Last
year 20,000,000 bushels of grain were brought into Chicago. Five years
ago there were not a hundred miles of railroad in the state of
Illinois. Now there are more than two thousand. Illinois has all the
elements of empire. Long may its great metropolis prosper!
LETTER II.
CHICAGO TO ST. PAUL.
Railroads to the Mississippi Securing passage on the steamboat The
Lady Franklin Scenery of the Mississippi Hastings Growth of
settlements
ST. PAUL, October, 1856.
HOW short a time it is since a railroad to the Mississippi was thought
a wonder! And now within the state of Illinois four terminate on its
banks. Of course I started on one of these roads from Chicago to get
to Dunleith. I think it is called the Galena and Chicago Union Road. A
good many people have supposed Galena to be situated on the
Mississippi river, and indeed railroad map makers have had it so
located as long as it suited their convenience (for they have a
remarkable facility in annihilating distance and in making crooked
ways straight) yet the town is some twelve miles from the great
river on a narrow but navigable stream. The extent and importance of
Rockford, Galena, and Dunleith cannot fail to make a strong impression
on the traveller. They are towns of recent growth, and well illustrate
that steam-engine sort of progress peculiar now-a-days in the west.
Approaching Galena we leave the region of level prairie and enter a
mineral country of naked bluffs or knolls, where are seen extensive
operations in the lead mines. The trip from Chicago to Dunleith at the
speed used on most other roads would be performed in six hours, but
ten hours are usually occupied, for what reason I cannot imagine.
However, the train is immense, having on board about six or seven
hundred first class passengers, and two-thirds as many of the second
class. Travelling in the cars out west is not exactly what it is
between Philadelphia and New York, or New York and Boston, in this
respect: that in the West more families are found, in the cars, and
consequently more babies and carpet bags.
It may not be proper to judge of the health of a community by the
appearance of people who are seen standing about a railroad station;
yet I have often noticed, when travelling through Illinois, that this
class had pale and sickly countenances, showing too clearly the traces
of fever and ague.
But I wish to speak about leaving the cars at Dunleith and taking the
steamboat for St. Paul. There is a tremendous rush for the boats in
order to secure state-rooms. Agents of different boats approach the
traveller, informing him all about their line of boats, and
depreciating the opposition boats.
