The Station of Syracuse is the only one it has in the county.
BOONVILLE AND VERSAILLES RAILROAD -- In the ante-bellum days,
with the first impetus
to railroad building in this part of the county, a road was chartered
under the name of the Osage Valley &
Southern Kansas Railroad, commencing at Boonville and running through
Southwest Missouri into Kansas
being the route intended. The survey and location between Versailles
and Boonville was made. It was
graded and ties hauled along the line in 1861. Then the war stopped
everything and it was left until 1872,
when it was again worked upon. The high waters washed everything
movable away, and again the work lay
idle until 1879, when it was taken up and completed. The county
had already donated $100,000, and for
years it looked as if it was that much money thrown away.
The project was revived as the Boonville, St. Louis & Southern
Railway, again commencing at
Boonville and coming to Versailles. It is now the Boonville &
Versailles Branch road. The new projectors
asked the county to increase their first donation. After much
trouble it was added to $30,000, thus making
the county railroad indebtedness, with the interest $135,000.
The county was given stock equal to its
subscription. It is simply a branch road of the Missouri Pacific
from Tipton to Versailles June 2, 1880, the
day of the arrival of the first regular train. The people had
made preparations and a grand celebration and
banquet were held for the great crowd of people in attendance.
ST. LOUIS, KANSAS CITY AND COLORADO RAILROAD --this road is also
called the Rock
Island for the reason that after it was built the Rock Island bought
it. This road was first owned and built by
John Scullin. D.R. Francis and a few other capitalists.
It was built out from St. Louis to Union many years
ago and the work was dropped for a long time but was taken up again
in 1900 and the road was completed
to Kansas City in the fall of 1903. The road enters Morgan county
in the southeast part of the county and
bears northwest to Versailles and thence west through the county and
crosses the west line of the county
nearly due west of Versailles. This road has been a great blessing
to Versailles and Morgan county. Before
the road was built we had nothing in the way of a railroad but the
Missouri Pacific branch which ran trains
irregularly and has but little influence toward developing the county.
the county has been practically at a
standstill till this new trunk line railroad was built. Even
in the mere matter of building it there was a
stimulus given to all manner of business by virtue of a general awakening
it gave to the people. When the
railroad workmen by the hundred came into the county and went to work
earning wages they spent their
money freely and the merchants and farmers all opened their eyes to
the fact that plenty of buyers were
what we were in need of. It put the people to thinking.
They sold carloads of goods, hay, corn and
everything else that was for sale and made much money while the railroad
was in course of construction.
Indeed having these hundred of workmen as buyers taught the people
the valuable lesson that the home
market is best for all. It taught the farmer as well as the merchant
that all manner of farm produce,
vegetables and all manner of provision raised on a farm and garden
can be sold in the home town with
advantage to the farmer, merchant and the laborer. It taught
the lesson of the importance of building up a
city of workmen, a city of buyers, because never before in the history
of Versailles had the merchants and
businessmen of all lines, and the farmers done half so well in a business
way -- they had never reaped half the
harvest that they reaped during the building of the new railroad through
the county. This was not all that
stimulated them. The road was not completed yet when land prices
commenced rising. The farming lands
east and west of Versailles good as any in the county, had been a drag
on the market and the best of it ten
and twelve miles from the railroad could not be sold for twenty dollars
per acre half as readily as it could be
sold for thirty dollars per acre immediately after the railroad was
completed. When these hundreds of
farmers noticed their land values soaring they took new courage.
Many of them made the mistake of selling
their farms just as the market began to rise and the real estate men
grew rich on the sale of farms during the
period covered between 1900 and 1905. But the farms were left
here and all went up in price from ten to
one hundred per cent, depending on the distance from the railroad.
Land all over the county went up with
the rest. Besides the cash left here in the hands of the farmers,
merchants, and men of all callings the coming
of the new railroad added millions to the wealth of the county.
It shows the farmer, the miner, the
manufacturer and all other trades that there is a ready and quick means
of getting their product to the market
and it is proving a stimulus to businesses of all kinds. Morgan
county is beginning to move to the front
where her vast resources can be marketed.
The stimulus given the spirit and business turn of the people
has manifested itself in the erection here
of one of the most successful clay plants that is in operation in the
state. The plant makes brick and tiling. It
has been in operation three years and employs from thirty to fifty
men per day with many teams. It is a place
of steady employment. Its product is first class. Its chief
hold is fire brick of which it has made millions that
have been shipped most all over the United States. Several carloads
have been shipped to the Nicaragua
canal works where they are pronounced the best that can be had.
The plant also makes a specialty of
building brick. Some of the largest brick buildings in Central
Missouri and Kansas City have been built out
of the Versailles brick.
Since the coming of this new railroad Versailles has added one-forth
to her population and has
added many new enterprises that we would not have had the railroad
not come. We have added a new
electric plant, one of the best in the state. A private telephone
system has been installed that is first class in
every way. A sodapop factory and broom factory has been established
and is in operation by J.T. Shore.
Many other things of material advantage have come to us by reason of
the coming of the new railroad. But
the greatest advantage of all is the increased price it has given us
in the encouragement it has given the
people.
VERSAILLES AND SEDALIA RAILROAD --During the last ten years Dr.
J.D. Hubbard and
W.W. Moore, both of the First National Bank of this city, have owned
and operated a coal mine five miles
northwest of Versailles. They owned several hundred acres of
land in connection with this mine and coal is
thought to be under most all of it. In addition to the coal there
are several kinds of valuable clays. Hubbard
& Moore shipped hundreds of carloads of coal from the mines to
the markets during the ten years they
owned the property. It proved itself to such good advantage that
capitalists bought the property from them,
formed a stock company and made extensive preparations to do business
there on a large scale. In the first
place the company in 1906 procured the right of way for a new railroad
to the mine and built the road,
giving employment to about a hundred men and teams all summer.
This new
railroad has been in operation all of the year 1907. It is
only completed to the mines but its line has been
surveyed to Sedalia and the road has been chartered as the “Versailles
& Sedalia Southern”. It seems to be
the intention of the company to put in their large clay plant at the
mines and make an extensive effort to see
if the extension of the road to Sedalia will pay. If such proves
feasible the road will not only be completed
to Sedalia but will extended southward through fields yet uncovered
by railroads At the present time (June
and Missouri Pacific railroads here at Versailles from where it is
shipped to the markets. Clay men of
experience say that all of the hills and ridges northwest of Versailles
is full of the finest kind of clay and that
it will be but a short time till this railroad is extended in recognition
of the fact, and that soon a large clay
plant will be established to work the clay upon the field, but this
is speculation, prediction and not history.
BOONVILLE & VERSAILLES BRANCH EXTENSION PROBABLE -- The railroad
known as
the Boonville & Versailles Branch, which terminates at Versailles,
and is called the Missouri Pacific, is in
fact the property of private individuals and is not owned by the Missouri
Pacific railway company. This
company only has the road leased. After the rock Island built
through Versailles it caught much of the
business that had been going over the Branch road and got most of the
new business. It has been predicted
that the only way for the Missouri Pacific people to save themselves
is to build on south from Versailles to
Springfield. This has not been done yet but it is a thing likely
to occur when the lease of the Missouri Pacific
now holds runs out, which is in 1911. Then the Missouri Pacific
may buy the branch and extend it
southward. At least that is the business thing to do and railway
companies usually see a business proposition
as quickly as others do. It is generally talked that the Sedalia
& Warsaw Branch, the Boonville & Versailles
Branch and the Eldon & Bagnell Branch, all leases of the Missouri
Pacific, could be extended southward to a
point about Osage Iron Works or Climax Springs where they could all
come together and go into Springfield
as one road. If this is ever done it will open a rich country
in the resources God planted in the hills. And it
will put the Missouri Pacific in a good way to hold its southern patronage.
These roads have all been
surveyed along the lines here indicated. A railroad has also
been surveyed from Springfield to Eldon and the
survey
crosses the southeast corner of Morgan county.
COUNTY FINANCES --Except a railroad indebtedness of $116,000 of
six per cent railroad bonds
Morgan county is free of debt. The rate of taxes and the low
assessments of all property in the county are
powerful facts to attract that class of immigrants who are wanted to
make this their permanent home. On
$100 of assessment the taxes are: State tax forty cents, county tax
fifty cents, railroad tax forty cents or a
total, outside of school tax of $1.30. There are few other counties
in the United States that can make a
more favorable showing than this. The municipality of Morgan
has reached that propitious condition of an
efficient and cheap government. To be free from debt as a corporate
body and as a people is the proud
boast and glory of Morgan county. The question of high and low
taxes are now closely looked into by the
modern home seekers. There was a time when the new arrival in
a county was shown the splendid public
buildings and improvements, and these were supposed to be the strong
attraction. It is o longer so; the
intelligent investigator looks firs to the rate of taxes. These
kind of men will be favorably impressed with the
financial condition of Morgan county.
Section 11
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