CHAPTER XXVI
THE MIRACLE OF THE BOOM
The discovery of gold in the Black Hills had turned the eyes of the world upon South Dakota, and many who had come out to find gold had found the boundless prairies of fertile soil and were led to believe that they were intended by Providence for the happy homes of men. Among those who came into Dakota during the gold excitement was Marvin Hughitt, president of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. The purpose of his visit was to assist in establishing a line of transportation into the Black Hills, by way of his railroads to the Missouri, and thence by steamboat and stage. While on this errand, he was impressed with the vast possibilities of the Dakota prairies, if only railroads were built to bring in supplies and carry out the products. He went home resolved to try a great experiment in western development. He believed that the railroad should be the pioneer, leading the way for the settler, and that if such railroads were built in the Dakota prairie, settlers would flock in and, by their industry, provide freight for the railways that would make the investment profitable.
President Hughitt laid the plan before his directors and it was approved, and as speedily as possible he took its execution. His plan was also adopted by his great rival, the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railway, and more than two thousand miles of new railroad were quickly built out into the unsettled part of Dakota, furnishing convenient access to every portion of southern Dakota east of the Missouri River.
Mr. Hughitt's faith was more than justified. Almost in a day, population spread all over the broad land, towns were built, farms opened, schools established, churches erected, and in the briefest possible time the wilderness was converted into a thriving, prosperous, productive, well-settled American commonwealth, having all the conveniences and comforts and institutions of the older states. This period, from 1877 until 1883, is known as the great Dakota boom. History has no other instance to compare with it.
When this period began, Sioux Falls was but a little village of three or four hundred people, and was the northernmost point of any consequence within what is now South Dakota. Within five years Brookings, Madison, Mitchell, Huron, Pierre, Watertown, Redfield, Aberdeen, Webster, and Milbank had become important cities. When the boom began, of course, no one had any information as to which were to become the important cities, and which were to remain simply way stations and country trading points. Ambitious men, men of great ability, settled in about equal numbers in each of these villages, and each set out to make his town the chief city of the locality. The rivalry between the various towns, therefore, became very strong, and resulted in many incidents that were very funny, and in disappointments that were pathetic.
Every village was ambitious to become the county seat of its county, and contests were entered into which even to this day influence the affairs of many communities.
State Normal School, Madison
Men with learning and ability to grace the United States Senate have frequently spent the best years of their lives in a vain attempt to develop a village, intended by nature and environment simply as a local market for farm products, into a commercial city, and sometimes they have succeeded at the expense of a neighboring village much better situated. In several instances county seat contests resulted in actual violence, particularly in the fight between Redfield and Ashton, in Spink County, in which it was necessary for the governor to send the territorial militia to preserve peace and protect the county records.