Iowa
Old Press
Perry Chief
Perry, Dallas, Iowa
March 9, 1888
The old town of Boonsboro has passed away, the new town of Boone
has absorbed it, and the name, by a recent act of the
legislature, has been wiped off the face of the map. It is an
extremely difficult matter for
people to read the future with any degree of accuracy. When John
I. Blair, the capitalist who furnished the money for building the
C.R. & M.R.R. , now the Northwestern, was hunting a line
across the Des Moines river at that point, assisted by W.W.
Walker as his lieutenant and chief engineer, $7,000 whould have
located the depot within four or five blocks of the court house,
cut off any town of Boone from ever being established, and made
Boonsboro a city of 20,000 inhabitants to-day. But the belief of
those who could control the location was, that the railroad would
be compelled to run just on the north edge of the town and they
would have the depot and all its profits just the same and keep
their $7000 besides. But the company did not have to do it. It
simply laid out a new town about a mile east of the court house,
found another ravine through which to reach the river with its
track and from that day the town of Boonesboro was doomed. It
struggled manfully for a few years, its business men and citizens
spent thousands of dollars putting up bricks and improving the
town, but three fourths of all the money spent in that last
struggle was buried. It is now a subject of what its citizens
called a few years "Plug Town." Having lived first in
Boonsboro and then in Boone, during those early days, we remember
with a great deal of interest the rivalry of the places, and
trust since they are now united
under one corporate head, and one name, that their future
prosperity will in no manner be retarded.
[transcribed by C.J.L., November 2005]