125 years ago
january 7, 1887
Stone Bridges
The Walnut Valley Times drops this Solomonic observation:
Butler county is paying out thousands of dollars for iron bridges which should be built of her own magnificent stone. Keep the money at home.
Marion county has seven stone-arch bridges, each of which fills the poetical description: “A thing of beauty and a joy forever”
Money is kept at home, no wash-aways, no rusting out, no painting expense, no endless repairing, no signs up reading “five dollars fine for driving over this bridge faster than a walk,” no drivers sweating and swearing for hours trying to get stubborn porkers across—in short, no reason under the sun why any county having stone should construct its bridges of any other material.
The revival services at the Rink, under the able, earnest and indefatigable evangelist, Eld. Hurlburt, grows in interest. Great audiences nightly crowd the spacious building. Country people are drawn from many miles around. The altar is nightly thronged with penitents, many have been converted, and many are “almost persuaded.”
Our enterprising sister city on the north, Hope, is to have a butter and cheese factory. By the way, Hope has a bright future. It is surrounded by a rich and beautiful country, and with one railroad already running through it, another grading that way, and others in perspective, its prospects are bright indeed.
Sunday night was one of the coldest occasions ever experienced in Marion. Thermometers ranged from eighteen to twenty-six degrees below zero.