PRESENT RAILROAD PROSPECTS OF AMES.

No more fitting close of this history of our town can be given, than an account of our present railroad prospects affords. The final collapse of the Iowa & Minnesota Railroad project was of so perfect a nature, as to preclude all hope of its resurrection, and while the more sanguine of our people cherished the faith that at some time, and through some agencies then unknown or unsuspected, direct railroad connection with the capital of our State would be established, yet all classes of our citizens ceased active labor pointing in that direction. But while this state of quiescence existed, we were ready to adopt the first feasible plan, promising the completion of this long desired improvement.

During the summer of 1870, propositions were made through Messrs. Polk and Hubbell, of Des Moines, for an arrangement by which the franchises of the I. & M. Co., consisting of the road bed, and partially sccured right of way from Ames to the line of Polk County, and a judgment lately obtained against that portion of the road in Polk county, should be assigned to Hon. B. F. Allen, of Des Moines. The object of this proposed arrangement was the completion, at an early day, of the road from Des Moines to Ames by a new company about to be organized. In September of that year, this arrangement was perfected,and the Des Moines & Minnesota railroad company organized, with stipulations that the road from Des Moines to Ames should be completed during the year 1871. The board of directors consisted of persons of known business integrity and energy.

The ultimate object of this new corporation was, not only to complete and put in operation the short line from Ames to Des Moines, but beyond that to reach north by way of Mankato to St. Paul, thus securing direct and nearly immediate railroad connection with the lumber regions of Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin, having also a southern connection leading ultimately to St. Louis, in one direction, and through Kansas and the Cherokee country to Galveston in another. Commendable and promising as this enterprise seemed in its conception, pregnant with assured benefits to all the points in central Iowa which would be reached by the projected line, yet means must be provided, and the aid of practical railroad men enlisted, before its accomplishment could be hoped for. The result of effort in this direction, so far as relates to material aid, is of a highly satisfactory nature.

The road bed from Ames to Polk city, valued at about .... $ 40,000
Five per cent, tax in Washington township, say .. .......   14,000
Three per cent tax in Madison Township, Polk County,
about ...................................................   18,000
Polk County Swamp Land estimated. .......................   78,000
                     Total .............................. $150,000

And should this be insufficient, a tax of 1½ per cent, in the city of Des Moines would be in addition, say $60,000. The former sum is assured, and the latter can at any time be voted, for the citizens of Des Moines are fully alive to the importance of this enterprise to that city.

In March last propositions were received from Col. E. P. Greeley, President of the Milwaukee & Nashua Railroad Company, with a view to consolidate the interests of that company, with the Des Moines & Minnesota Company, forming a continuous line of road from Chickasaw, on the Dakota branch of the Milwaukee and St. Paul road, by way of Nashua, Ackley, and Ames to Des Moines. This project, while it promised the early building of this entire line, would not only give us the desired connection with the lumber districts of Minnesota and Wisconsin, but in addition, open to us the market of Milwaukee, thus giving us everything desired in a northern connecgtion and promising all we had contemplated at the south. The arrangement, so far as the agency of Col. Greeley goes, has been consummated; the entire line surveyed, and the result of this survey is now in the hands of the chief engineer of the Milwaukee & St. Paul Company, by whom it will soon be presented to the Board of Directors. We have, through Col. Greeley, the assurance of the President of that Company, that this important line of road will be pushed to immediate completion. Of this there seems no reasonable ground for doubt. By the new year Ames, will be joined to Des Moines by iron bands, and another year, will bring us the daily arrival of trains from the far north and also from the balmy south. The “hope” which has been our inspiration in railroad effort, will no longer be “deferred” but will have reached its full fruition. Added to this line of railroad, of which we are assured, we have promise of another line; which will, no doubt, ere long be opened, having for objective points, Webster City at the north, and Newton at the southeast of us, forming in one direction connection with a road now nearly completed to St. Louis, and in the other direction, with a contemplated line leading to the far northwest. Ames will then become an important point on these great thoroughfares, situated as it is, on the line of the C.& N.W.R.R.,—the seat of one of the most flourishing educational institutions in the west—and surrounded and supported, by one of the finest agricultural districts in the State.