, and the several churches are very attractive specimens of architecture. There are public halls for amusements, several schools well graded and the teachers are quite up to their work. In the year 1870, when the last census was taken, there were 6,050 inhabitants, but since that time there has been a large increase. There are several newspapers all well supported. Nebraska City does a good share of river trade, and also with the frontier towns. The Pacific railroads have very greatly injured the business which used to be effected with emigrants crossing the plains. In the western section of Otoe county are valuable salt springs which will contribute very materially to enrich Nebraska City, as the salt works are extended. The salt manufactured is excellent. CHAPTER XLVII. CITIES OF ST. LOUIS AND KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI. ST. LOUIS was founded in 1764, by M. Laclade, a Frenchman, who established a fur company there under a charter of the French governor general of Louisiana, and named the place in honor of Louis XV, then king of France. In 1768, a Spanish officer by the name of Reous, with a company of Spanish troops, took possession of St. Louis and upper Louisiana (as it was termed), in the name of his Catholic majesty, and it remained under that sway until March, 1804. The first brick house was erected in 1813, and in 1817, the first steamboat arrived. The city is located on the west bank of the Mississippi, 1,194 miles above New Orleans, 774 miles below Minneapolis or the Falls of St. Anthony, 128 miles east of Jefferson City, 174 miles above the mouth of the Ohio and 20 miles below the mouth of the Missouri river, and is the metropolis of Missouri, the largest city of the western states, and the third city, in regard to population, in the United States. The city rises in three successive terraces of limestone formation, the first twenty, the second sixty and the third two hundred feet above the floods of the Mississippi. The ascent to the first plateau or bottom, as it may be termed, is somewhat abrupt; the second and third rise more gradually and spread out into an extensive plain, affording fine views of the city and river. The city extends fourteen miles along the river and nine miles inland, covering 35,000 acres or nearly fifty-five square miles; the thickly populated portion, however, is only four or four and a half miles in length, following the river, and about two miles in breadth. The city is well laid out, the streets being for the most part sixty feet wide and with few exceptions intersecting each other at right angles. Front street, extending along the levee, is upwards of one hundred feet wide, and built up on the side facing the river with a range of massive stone warehouses, which make an imposing appearance as the city is approached by water. Fourth street, called "the fashionable promenade," contains the finest retail stores; but Front, Main and Second streets, parallel to each other and to the river, are the seat of the largest and principal wholesale business. The streets back from the river and parallel to it, are known as Front, Main, Second, Third and so on to Fortieth street; and those on the right and left of Market street, extending at right angles with the river, are mostly named from various forest trees, similar to the streets of Philidelphia, and large expenditures have been made from time to time, in grading and other improvements. Within the last ten years, the style of building in the city has so improved as to make it now one of the most beautifully and substantially constructed cities in the country. Brick is the princi pal building material, and yet marble, iron and stone are much used. Very many of the private residences are fine, indeed, and as the wealth of the city has increased, the citizens, with a noble and commendable spirit, have lavishly given their gold to enlarge and to beautify the city. The public buildings are very fine, indeed, and stand well in a comparison with any in the union. The city hall and court house is a magnificient structure (finished in 1860), and cost over a million of dollars. It is constructed of limestone, the front being ornamented with porticoes, while from the center of the building rises a finely proportioned dome, which in form and beauty greatly resembles that of the capitol at Washington. The custom house, built of Missouri marble and occupying the site upon which one of the first theaters erected in St. Louis was located, stands upon piles of great length and is occupied also as city postoffice and for United States courts. The United States arsenal is a massive building, and the merchants' exchange is a costly and beautiful one. The marine hospital, the insane asylum, the mercantile library hall, the polytechnic institute and the St. Louis life insurance buildings, all exhibit fine artistic taste and do lasting credit to their founders and builders. The city also contains many large and beautiful churches (over eighty of all descriptions), and among the most costly may be named the Roman Catholic cathedral, the church. of the Messiah (Unitarian), and St. George's church (Episcopal). It has also numerous charitable and benevolent institutions, such as the city hospital, the sisters' hospital, the home for the friendless, the home of refuge, the reform school and ten orphan asylums; also the marine hospital, located three miles below the city. Its public school system is large and well arranged, under the care of twenty-six citizens, and the school fund is about three and one half millions. There are fifty-eight school houses, containing 482 rooms, 34,431 pupils and 603 teachers - one normal school, four branch high schools, forty-eight district schools, six colorel schools and seventeen evening schools. The school property with furniture exceeds two and a half millions of dollars, and the annual expenses are about 200,000 dollars. The educational institutions of a higher class are ample ard generally well sustained, such as the Washington university, the St. Louis |